
# 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 the ground.

Adding a ground is simple using

```javascript
const ground = BABYLON.MeshBuilder.CreateGround("ground", {width:10, height:10});
```
As we need to create a ground large enough, to put some buildings (boxes) on, 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.jpg"/>

The immediate thing to note is that  the ground cuts through the middle of the box. This is because when they are created meshes are positioned at the origin.

![ground](/img/getstarted/ground.png)

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.jpg"/>

![house 0](/img/getstarted/house0.png)

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#773" title="Adding Sound To Your Scene" description="A playground showing how easy it is to add sound to your scene." image="/img/playgroundsAndNMEs/gettingStartedGround.jpg"/>


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#776" title="Playing Sound Every 3 Seconds" description="Set an interval to play a sound every 3 seconds." image="/img/playgroundsAndNMEs/gettingStartedGround.jpg"/>

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 the developing our buildings! Buildings come in varied sizes, positions and orientations and this will be true for the world we are creating.



## From One to Many

A nice big step now as we take the simple box and turn it into a house, or two. As houses do not float we will create some ground and then see how we can position, rotate and re-size the house and set it on the ground. Since a blank box looks just like a blank box we will add texture to give it the appearance of having 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 show how you can include sounds but then silence them immediately as anything but the sounds you want to work with are distracting.