A Beginner’s Guide to Circuits in Rec Room: Getting Started Tutorial

Hey everybody, it’s UnderMyCap, and welcome back to another video. Today, I’m going to teach you the basics of circuits in Rec Room. If you’re a beginner or trying to learn about circuits, this video is perfect for you. So, without further ado, let’s get straight into the tutorial. First of all, how do you get circuits? Circuits are located inside your Maker Pen. If you’re in VR, hold down the button on your controller, go to Settings, and swipe up to open your Maker Pen. If you’re on a computer, press the M key on your keyboard, and your keyboard will let you know. You can also spawn in your Maker Pen through the menu. When you open the Makers Pen menu, you’ll see a variety of options. In the Tools section, with circuits, the three main tools you’ll need are: Create, to spawn in circuits; Select, to select multiple circuits; and Wire, to connect circuits together. Additionally, there’s Configure, but we won’t be covering that today. These are the main tools you need for working with circuits. To find all available circuits inside a room, go to the bottom of your menu and click on the Palette. Then, click on the Circuits tab located on the top right navigation bar. You’ll see a collection of different circuits you can use. For this tutorial, I recommend starting with the “If” chip. The “If” chip checks if a condition is true and then outputs accordingly. In simple terms, if this condition is true, it outputs one thing; if it’s false, it outputs another. On a circuit, the left side represents inputs, where you input signals, and the right side is for output signals based on conditions. In circuits, different colors represent different types of signals. Orange is used for execution signals—instruction to perform an action. For example, if you connect a circuit to an Event Receiver, it will send a single message, such as “Go,” when triggered. This is indicated by the output coming from the circuit, and it only sends that one message. Red indicates a Boolean value, which can be true or false. When true, the value equals 1; when false, it equals 0. I’ve created a Boolean variable called “Bull,” which I found in the circuit selection tool within the Maker Pen. You can see I spawned it by searching “Bull.” This variable can be set to true or false and is used to control circuit behavior. When I connect this variable to the “If” chip, the circuit will behave based on its value. Variables are very important in circuits because they store information. You can reference a variable elsewhere in your circuit, or clone it to use the same data in multiple places. For example, if I change the “Bull” variable to true, it will reflect in all parts where this variable is used. Understanding data flow is essential. Data in circuits can be strings (like text or numbers), floats (decimal numbers), or integers (whole numbers). Different data types are represented by different colors—for example, blue for floats, gray for integers, and orange for execution signals. It’s important to match data types when connecting circuits, as certain connections might be incompatible and require you to use rounding or conversion chips, like “Round to Int” for converting floating point to an integer. Circuits can also interact with objects called components, which are objects that respond to circuit signals. To access components, open your Maker Pen menu, go to the Palette, then select “Objects,” and finally “Circuit Components.” Components can perform various actions; in this tutorial, we’ll use an Audio Player to demonstrate. Let’s spawn an emitter component. Moving the emitter into your workspace, you’ll notice it can be connected to the circuit. Components work by linking circuits to specific features in the game. For example, an emitter can trigger visual effects like confetti or particle effects when activated. To demonstrate, I’ll connect the emitter to a circuit and trigger it with a start signal. When the circuit is activated, the emitter plays confetti. You can observe the data flow: the execution signal (orange), Boolean values (true/false), and other data types like float. Next, let’s set up a circuit that activates the confetti when a certain condition is met—specifically, when a variable equals 15. First, spawn an “If” chip from the Palette. Then, add an “Equals” chip (type “=”) above it, which compares two values. Connect the output of a variable (an integer) to one input of the equals chip, and set the other input to the number 15. To do this, spawn an Integer variable named “Number,” and set its value to 15. Connect this variable to the equals chip, and connect the output of the equals chip to the “If” chip. When the variable equals 15, the “If” chip outputs true; otherwise, it outputs false. Finally, connect the “If” chip’s output to control whether the emitter triggers. If the condition is true, the emitter plays the confetti. If not, it doesn’t activate. You can do this by connecting the “true” output to the emitter’s start input, and the “false” output to stop it or do nothing. Test this setup by changing the variable’s value. When the variable is 0, the confetti doesn’t play. When you set the variable to 15 and trigger the circuit, the confetti plays, indicating the circuit responded correctly. This basic overview introduces you to circuits, showing how to set conditions, store variables, and trigger actions. There’s much more to explore, but this provides a foundation for creating interactive experiences in Rec Room. If you enjoyed this tutorial, please subscribe and like the video. I look forward to seeing what you create. Have fun building and experimenting with circuits!