Getting Started With PyTower

Welcome to the PyTower user guide!

Installation

To start, ensure that PyTower is correctly installed. If the installation was a success, then you should be able to use the command pytower in terminal, and you should find the sub-directory tower-unite-suitebro in the main installation/repository folder, which contains a suitebro file format parser written in Rust by Brecert: https://github.com/brecert/tower-unite-suitebro

For more info about the installation process, see Installation Guide & Troubleshooting.

General Usage

When using PyTower, there are the following subcommands available to you:

  • pytower help: PyTower help

  • pytower version: PyTower version

  • pytower convert: Convert between CondoData and .json

  • pytower backup: (WIP) Canvas backup tool

  • pytower list: List all detected tools

  • pytower info <TOOLNAME>: Get detailed information about <TOOLNAME>

  • pytower scan <PATH>: Scans path/directory for tool scripts

  • pytower run <TOONAME> ...: Run given tool

  • pytower fix: Fix broken canvases and corruption in given file

  • pytower compress (WIP) Compression tool

  • pytower config: PyTower configuration

Example usages:

  • pytower help: Displays help about PyTower

  • pytower info Tile: Gets advanced info/help for tool “Tile”

  • pytower scan .: Scans current directory for tool scripts to add

  • pytower run Rotate --output RotatedCondo --select group:4 -@ rotation=0,0,45 local=true: Runs the “Rotate” tool with a group selection and passed-through parameters

For any subcommand, leaving a requirement blank will bring up a help page. For example, running the command pytower run without any additional arguments will bring up a detailed help page generated by Python argparse.

Using pytower run

pytower run <TOOL> has the following arguments:

  • <TOOL>: Required positional parameter, replace this will the name of a tool!

  • -i/--input: Input file to use (default: CondoData)

  • -o/--output: Output file to use (default: CondoData_output)

  • -s/--select: Selection mode to use (default: items)

  • -v/--invert: Flag to invert selection

  • -j/--json: Flag to skip Suitebro parser steps

  • -@/--parameters: Beginning of tool parameters

To access your CondoData files, you need to first navigate to your Steam program files. From here, the path is typically given by Steam\userdata[steamid3]\394690\remote\Condos\. Here you’ll find folders that correspond to each condo type, for example WK_LevelEditor corresponds to the workshop level editor. Within each folder, there is CondoData (main currently active save) and folders for each snapshot taken, each with its own CondoData used when saving/loading a new snapshot.

One current limitation of Tower Unite is that there’s no way to hot-reload a map from disk. Even if you exit the condo and reenter it, the file from the start of the session will load instead. Therefore, whenever you make a change to CondoData, remember that the game must be exited and relaunched. For further discussion of this, see Issue: Reloading Saves In-Game

By default, the --output filename will be the same as the input filename but with _output appended to the end. If you find this inconvenient, you can make PyTower overwrite a file instead by inputting the same value for --output as input. For example: pytower run center --input CondoData --output CondoData. Just make sure you back-up your save in a snapshot or outside of Tower Unite before doing this!

Selection Modes

  • items (default): Everything except property-only objects (CondoSettingsManager_2, Ultra_Dynamic_Sky_##, CondoWeather_2729, etc.)``

  • name:<NAME>: Selects object by name (both custom name and internal object name)

  • customname:<NAME>: Select objects by custom name (name assigned in game)

  • objname:<NAME>: Select objects by internal object name only

  • group:<ID>: Select objects by group id

  • random:<PROB>: Randomly selects objects with probability PROB

  • take:<NUM>: Randomly selects NUM number of objects

  • <NUM>%: Randomly select NUM percent of objects

  • box:<X1>,<Y1>,<Z1>/<X2>,<Y2>,<Z2>: Select objects with position falling inside box

  • sphere:<X>,<Y>,<Z>/<R>: Select objects with position falling inside sphere of radius R.

  • all: Everything including property-only objects

  • none: Nothing (can be useful for generation tools)

Selection Operators

Currently, the following selection operators are supported (in order of operator precedence):

  • Intersection *

  • Addition +

  • Difference \

  • Composition ;

Examples:

  • group:1+group:3: Select group 1 and group 3

  • group:42;10%: Select 10% of objects in group 42

  • name:CanvasWedge\group:5: Select canvas wedges excluding group 5

Note

When inputting operators, it’s important to not include any spaces. Spaces will be interpretted as additional arguments by argparse and break the pytower command.

Tool Parameter Format

  • Parameters are separated by spaces and have the format param=value. Currently value must be a consecutive string of characters with no spaces or other forms of whitespace.

  • For example, pytower run MyTool -@ offset=0,0,300 foo=42 passes two parameters to MyTool: offset with the value xyz(0,0,300) and foo with the value 42.

  • Each tool has its own parameters. Use tool info <TOOLNAME> to bring up information about a tool’s parameters