Place, Move, Rotate and Scale Actors in UE5

From flying around to actually building

In the last lesson you learned to fly the camera. That only moves your view — nothing in the level changes. This lesson is where you start to build: you'll add objects to the level and then push them around, spin them and resize them until they sit exactly where you want.

Anything you place in a level is called an Actor — a cube, a light, the player's start point, a camera, all of them are Actors. And the way you move, rotate or scale any Actor is the same: select it, pick a tool, and drag the coloured handles that appear. Those handles are called the transform gizmo. Learn it once and it works on everything for the rest of your Unreal life.

Add some Actors and transform them

Open any level (the Third Person template from the navigation lesson is perfect, or a new Basic level). Make sure you're in Selection mode — the mode dropdown at the top-left of the viewport should read 'Select'. Work top to bottom and tick each row as you go.

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   1Open the Place Actors panel and drop a cube

   If you don't already see it, open the Place Actors panel from the main menu under Window. It's a palette of things you can add — Basic, Lights, Shapes, Volumes and more.

   Click the 'Basic' (or 'Shapes') category, then drag a Cube straight out into the viewport and let go. A cube Actor appears in the level, already selected.

   TipYou can also just drag-and-drop — grab the Cube icon, drag it over the floor, and release. Unreal drops it where you let go.

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   2Try Quickly Place for instant Actors

   There's a faster route for common things. On the level editor toolbar, open the 'Quickly add to the project' / Quickly Place menu (the cube-with-a-plus icon near the top-left).

   From here you can add a Cube, a Point Light, a Player Start and other staples in a single click — Unreal drops them in front of the camera. Add a Point Light now so you have a second, different Actor to play with.

   TipQuickly Place is the menu most people end up using day to day — it's right there on the toolbar and covers the Actors you reach for most.

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   3Select an Actor and find the gizmo

   Click the cube once in the viewport. It gets a highlight outline and a set of coloured handles appears at its centre — that's the Move gizmo. Red is the X axis, green is Y, blue is Z.

   Click empty space to deselect. Click the cube again to reselect. Getting comfortable with click-to-select and click-away-to-deselect saves a lot of accidental edits.

   TipIf you lose your Actor, select it in the Outliner (top-right list) and press F to fly the camera to it — your rescue from the navigation lesson.

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   4Move it (W)

   Press W to make sure you're on the Move tool. Drag the red arrow and the cube slides along X; drag green for Y, blue for Z (up/down).

   Drag the little coloured square between two arrows to slide along a flat plane (two axes at once) — handy for sliding something across the floor without changing its height.

   TipExact numbers beat eyeballing: with the cube selected, type Location values straight into the Details panel on the right for precise placement.

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   5Rotate it (E)

   Press E to switch to the Rotate gizmo — the handles become three coloured rings. Drag a ring to spin the Actor around that axis. The blue ring (Z) is the one you'll use most, turning an object like a lid on a jar.

   As you drag, a readout shows the angle so you can stop at a clean value like 45 or 90 degrees.

   TipRotating feels backwards at first. Just remember each ring spins the object around the axis of its own colour — drag the blue ring to turn it left/right on the floor.

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   6Scale it (R)

   Press R for the Scale gizmo — the handles end in small coloured boxes. Drag one box to stretch the Actor along that axis. Drag the centre box (or the white handle) to scale all axes at once so it grows evenly.

   Now press the spacebar a few times: it cycles Move → Rotate → Scale without reaching for W/E/R. Some people prefer the spacebar, some prefer the letters — use whichever sticks.

   TipStretching one axis a lot can distort textures and lighting on a mesh. For most objects, scale evenly (the centre box) unless you specifically want a squashed or stretched look.