
# Getting Started - Ground

## Grounding the World
At the moment, we have a box floating in space. To make the scene more world-like, let's add ground and think of our box as a building set on it.

Adding ground is simple:

```javascript
const ground = BABYLON.MeshBuilder.CreateGround("ground", {width:10, height:10});
```
We need to create ground large enough to place some buildings (boxes) on, so the options parameter has two properties set: width in the x direction and height in the z direction. (Yes, we agree: since y is vertical, it would make more sense for the properties to be width and depth.)

<Playground id="#KBS9I5#67" title="Adding a Ground Playground" description="A playground showing how to add a basic ground plane to your scene." image="/img/playgroundsAndNMEs/gettingStartedGround.webp"/>

The immediate thing to note is that the ground cuts through the middle of the box. This is because meshes are positioned at the origin when they are created.

![ground](/img/getstarted/ground.webp)

We need to move the box up half its height using

```javascript
box.position.y = 0.5;  //box created with default size so height is 1
```

<Playground id="#KBS9I5#66" title="Adjusting the Box position." description="A playground showing how to adjust the position of the box." image="/img/playgroundsAndNMEs/gettingStartedGround.webp"/>

![house 0](/img/getstarted/house0.webp)

Currently our world is silent. Let's add some sound.



# Getting Started - Sound

## Adding Sound

Adding sounds to your world is very easy.

First, create an audio engine and unlock it. Note that we're using `await` to wait for the promises to resolve, so this needs to be done in an `async` function, for example:

```javascript
async function initAudio() {
  const audioEngine = await BABYLON.CreateAudioEngineAsync();
  await audioEngine.unlockAsync();

  // Audio engine is ready to play sounds ...
}
```


For continuously looping background music we use a streaming sound:

```javascript
BABYLON.CreateStreamingSoundAsync("name", "<sound file URL>", { loop: true, autoplay: true }, audioEngine);
```

<Playground id="#SFCC74#823" title="Adding Sound To Your Scene" description="A playground showing how easy it is to add sound to your scene." image="/img/playgroundsAndNMEs/gettingStartedGround.webp"/>


To play a short sound once we can use a sound that plays from a fully downloaded buffer:

```javascript
const sound = await BABYLON.CreateSoundAsync("sound", "<sound file URL>");
sound.play();
```

In the example below, *setInterval* is used to play the sound every 3 seconds.

<Playground id="#SFCC74#831" title="Playing Sound Every 3 Seconds" description="Set an interval to play a sound every 3 seconds." image="/img/playgroundsAndNMEs/gettingStartedGround.webp"/>

Since you probably prefer listening to your own music as you work, and repeated sounds can get annoying, the above playground examples are the only ones in this tutorial that load sounds.

Now back to making our world and developing our buildings. Buildings come in varied sizes, positions, and orientations, and that will be true for the world we are creating.



## From One to Many

Now we take a big step as we turn the simple box into a house, or even two. Since houses do not float, we will create some ground and then see how we can position, rotate, and resize the house and place it on the ground. Since a blank box still looks like a blank box, we will add texture to give it the appearance of windows and doors. To keep the rain out, let's add a roof mesh and merge the two meshes together. Of course, a couple of houses do not make a village, so we will see how we can copy a mesh as many times as we wish. Since builders are noisy workers, we will also show you how to include sounds and then silence them immediately, as anything other than the sounds you want to work with can be distracting.

Getting Started - Chapter 2 - Ground

Grounding the World