GDQuest / godot-visualization-tools

Tools for debug drawing and animation for visualizations and tutorials

Godot Visualization Tools

/!\ Rewrite in progress with Godot 3.5. Documentation coming soon.

A collection of scripts and tools for debug visualizations of collision shapes.

This is a work-in-progress. Mose of this code comes from our project Godot Node Essentials.

Outline

1. Introduction

• Overview
• Plus mention that the plugin is made with Godot 3.5 so is not compatible with previous versions.

2. Features

• Intuitive inspector properties that update based on supported shapes and features.
• Palette with a "Disabled" value that updates the Disabled property accordingly and vice-versa.
• Theme. Simple, Dashed & Halo for 2D. Wireframe & Halo for 3D.
• Simple & Dashed theme extra properties: Width & Sample. Width gives us the thickness of the outline. Sample sets the number of segments used for the outline.
• Autoload singleton to easily manage visibility at runtime: GDQuestVisualizationTools.set_is_debug_collision_visible() & GDQuestVisualizationTools.set_is_debug_navigation_visible().
• Independent visibility toggle from Debug > Visible Collision Shapes and Debug > Visible Navigation.

3. Technical limitations and issues

• 2D: When duplicating a node it's mandatory to make the material property unique. Otherwise a theme change will override all nodes and distort the visuals.
• 3D: Can't toggle visibility in the editor by toggling visibility of a parent node. Visibility has to be toggled specifically on the debug nodes themselves.
• 3D: The meshes are recreated from scratch each time a change happens with the transform or a relevent property. At runtime this might become a performance issue. Still needs investigation.

4. Technical details. 2D is built with CanvasItem._draw(), while 3D is built with VisualServer.