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Editor Windows

13976_gamedev (Student) edited this page Jul 30, 2026 · 4 revisions

Editor Windows

Dashboard

Tools > Starhelm > Dashboard (Ctrl+Shift+H) is the entry point, and every tool below is one of its tabs — the same panels the standalone windows show, so nothing is duplicated and you never need six windows open. Switching tabs keeps each tool exactly as you left it.

Its Overview tab checks the open scene — executor, actors, world query, movement, dialogue, gizmos, authored actions, behaviour graph — shows what is missing and fixes each with one button. Its Create card generates the data folders, the demo actions, the demo dialogue, a demo behaviour graph and a playable scene, or all of them at once with Create all.

The window is responsive: below roughly 620px the tab strip keeps its icons and drops its wording.

Every tool also opens as its own window under the Tools > Starhelm menu when you want the space.

Window What it does
Action Framework Author actions: sectioned inspector, live validation, in-game dispatch
Behavior Graph Visual behavior tree; rename nodes, click-to-link, edges represent logic
Action Graph Node view of a single action's pipeline
Dialogue Cues, timing, speaker filters, per-character profiles, live testing
Debugger Play-mode decision timelines, with pause, timescale control and order cancellation
Why not? Why an actor is doing nothing: every gate between it and each action, with its verdict
Work Priorities grid (actors x work tags) and a 24-hour schedule strip per actor
Setup Data folders, demo actions, demo dialogue, demo behaviour graph, playable scene

Action Framework

Each action (for example attack.target) is shown as a sectioned inspector covering targeting, conditions, costs (stamina, time, resource) and effects. Every section supports adding or removing entries inline, with live validation.

Action Graph

A one-click "Graph" view of an ActionDefinition's pipeline, showing Target, Conditions, Costs and Effects wired exactly as they execute. Useful for sanity-checking a complex action at a glance.

Behavior Graph

A fully visual behavior tree editor supporting Sequence, Selector, Action, Condition and Wait nodes. Nodes are freely renameable, and connections are created by click-to-link.

The Drive this AI field binds a graph to an actor in one drop: it adds a BehaviorRunner, assigns the graph and hands control over from the utility brain.

Tools > Starhelm > Setup > Create Demo Behavior Graph authors a worked example — a gatherer that gathers, delivers, then waits and patrols when there is nothing left.

Debugger

Available in Play mode, it shows a live per-actor decision timeline explaining why the AI is acting, blocked, or waiting, with playback controls (pause, slow-mo, fast-forward) and the ability to cancel orders directly.

Why not?

The Debugger explains what an AI did. This explains what it is not doing. It walks the same pipeline the executor walks - work priority, duty, queue, target, conditions, reservation, costs, cooldown - and reports each gate's verdict instead of running the action. Nothing is mutated: costs are asked, never charged, and no target is reserved, so it is safe to open outside Play mode.

A verdict is a pass, a blocker, or an advisory. A distance gate that the walk itself will satisfy is not a blocker, and neither is an off-duty actor, which still obeys direct orders. Actions are listed worst-first, and Copy report puts the whole analysis on the clipboard for a bug report.

Work

The grid every management player already knows: rows are actors, columns are the work tags your actions carry, and a cell is that actor's eagerness for that work - zero meaning never. Under it, each actor's day as twenty-four paintable hours, night shifts included.

It finds the components by the type of their fields, so your own actor appears without implementing anything.

Setup

Creates the Assets/Starhelm Data folder structure, and can generate demo actions, demo dialogue and a full playable template scene in one click.

See Features for the concepts behind each of these windows.

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