Using Visual Helpers

The Helpers panel provides quick access to frequently used helpers and auxiliary visualizers. These helpers can be used to facilitate the process of world building. All auxiliary information you need at the moment, from icons and gizmos to information about nodes, geometry, shapes and physical joints can be easily controlled via this panel.

All these helpers can also be enabled via the corresponding console commands.

Visualizer Mode incorporates all visual helpers described in this article, except the FPS counter. You can quickly show or hide all helpers, when necessary, as well as enable or disable depth testing for them by choosing the appropriate mode via Helpers -> Visualizer Mode, instead of turning them on and off one by one.

Visualizer Antialiasing allows separately toggling antialiasing for wireframes and for the Visualizer and other FFP lines.

The FPS counter at the top-left corner of the Editor Viewport displays the current frame rate (in frames per second) as well as minimum, maximum and average FPS values for the recent time period. To toggle the FPS counter, choose Helpers -> Show Visualizer.

The ViewCube is displayed at the top-right corner of the Editor Viewport. It allows you to control orientation of the current camera. You can toggle the ViewCube by choosing Helpers -> Show ViewCube.

Toggles displaying of all wireframes in the Editor Viewport.

Toggles displaying of the outline for the selected nodes.

Toggles displaying of all polygon edges for the selected surface of an object.

Toggles displaying of wireframes of objects with the Immovable option enabled.

Available settings:

• Disabled - visualization is disabled.
• Show objects with the Immovable option enabled - wireframes of all objects with this flag are displayed in red.
• Show objects that belong to a separate immovable spatial tree - wireframes of all non-collider objects with the Immovable option enabled are displayed in red.

Toggles displaying of scissor rectangles.

The spatial tree is a hierarchical structure obtained by division and organizing all the scene data. You can toggle the spatial tree by choosing Helpers -> Spatial.

The world lights use the concept of cascaded shadow maps for rendering shadows. The cascades are displayed as rectangular areas of different colors.

Toggles displaying of the wireframe for all surfaces that are configured to cast shadows from the current World Light source (this means the Cast World Shadows option is enabled and the masks are set correctly for the surfaces).

Toggles displaying of wireframes for all decal objects in the Editor Viewport.

Toggles displaying of wireframes for materials with the Alpha Test preset enabled.

Toggles highlighting of materials with the Emission state enabled or connecting any data to the Emission input in the material graph.

Toggles displaying of wireframes for all Mesh Static objects.

Toggles displaying of wireframes for all Mesh Dynamic objects.

Toggles highlighting of all objects that cast shadows in the following way: the pixels are cut out during the shadow pass, like in Alpha Test or Alpha Blend materials, materials assigned to animated Mesh Skinned, opaque materials with the enabled Depth Offset or any other effects that affect shadows.

Toggles highlighting of surfaces with the materials that use the surface custom texture in the material graph, however the option is not enabled for the surface.

Toggles highlighting of surfaces with the surface custom texture enabled and/or set, but not used in the material graph.

Toggles highlighting of surfaces with the surface custom texture enabled.

Toggles highlighting of surfaces for which Physics Intersection is enabled.

Toggles highlighting of surfaces for which Intersection is enabled.

Toggles highlighting of surfaces for which Collision is enabled.

Toggles highlighting of surfaces and decals that use the materials created in the Material Editor.

Toggles highlighting of surfaces that use the materials inherited from mesh_base.

Toggles displaying of wireframes for all Mesh Cluster objects.

Toggles displaying of wireframes for materials with the Alpha Blend preset enabled.

Toggles displaying of geodetic pivots.

Toggles displaying of occlusion query boxes.

Toggles displaying of the buffer used for occluders in the Editor Viewport.

Toggles displaying of textures filling GBuffer.

Displaying bound boxes for scene objects can be helpful in many cases. To show or hide axis-aligned bounding boxes for the objects in your virtual world, choose The Helpers -> Object Bounds.

Sometimes you might need additional information on the nodes you work with. To toggle displaying of additional information for the selected node, choose Helpers -> Show Selected Node Info. The following information will be displayed near the selected node, depending on its type:

• Object Type : Name
• File - Asset file GUID (Global identifier)
• Surface - Selected surface of the node
• Property - The property assigned to the node
• Triangles - Number of triangles
• Center - Coordinates of the node's center point
• Radius - The radius of the sphere described about the selected node. In fact, it is the maximum size along one of axes
• Distance - Distance from the current camera

To toggle visualization of bones, that are used to control the animation of skinned meshes, choose Helpers -> Show Bones.

Toggles displaying of Landscape Terrain tiles that are currently being rendered in a lower resolution until the highest mip-level is loaded.

Visualizes the inner space of Voxel Probe using spheres. The spheres help to show the illumination in each voxel from all directions.

Available settings:

• Grid Size — number of spheres in every row/column, the value from 7 to 40.
• Sphere Scale — size of the visualizing sphere.

Toggles displaying of Albedo data or one of 20 masks belonging to all Landscape Layer Maps in the scene. Names are synchronized with the current active Landscape Terrain object.

This visualizer lets you isolate a preview for one of terrain components for easier editing of terrain using the Brush Editor.

This group of visualizers can be used to view the elements of the physical representation of objects (bodies, shapes, joints) as well physical interactions in your world.

Shapes#

Joints#

Contacts#

Toggles visualization of nodes that use the selected mask or masks.

Sets the distance from the camera within which the helpers are visualized.

You can also turn on and off icons and gizmos for all built-in node types via the corresponding checkboxes next to each node type in the tree-view hierarchy:

Icons represent a schematic image of the node type.

Gizmos show additional information such as area of applied forces, radius of the light, etc.

You can select which icons and gizmos should be displayed. Every node category has subcategories to fine-tune display of icons. To display incomplete selection inside a category, the box is partially filled.