Developer Debug Menu
When developing your mod, it is important to be able to have a fast feedback loop and have extensive set of tools which can help to test our mod. Exactly for that reason, we have the Developer Menu. This article goes in detail over the menu and all of its features.
Keyboard Shortcuts
The following keyboard shortcuts are enabled during dev mode:
| Shortcut Key | Action |
|---|---|
| F1 | Brings up the developer debug menu. This needs to be done in order to have full access to the developer features when running a game in debug mode. |
| F2 | Pauses / Resumes the game world processes, basically makes the game freeze. Note that you can still noclip in this state. |
| F3 | This makes the game run 4 times faster. It is good if you want to skip specific sections in the map. |
| F4 | This makes the game run 4 times slower. It is good if you want to want to focus on something that happens very fast in the map. |
| F5 | Reloads the current map. |
| F7 | Enables / Disables spectator camera mode (noclip). |
| F8 | Takes a screenshot of the game and saves it inside the main game folder. |
| F9 | Quick-saves the game. |
| F10 | Quick-loads the last save. |
| Insert | Starts / Stops quick input recording and saves to the file QuickRecord.sav. |
| Home | Starts playing back the last quick input recorded file. |
Debug Menu
The debug menu is where most of the work happens. There, you can find a list of useful actions which will help you in your mod development.
You will find the actions and option grouped in the following categories:
CMD Debug
Game & Script
The game section of the menu includes general-purposes option which affect how you play and move in the game. It also displays debug information such as scripting errors.
| Option | Description |
|---|---|
| Reload | Reloads the current map.
|
| Pause | Pauses the game |
| Reload | Reloads the game |
| Fast | This makes the game run 4 times faster. It is good if you want to skip specific sections in the map. |
| Slow | This makes the game run 4 times slower. It is good if you want to want to focus on something that happens very fast in the map. |
| Script Debug | Script Debug enables further scripting features that won't work otherwise, such as OnAction. It is also useful to make your map behave differently. In your map script file, you may want to change the behavior of your map depends if the script debug is enabled or not. For example: // This script will enable the player's flashlight only if the script debug is on.
void OnStart()
{
if (cScript_ScriptDebugOn()) // Checks if Script Debug option is turned on or not
{
Player_SetFlashlightDisabled(false);
}
}
|
| God Mode | Makes the player invincible and prevents from getting chased by enemies. |
| Spectator Cam | Enables / Disables spectator camera mode (noclip). |
| Slo-mo | Makes the player invincible and prevents from getting chased by enemies. |
| Speed | Makes the player invincible and prevents from getting chased by enemies. |
| SM Move | Makes the player invincible and prevents from getting chased by enemies. |
| SM Look | Makes the player invincible and prevents from getting chased by enemies. |
| Cam->Player | Desc |
| Player->Cam | Desc |
| Player-SpecCam auto-teleport | Desc |
| Recompile Script and Lang | Desc |
| Merge Lang Files | Desc |
| Reload script at task switch | The script file for the map will be updated when a task switch has been performed. Meaning, as long as you do not go back to the game after changing the script, the new script won't be updated in the game. |
| Show Garbage Collection | Shows a graph of garbage collection. [Clarify] |
| Skip AI Rebuild On Reload | Desc |
| Fast Physics Load | Desc |
| Name | Desc |
Map & Scene
The map section of the menu includes settings and actions which are related to maps in general, as well as the currently-loaded map.
| Option | Description |
|---|---|
| Load Map | Select a map file to load in the game. HPL3 Map File (.hpm) and HPL2 Map File (.map) are accepted.
Warning: Some things are almost guranteed to not load correctly when loading HPL2 map files, mostly related to issues with static-objects. This is due to the internal structure of the .map files and how it handles assets information. |
| Test Change Map Save | Desc |
| Teleport to start pos | Teleports the player to a specific PlayerStart Area that can be selected from the dropdown list. Useful for skipping areas in a map. |
| Map Batch | Desc |
| Preload Map | Loads another map in the background so it can be loaded later much faster. Main article: Level Streaming |
| Start Preloaded Map | Loads the pre-loaded map. If no map has been pre-loaded, the button will do nothing. |
| Preload Map Batch | Desc |
| Preload Priority | Sets the priority of the map preload process. Ranges from paused to very high
Preload Time |
| Keep Previous Map Loaded | Keeps the previous map loaded. This is useful if you want to go quickly switch between two maps. |
| Export Map to Mesh | Desc |
| Trigger Permafail | Desc |
Logging
| Option | Description |
|---|---|
| HPL Log | Opens a window showing the current contents of the log file |
| Show Error List | Shows a window listing the logged errors only |
| AI Log | Desc |
| Debug Log | Desc |
| Resource Logging | Logs game resources. [Clarify] |
| Show non-preloaded resources | Lists resources which are not preloaded by the game. [Clarify] |
Debug
| Option | Description |
|---|---|
| Hide Debug Output | Check to disable debug output being printed to screen. |
| Module Output | Shows information about different user modules. It does not seem to be useful however, as not enough information is displayed. |
| Map Info | Shows the amount of entities in the map and their state. |
| Entity Info | Desc |
| Light Level Info | Desc |
| Messages | Shows dev messages which are specified in the map script file. |
| Notes | Desc |
| Pause on assert | Desc |
| Debug Info | Desc |
| Hide Sleeping | Makes sleeping entities invisible in the map. To do: Link to source about sleeping entities |
| Inspection Mode | Displays physics bodies (pink) of static objects and entities in the map. |
| GUI Debug | Displays pink overlay which represents intractable GUI elements. |
| Hide crosshair | Desc |
| Hide hints | Desc |
| Hide popup icons | Desc |
| Hide tentacles | Desc |
| Display Safe Area | Shows the safe area of a TV, surrounded by red borders. |
| Player Collider | Desc |
| Physics Debug | Displays physics bodies (pink) of static objects and entities in the map. |
| Overlay | Displays physics debug + normal game meshes. |
| Light Level Grid | Desc |
| Deep Shadow | Desc |
Graphics Debug
Debugging the graphic performance of a level is vital to understand which parts are causing the bottleneck. It can also be used to find bugged/incorrect meshes or entities. With this section of the debug menu, you will be able to find which parts of the scene take up the most performance.
| Option | Description | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| FPS | Shows the game FPS. | ||
| FPS Graph | This option displays on the screen a graph that shows FPS peaks on a time scale. It's useful for finding areas in a map that reduce FPS the most.
| ||
| Memory Usage | Shows information about the game memory usage:
Memory Usage: The amount of VRAM used by the renderer. This contains frame buffers, shadows, terrain and post-effects. It is greatly affected by the resolution of the window. Texture Memory Usage: The texture memory used by the level. This contains all the textures used for the materials of the objects. Texture memory is reduced by a lot with just a few changes in the config file. Vertex Memory Usage: The amount of VRAM used by meshes and decals. The imporant difference between Vertex and Texture memory is that Vertex memory can't be reduced by changing a setting. It takes up as much space on a good and a bad computer. Total Memory Usage: The sum of the above memory usage. | ||
| Rendering Info | Shows information about the game rendering:
Draw Calls - The number of objects rendered in the current scene. Rendered Triangles / Vertices - The total number of triangles and vertices rendered per frame. Queries - A special draw call used to check if an object is occluded. It is more expensive than a draw call. | ||
| Print Container Debug Info | This button prints container debug info to the screen.
| ||
| Render Portal Debug | Desc | ||
| Use Portal Culling | Enables the game to use portal culling in the map. It is recommended to always leave that on, unless you want to see the difference in performance. To do: add reference link for portals | ||
| Draw Skeletons | Desc | ||
| Offset Skeletons | Desc | ||
| Wireframe Mode | Desc | ||
| Previous Frame Occlusion | This option pauses the occlusion culling and renders the scene with the occlusion culling from before the checkbox was ticked. This is used to see how effective the occlusion culling is in the specific scene. After activating this you can switch to to spectator camera mode and look at the scene from another angle to see where the culling fails. Activating this will disable rendering of translucent objects since they can be unstable. | ||
| Debug Mode | Offers a set of display modes to help catch rendering issues | ||
| Gamma | Desc | ||
| Brightness | The brightness slider increases / decreases the brightness of the game. Not to be confused with gamma. | ||
| Contrast | Desc | ||
| Disable Textures | Desc | ||
| Disable Post-Effects | Desc | ||
| Occlusion Culling | Enables occlusion culling (Skips rendering polygons that are no in the view of the player ). | ||
| Draw Shadows | Desc |
Resources
| Option | Description |
|---|---|
| Auto reload resources | This makes the map reload resources (mostly game assets) automatically, should you change or add something to the mod. |
| Load files in _temp folders | Desc |
| Find Duplicate File Names | Desc |
Sound
| Option | Description |
|---|---|
| Show sounds playing | Shows a list of all the sounds that currently play in the map, and information about them. |
| Show sound params | Adds further information to the sounds playing list (distance from player) |
| Show sound categories | Shows a list of all the different sound level categories. |
| Show sound AI events | Shows a message when an Ai agent has heard a sound. |
Music
| Option | Description |
|---|---|
| Play Music | Desc |
| Stop All Music | Desc |
Voices
| Option | Description |
|---|---|
| Show event/voice messages | Does not work. (VERIFY) |
| Show Missing Voice Error | Lists voice subjects which have missing voice files. |
| Play Voice Subject | Desc |
| Reload Voice Data on Taskswitch | Desc |
Events
| Option | Description |
|---|---|
| Show Event Messages | Desc |
| Show Event Facts | Desc |
| Disable Flashbacks | Desc |
| Name | Desc |
Input
The Input section of the menu includes tools and option for capturing and analyzing user input.
| Option | Description |
|---|---|
| Gamepad Input Only | Desc |
| Record Input | Desc |
| Playback Recorded Input | Desc |
| Name | Desc |
| Name | Desc |
Stress Test
This is a tool used to test the map under heavy performance conditions.
| Option | Description |
|---|---|
| Analyze Map | Desc |
| Analyze Entities | Desc |
| Analyze Materials | Desc |
| Analyze Active Entities | Desc |
| Print Resource Usage | Desc |
| Random Input | Desc |
| Random Physics Forces | Desc |
Profile
| Option | Description |
|---|---|
| Show Profiler | Desc |
| Show GPU Profiler | Desc |
| Pause Profiling | Desc |
| Profile Longest Frame | Desc |
| Label | Desc |
Debug UI Settings
| Option | Description |
|---|---|
| Debug Lines | Desc |
| Pause game when open | Desc |
| Name | Desc |
| Name | Desc |
Platform & Language
| Option | Description |
|---|---|
| Set Suffix | Desc |
| Name | Desc |