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DevEditor

The DevEditor is an in-game tuning UI for camera, scene, and rendering parameters. It was added as part of PR #335.

For the camera architecture itself, see camera-system.md.

1. Who it's for

Developers and modders. The DevEditor lets you live-tune camera FOV, far plane, fog, 2D culling trapezoids, terrain/object render distances, and a suite of debug visualisations - without rebuilding.

It is debug-only:

  • Built only when _EDITOR is defined (see Build Configurations in README.md).
  • Requires the ImGui submodule (git submodule update --init).
  • Not present in Release builds.

2. Opening it

Two ways:

  • Press F12 in-game.
  • Start the client with --editor to launch with the editor enabled (or toggle later with F12).

There is also an on-screen toggle button in the top-right of the window.

The editor is rendered with ImGui and consumes input over the game (see MuInputBlockerCore.cpp for the input-routing logic).

3. Tabs

3.1 Scenes tab

Camera Mode controls

Switch between FreeFly and the active gameplay camera (Default / Orbital). While FreeFly is active, the gameplay camera continues running in the background (the "spectated camera" tracked by CameraManager) - toggling back puts you exactly where the gameplay camera now is, not where you left off.

The standard in-game hotkeys still work with the editor open:

  • F9 cycles Default ↔ Orbital.
  • F10 toggles the zoom lock. F10 is intercepted at the Win32 message layer (WM_SYSKEYDOWN) so it fires reliably even when ImGui has keyboard focus.
  • F11 resets the active camera (zoom rung for Default, rotation + zoom for Orbital).

While FreeFly is active and spectating a gameplay camera, the cone wireframe is augmented with two ground lines: a red line where the bottom of the spectated view hits the terrain and a yellow line where the top hits it. They terminate at the cone's apex→corner edges, so they visualise the camera's actual visible extent on the ground.

Summary line

Shows real-time camera position (world coords + tile coords) and pitch / yaw. Useful when placing fixed camera shots or noting positions for screenshots.

Login Scene

Tunes the login scene only. Defaults come from LoginSceneCameraDefaults in src/source/CameraMove.h.

Control What it changes When you'd use it
Offset X / Y / Z Translates the camera in world units relative to the tour-path point. Fixing clipping, framing the title art differently.
Pitch / Yaw Rotates the login camera. Pitch is the engine convention (-90° = horizontal, more negative = tilted up). Lining up a screenshot or matching legacy framing.
Tour mode - pause / resume / restart Halts or rewinds the login waypoint walk. Holding the camera still on a specific frame to tune offsets, then resuming.
Render terrain distance Hard cap on how far login terrain tiles render. Login fly-throughs that show distant terrain that normally pops in.
Render object distance Hard cap on object cull radius for the login scene. Same as above for objects/decor.

Game Scene - Default Camera Override

Live-overrides CameraConfig::ForMainSceneDefaultCamera(). All values reset to the factory config on restart.

Control What it changes When you'd use it
Far Plane (~0.5m to 20km) Grows or shrinks the visible far clip - also drives 3D object cull range. Checking how much the game can render before fog/cull cuts in; tuning visibility for screenshots.
Camera Offset X / Y / Z Hero-relative. Shifts the camera's eye point relative to the hero anchor. Repositioning the third-person rig (e.g. higher angle, off-shoulder).
2D Culling Trapezoid Width - near / far multipliers Scales the Default camera's view-space ground trapezoid (near and far half-widths). The trapezoid itself is now derived from the live GL projection (FOV/aspect), so 16:9 corners stay covered without the legacy 4:3 fudge. Tightening to see culling pop, or widening to confirm tiles render - useful when chasing edge-case clipping at corners.
Fog override checkbox Gates the next three controls. Off = camera config's fog wins. Toggle while comparing current vs. tuned fog.
Fog On / Off Enables/disables OpenGL fog. Quick A/B for "is this fog or culling cutting things off?"
Fog Start / End (% of ViewFar) Sets the fog density ramp as a fraction of the current far plane. Pulling fog in to mask LOD pop, or pushing it out for cleaner long-range shots.

Game Scene - Orbital Camera Override

Live-overrides CameraConfig::ForMainSceneOrbitalCamera(). The orbital trapezoid is seeded from the camera's natural pyramid on first enable so the first tweak doesn't snap.

Control What it changes When you'd use it
2D Culling Trapezoid - far distance / far width Sets the far edge of the ground trapezoid (in world units). Adjusting how far past the hero terrain stays loaded as the orbital camera pans.
2D Culling Trapezoid - near distance / near width Sets the near edge. Catching pop-in close to the hero on heavy zoom-in.
Fog On / Off Enables/disables fog for the orbital config. Quick A/B as with the default camera.
Fog Start / End (% of ViewFar) Fog density ramp. Same as default - orbital uses a much wider FOV (90°), so fog feels different.

Debug Section

Control What it changes When you'd use it
Character Pick Boxes Draws per-character pick volumes. Debugging click-to-target or hover hit-testing.
Item Pick Boxes Same for dropped items. Debugging item pickup ranges.
Item Cull Sphere Visualises the item cull radius around each dropped item. Sanity-checking the Item Cull Radius slider's effect.
Item Cull Radius slider Overrides DEFAULT_CULL_RADIUS_ITEM (400) for the active session. Tuning how close you need to be before items render.
Tile Grid Overlays a debug grid on terrain tiles. Checking tile boundaries when investigating LOD or terrain bugs.
Rendering: Terrain / Static Objects / Effects / Dropped Items / Weather / Item Labels Cuts each pass out of the frame entirely. Isolating which pass owns a visual artefact, or measuring per-pass cost via $details.

3.2 Graphics tab

Read-only diagnostics:

  • Real-time window and OpenGL viewport dimensions.
  • Screen-rate scale factors.
  • Window mode (windowed / fullscreen).
  • A warning if the viewport and window dimensions disagree.
  • A Copy debug info to clipboard button - handy for bug reports.

4. What persists, what doesn't

DevEditor overrides are runtime-only. They live on the m_DefaultOverride and m_OrbitalOverride member structs and are applied each frame (ApplyDefaultOverrideToConfig() / ApplyOrbitalOverrideToConfig()). Closing the client throws them away.

The only camera value that survives a restart is the orbital wheel-zoom radius - see Camera System §3.

If you want to keep a tuned set of values, copy them out of the DevEditor and feed them into the relevant CameraConfig::For… factory in src/source/Camera/CameraConfig.h.

5. File map

src/MuEditor/
  Core/
    MuEditorCore.h / .cpp        # editor lifecycle, F12 toggle wiring
    MuInputBlockerCore.cpp       # routes input to the editor when active
  UI/
    Common/MuEditorUI.h / .cpp   # shared editor chrome
    Console/
      MuEditorConsoleUI.h / .cpp # debug console / logging output
    DevEditor/
      DevEditorUI.h              # struct + interface
      DevEditorUI.cpp            # all panels, overrides, debug toggles