30-Minute Rec Room Build Challenge!

Hey everybody, it’s UnderMyCap and welcome back to another video! Today I took on a challenge where I tried to build a hangout room in under 30 minutes. Now, I’ll be the first to admit — I’m not the best builder. But I realised the other day that I actually teach people how to build, so maybe it’s about time I learned myself! Let’s get into it.

If you’d rather watch the full build in action, you can check out the video here: 30 Minute Rec Room Build Challenge!

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Starting the Timer — Let’s Build!

With the timer set and counting down from 30 minutes, the first order of business was figuring out the walls. Rather than using the default walls, I deleted them and headed over to the palette to grab a simple cube. I turned on grid snapping to make sure everything lined up properly — something I actually cover in my create video — and then got to work placing the walls. There was a bit of a weird glitch with the make pen that kept causing some issues, but I pushed through and got the walls scaled up to a nice height, leaving a gap for a window.

Adding the Windows

With the wall frames in place, it was time for the fun part — adding glass! Glass can sometimes be tricky to work with, but under a time constraint there’s no room to stress about it. I switched to my POV, used the scale tool to stretch the glass panel across the window opening, and lined everything up as neatly as I could. Once the first window section was done, I cloned it across to the other side of the room and then rotated a copy 90 degrees to fill in the remaining walls. Looking around, we had a really nice indoor space starting to take shape!

Building the Outdoor Environment

Before jumping into furniture, I felt like we needed something interesting to look at through those windows. To create the environment, I used tubing to make some organic shapes that could be cloned repeatedly to form terrain. I turned off uniform shapes and snapping to get a nice random feel, bumped the tube radius up to 0.8, set the facets to 10, and turned on smooth tubes. Drawing a few random tube shapes and coloring them with the carpet texture — which works surprisingly well for grass — gave a really decent grassy terrain effect. Scaling and cloning these across the space built up a nice layered look, and I even added a thin scaled-out box underneath to create the look of water, turning the whole build into a little floating island. It’s not the most polished outdoor scene, but for 30 minutes I was genuinely happy with how it turned out!

The Floor, Walls, and Roof

With 15 minutes left on the clock, I quickly threw down a basic floor, kept the existing roof since it already had lighting built in, and cloned a box onto it to give it a cleaner look. I colored everything up — walls got a nice painted wall texture and the roof came together surprisingly well. Everything was a tiny bit off-center, but honestly, in a 30-minute build, that’s completely fine!

Furniture Time — The Table and Chairs

With about 12 minutes to go, it was time to build some furniture. I used tubes again for this, setting the facets to four, turning off smooth tubes, and drawing a rectangle shape to form a bench top. By editing the tube points and bending them down, I managed to create a really sleek futuristic-style table. For the chairs, I cloned and rotated the same technique — editing points to create a slight bend that gave a nice angled seat shape. They ended up a little on the small side and yes, the table and chairs were floating without legs, but hey — it’s a video game and they looked futuristic, so I think we can let that one slide!

The Chill Zone — Bean Bags, Mat, and a Coffee Table

With the dining area sorted, I moved on to creating a cozy chill zone. I scaled down a shape into a flat circle to use as a mat, then built some bean bags to scatter around it. Everything got recolored in green using the carpet/cloth texture, which really tied the space together beautifully. In the middle of the chill zone I placed a simple rectangular table made from a cube and colored it in white wood. To finish things off, I tried to add some props like coffee mugs and plates to the table, though the plates had a bit of a falling-through issue right as time was running out!

The Final Result

And just like that — time was up! Looking back at what we achieved in 30 minutes, I’m genuinely really pleased. We built a complete hangout room with a windowed interior, a cozy bean bag chill zone, a futuristic dining table with floating chairs, a nice mat, and an awesome outdoor island environment visible through the windows. There were a few quirks along the way — floating furniture, an accidentally recolored floor that looked a bit like snow, and a few misaligned walls — but for a 30-minute challenge, I think this turned out amazing!

If you enjoyed watching the build, don’t forget to smash that like button and hit subscribe — I can’t wait to see you in the next video!