Editor Walkthrough

Editor Walkthrough

A practical, hands-on guide to the SparkEditor. This page covers day-to-day workflows rather than exhaustive API details. For the full panel reference, see SparkEditor.

Release boundary: SparkEditor is a required Windows authoring product in the blocked and uncertified stable-v1 profile. Panel descriptions are source-level guidance; registration, default visibility, and complete undo/gizmo behavior are separate gates. Collaboration, visual scripting, plugins, and non-Windows paths remain experimental or outside the profile.

---

Opening the Editor

Build with ENABLE_EDITOR=ON and launch the separate SparkEditor executable. The runtime hosts do not currently define an F1 editor-overlay toggle.

---

Default Layout

The current factory metadata marks 6 core panels visible by default:

Panel	Position	What it does
Scene View	Center	3D viewport with editor gizmos and camera controls
Hierarchy	Left	Tree view of all entities in the scene
Inspector	Right	Property editor for the selected entity
Asset Browser	Bottom	Project file browser with thumbnails
Console	Bottom	Log output, command input, and filtering
Game View	Tab (center)	In-game camera preview with HUD

Registered panels can be dragged, docked, resized, or closed. The Window menu can reopen the panels that the current editor build registers; the 65-header inventory is not a registration or release-certification count.

---

Scene View Navigation

The Scene View is your primary 3D viewport.

Input	Action
Right-click + drag	Orbit camera
Middle-click + drag	Pan camera
Scroll wheel	Zoom in/out
Click entity	Select it
W	Translate gizmo (implemented path)
E	Select rotate mode (current transform application is incomplete; EDT-210)
R	Select scale mode (current transform application is incomplete; EDT-210)

Render Modes

The Scene View toolbar lets you switch between render modes:

• Shaded — Full PBR rendering (default)
• Wireframe — Wireframe overlay
• Unlit — No lighting, diffuse color only
• Normals — Visualize surface normals

Grid and Snapping

• The grid is visible by default (toggle in Editor settings)
• Snap to grid is enabled by default with 1.0 unit spacing
• Change grid size in settings.ini under [Editor]: GridSize = 0.5

---

Working with Entities

Creating Entities

• Hierarchy panel → Right-click → "Create Entity"
• Or use the Object Placement panel (Window → Object Placement): Quick Place and Place Selected create real, undoable entities from the editor's entity templates. The brush/line/grid/scatter modes, align mode, and snap settings are authored in the panel but not yet read by the viewport

Selecting Entities

• Click in the Scene View to select
• Or click in the Hierarchy panel
• The selected entity highlights in the viewport and the Inspector shows its components

Editing Components

The Inspector panel displays all components attached to the selected entity:

• Transform — Position, rotation, scale (always present)
• MeshRenderer — 3D mesh and material
• RigidBody — Physics body settings
• Light — Point, directional, or spot light
• AudioSource — Sound emitter
• Camera — Camera parameters
• And 70+ more component types

Click Add Component at the bottom of the Inspector to attach new components.

Undo / Redo

Some scene-edit operations participate in the command stack; complete operation coverage remains blocked by EDT-210:

• Ctrl+Z — Undo
• Ctrl+Y — Redo
• Open the Undo History panel to see the full command stack and jump to any point

---

Content Creation Panels

Material Editor

Open from Window → Material Editor. Edit PBR material properties:

• Albedo — Base color and texture
• Metallic / Roughness — PBR parameters with texture slots
• Normal Map — Surface detail
• Emission — Self-illumination
• AO — Ambient occlusion

Drag textures from the Asset Browser into texture slots. The live preview sphere updates in real-time.

Particle Editor

Open from Window → Particle Editor. Configure GPU particle emitters:

• Emission — Rate, burst count, shape (point, sphere, cone, box, circle)
• Appearance — Color gradient over lifetime, size curve
• Physics — Gravity, drag, collision
• Sub-emitters — Particles that spawn particles
• Trails — Ribbon trail rendering

Sprite & Tilemap Editors

For 2D games:

• Sprite Editor — Configure source rects, pivots, pixels-per-unit, sorting layers
• Sprite Animation Editor — Frame-based animation with timeline, onion skinning, and sprite sheet auto-slice
• Tilemap Editor — Paint tiles with brush, fill, and rectangle tools. Supports collision tiles, layers, and auto-tiling

Terrain Editor

Open from Window → Terrain Editor. Sculpt heightmap terrain:

• Paint height with raise/lower/smooth/flatten brushes
• Paint textures with blending layers
• Integrated with the physics system for collision

---

Gameplay & Design Panels

Weapon Editor

Open from Window → Weapon Editor. It is a balance calculator (DPS chart and comparison table); edits are session-only -- the panel cannot save and no game module reads them:

• Damage, fire rate, magazine size, reload time
• Accuracy, range, recoil pattern
• DPS chart for quick comparison
• Side-by-side weapon comparison table

AI Editor & Debug

• AI Editor — Create behavior tree templates with Selector, Sequence, Action, Condition, Decorator, and Parallel nodes
• AI Debug — Live-inspect AI agents during play mode. Shows blackboard variables, BT execution trace, perception ranges, and nav paths

Dialogue Editor

Open from Window → Dialogue Editor. Author branching dialogue trees:

• Create text, choice, branch, event, and end nodes
• Assign speakers, animations, and voice clips
• Set conditions on choices (requires variables set in the Condition Editor)

Cinematic Sequencer

Open from Window → Cinematic Sequencer. Create cutscenes:

• Add tracks (camera, actor, audio, event)
• Place keyframes on the timeline
• Scrub the timeline for preview
• Export to JSON

Event Response Panel

Open from Window → Event Response. Build "When/If/Then" gameplay rules without code:

• When — Choose a trigger event type
• If — Add conditions (AND/OR groups)
• Then — Define actions to execute

---

Physics Panels

Physics 3D

Open from Window → Physics 3D. Configure the Jolt Physics world:

• Set gravity, timestep, substep count
• Toggle debug visualization (wireframes, AABBs, contacts, constraints)
• Quick-add primitive shapes (box, sphere, capsule, cylinder)
• Physics material presets
• Raycast testing tool

Physics 2D

Open from Window → Physics 2D. For 2D physics:

• World gravity settings
• Collision layer matrix editor
• Body inspector
• Spatial hash grid visualization

---

Audio

Audio Mixer

Open from Window → Audio Mixer:

• Master / SFX / Music volume sliders
• Mix bus hierarchy with VU meters
• DSP effects (reverb, EQ, compressor)
• Active sound monitoring
• Sound bank browser
• Reverb zone configuration

---

Project Management

Project Settings

Open from Window → Project Settings. Tabbed categories for all engine settings:

• Graphics, Rendering, Post-Processing, Audio, Controls
• Physics, AI, Player, Gameplay, Camera
• Network, Scripting, Animation, Editor, Logging

Changes apply at runtime and can be saved to settings.ini.

Build & Cook

Open Window → Build & Cook for the current local build/staging interface. Its output is not a certified release package:

• Select build profile (Debug / Development / Release / Shipping)
• Choose target platform
• Inspect reserved texture/audio/mesh transform controls; those transforms are not implemented and content is copied unchanged
• Run the available local build/staging step with progress monitoring

Game Module Selector

Open from Window → Game Module Selector:

• Scan for available game module DLLs
• Toggle modules active/inactive
• Generate spark.modules.json manifest

---

Debugging Panels

Debug Visualizer

Open from Window → Debug Visualizer. Toggle overlays:

• Physics (colliders, AABBs, contacts, raycasts, velocities)
• Navigation (navmesh, paths, agents)
• Audio (listener position, source ranges)
• Camera and light debug
• Performance overlays (FPS, draw calls, triangle count)

Scene Statistics

Open from Window → Scene Statistics:

• Entity counts and component breakdowns
• Rendering statistics (draw calls, triangles, batches)
• Physics body counts
• Memory usage
• Performance graphs with history

Event Monitor

Open from Window → Event Monitor. Watch the EventBus in real-time:

• Filter by event type or category
• Color-coded by category
• Useful for debugging event-driven systems

Coroutine Debug

Open from Window → Coroutine Debug. Monitor active coroutines:

• Status (running, suspended, completed, failed)
• Elapsed time and wait states
• Cancel coroutines individually

---

Play Mode

The Play Mode Toolbar (top of editor) controls simulation:

Button	Action
Play	Start simulation
Pause	Freeze simulation
Stop	Reset to editor state
Step	Advance one frame

Time Scale

The toolbar includes a time-scale slider with presets:

• 0.25x — Quarter speed (useful for debugging physics)
• 0.5x — Half speed
• 1x — Normal
• 2x / 4x — Fast-forward

Subsystem Toggles

During play mode, you can selectively enable/disable:

• Physics, AI, Audio, Animation, Scripting, Particles

This is useful for isolating bugs — disable everything except the system you are debugging.

---

Collaborative Editing

Collaborative editing is an experimental implementation outside stable-v1; the following is development guidance rather than a release-support claim:

1. Open Window → Collaboration
2. One user clicks Host to start a session
3. Others click Join and enter the host address
4. Entity locks prevent two users from editing the same object simultaneously
5. The activity log shows who is editing what

See Collaborative Editing for details.

---

Customization

Themes

The editor uses a customizable theme system. Default themes are applied via EditorTheme.cpp. Custom themes can override colors, spacing, and font sizes.

Panel Visibility

• Registered panels are accessible from the Window menu; the repository's 65 *Panel.h classes are a source inventory, not a visibility guarantee
• Drag panels to rearrange the layout
• Layouts persist between sessions

---

Keyboard Reference

Shortcut	Action
F3	Toggle FPS stats
` (Backtick)	Toggle console
W	Translate gizmo
E	Select rotate mode (transform application incomplete)
R	Select scale mode (transform application incomplete)
Ctrl+Z	Undo
Ctrl+Y	Redo
Ctrl+S	Save scene
Delete	Delete selected entity

---

See Also

• SparkEditor — Full panel reference and architecture details
• Artist Workflow Guide — Asset creation workflows
• Quick-Start Tutorial — Your first 10 minutes
• Configuration Reference — All settings and console commands