Better Building Mode

Improves Valheim's building experience with Free Cam Building Mode, Area Fill, Area Repair, and Free Cam resource pickup.

Features

• Free Cam Building Mode — automatically activates when a build tool is equipped while already within range of a crafting station. The player stays stationary while the camera can move and build remotely within a fixed 100 meter radius.
• Area Fill — place two aligned reference pieces and fill the missing line or rectangular area between them. Includes material checks, existing-piece exclusion, wireframe preview, pole spacing, and a movable information display.
• Area Repair — while in building mode with the Hammer's Repair option selected, repairing a structure automatically repairs all damaged structures and objects within 50 meters of the Free Cam position.
• Free Cam Resource Pickup — dropped items within 5 meters of the Free Cam can be automatically collected while normal inventory restrictions remain in effect.

Default Free Cam Controls

Area Fill Controls

All Area Fill hotkeys can be customized in the configuration.

Requirements

• Valheim
• BepInExPack Valheim
• Official BepInEx Configuration Manager

Installation

Install with a Thunderstore-compatible mod manager, or place BetterBuildingMode.dll in your BepInEx/plugins folder.

Author

ArtificialIntelligence

v1.1.1

• Removed the forced rotation for Point B in Area Fill, as it was causing problems with Area Fill placement and alignment.

BetterBuildingMode v1.1.1 Changelog

v1.1.1

• Removed the Point A rotation lock/restriction from Point B. Point B can now be rotated normally when selecting the Area Fill endpoint.

Area Fill

Added Area Fill, allowing you to quickly construct lines and rectangular areas of building pieces using two normally placed reference pieces.

How to use Area Fill

1. Equip your building tool and select the piece you want to build.
2. Press F8 to enable Area Fill. All Area Fill hotkeys can be customized in the configuration.
3. Place the first piece normally. This becomes Point A.
4. Place the same piece at the opposite end or corner. This becomes Point B.
5. Point A and Point B should use compatible, perfectly aligned snapping points. Area Fill uses the alignment between these two pieces to calculate the positions in between.
6. Once Point B is accepted, a wireframe preview shows the missing pieces that Area Fill will construct.
7. Check the Area Fill display for the number of pieces and materials required.
8. Press F9 to confirm and construct the missing pieces.
9. Press F10 before confirming to cancel the current selection.

Important: Using Valheim's snapping system when placing Point A and Point B is strongly recommended. Freely placing the reference pieces on the ground can work if they happen to be perfectly aligned, but even a small positional offset can prevent Area Fill from calculating the intended line or grid correctly.

Area Fill Features

• Point A and Point B are real, normally placed Valheim building pieces and are excluded from the automatic fill.
• Existing matching pieces within the selected area are detected and excluded, preventing duplicate construction.
• Area Fill checks the required materials for the complete fill before construction begins, preventing partially completed fills caused by insufficient materials.
• Added Pole Spacing control with F11: Normal, 2 meters, and 4 meters.
• Added a movable Area Fill information display showing the number of pieces and required materials.
• Hold Left Alt by default and drag the display to reposition it. The selected position is saved between sessions.
• Valheim's mouse cursor must be visible to reposition the display. Open the Inventory or Escape menu before dragging the Area Fill HUD.
• All Area Fill controls can be customized through the configuration.

Supported Building Pieces

Area Fill uses the building piece's snapping geometry rather than relying on hard-coded prefab names, allowing it to support a wide range of pieces, including walls, 2x2 floors, stone floors, 4-meter beams, 26°/45°/67° angled beams, standard and angled roofs including 45°/67°, and vertical poles including 4-meter poles and the different pole-spacing modes.

Known limitation: The wireframe preview for some steep roof pieces, such as 67° roofs, may not perfectly match their visual bounds. Placement itself still works correctly.

External Resource Mods

The Area Fill HUD displays resources currently carried in the player's inventory. External resource sources provided by other mods may not be included in the displayed count, but can still be used by Area Fill when supported by the game's modified building requirement system.

Area Repair

While in building mode and the Hammer's Repair option is selected, repairing a structure will automatically repair all damaged structures and objects within 50 meters of the Free Cam position.

Free Cam Resource Pickup

While Build Free Cam is active, dropped items within 5 meters of the camera can be automatically collected. Normal inventory restrictions still apply, and the pickup radius is intentionally fixed at 5 meters.

New Customizable Controls

• F8 — Toggle Area Fill
• F9 — Confirm Area Fill
• F10 — Cancel Area Fill
• F11 — Change Pole Spacing
• Left Alt — Move Area Fill HUD