190 lines
12 KiB
Markdown
190 lines
12 KiB
Markdown
<!-- Source: https://wiki.transportfever3.com/doku.php?id=modding:tools:ingame (fetched 2026-10-04) -->
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### Table of Contents
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* [Hotkeys](#hotkeys)
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* [Debug Tool Window](#debug_tool_window)
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+ [Main](#main)
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+ [Framebuffers](#framebuffers)
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+ [Textures](#textures)
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+ [Draw Calls](#draw_calls)
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+ [Animals](#animals)
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+ [Environment](#environment)
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+ [Dump](#dump)
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+ [Crash](#crash)
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* [Console](#console)
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* [Construction Development Tools](#construction_development_tools)
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+ [Set Dressing Assets & Ground Textures](#set_dressing_assets_ground_textures)
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This page is not yet adapted for Transport Fever 3. The content may be outdated.
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# Ingame Tools
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There are several tools available ingame to test and debug content. To activate these features, the debug mode has to be enabled. To do this, change the according `debugMode` value in the settings.lua to `true` or toggle the option in the [game settings](https://wiki.transportfever3.com/doku.php?id=gamemanual:ui:settings#advanced "gamemanual:ui:settings") advanced options.
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Once enabled, you have:
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* enabled debugging hotkeys to help debugging or testing modifications
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* additional debug views and windows
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* unlocked access to all campaigns and missions
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* several filetypes are automatically refreshed when they changed (this e.g. covers updateFn definitions)
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## Hotkeys
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The following hotkeys are available with activated debug mode:
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(In the US keyboard layout, the AltGr key is the right Alt)
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| Hotkey | Function |
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| --- | --- |
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| AltGr + A | Reload [sound sets](https://wiki.transportfever3.com/doku.php?id=modding:misc:soundsets "modding:misc:soundsets") |
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| AltGr + B | Show bounding boxes |
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| AltGr + D | Open Debug Tool Window (see below) |
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| AltGr + E | Show chunk refresh |
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| AltGr + G | Hide user interface |
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| AltGr + I | Show GPU workload statistics and simulation diagrams |
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| AltGr + L | Show lanes |
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| AltGr + R | Recompile shaders (keep existing when compilation fails) |
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| AltGr + Z | Open [camera tool](https://wiki.transportfever3.com/doku.php?id=gamemanual:ui:cameratool "gamemanual:ui:cameratool") |
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In general, most of these modes can be switched on and off by repeating the keyboard combination.
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## Debug Tool Window
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The debug tool window has several tabs with different functions that are described below. It can be opened with AltGr + D.
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### Main
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The MAIN tab has several options regarding rendering and miscellaneous other tools.
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In the **General** section, the current cursor position is shown with all three coordinates.
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The **Rendering options** cover several modes that are available as Hotkeys as well as some others:
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* **Show Bounding Boxes** is the same as AltGr + B
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* **Freeze Render** is the same as AltGr + F
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* **Show Lanes** is the same as AltGr + L
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* **Grass Prepass** is a rendering technique used to fasten the grass rendering. It is enabled by default.
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* **Terrain Prepass** is a rendering technique used to fasten the terrain rendering. It is enabled by default.
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* **Terrain Disable Filter** disables the dithering between different textures. The dominationg materials are displayed alone in a grid of 1×1 m².
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* **LOD Scale** is a slider to simulate different LOD distances.
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* **Terrain Memory Usage** is a slider to adjust the ratio between performance and memory consumption of terrain data.
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* **Terrain LOD error multiplier** is a parameter for the terrain LOD generation tolerance.
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* **Terrain LOD radius multiplier** is a parameter for the terrain LOD generation radius. The average in this radius is used for the simpler LOD geometry.
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The **Simulation options** provide buttons to increase the simulation speed up to 32 compared to the regular maximum of 4.
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Finally the **UI Debug tools** have two tools:
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* With **Show UI Element (Console)** it is possible to get the type and identifier of the current ui element the cursor is pointing on. The output can be read in the console.
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* **Toggle Ruler** enables or disables a small ruler tool that can be used to measure distances on the map.
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### Framebuffers
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Some rendering intermediate frames can be reached in the FRAMEBUFFERS tab. These are:
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* **Fb color** with color information.
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* **Fb normalmap** with the overall normal information.
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* **Fb depth** with depth information. As the depth information is stored exponential, zoom in to see some differences.
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* **Hdr lum** with light emission and reflecion information.
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* **Hdr blur final** and **Hdr small** with light blurring information.
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* **Shadow map** is some depth information but from the origin of the sunlight.
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* **Ssao** with ssao information.
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* **Ssao final** with the blurred ssao information.
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* **Reflection** with reflection information.
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The views depend on the current main viewport and can be scaled to various sizes.
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### Textures
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To get an overview over the currently loaded textures, the TEXTURES tab can be used. It shows a complete folder tree with all loaded textures or only the subset with file sizes larger than the **Threshold** that can be set in the text box at the bottom edge.
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### Draw Calls
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The DRAW CALLS tab lists all current draw calls proceeded by the engine. There are several different properties listed in the top section:
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* **Draw calls** is the total number of current draw calls.
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* **Tec binds** is the number of different material techniques / shaders used for the objects.
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* **Mat binds** is the number of loaded materials.
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* **Total instances** is the number of all objects rendered.
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* **Total vertices** is the total number of vertices of all these objects.
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Below is a sortable table with different columns:
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* **#** is an ID in the order of rendering.
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* **Type** is `either` opaque for non transparent materials or `transp` for transparent materials.
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* **Material** is the reference to the used material.
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* **Mesh** is the name of the displayed mesh.
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* **Grp** is the number of the submesh of this mesh.
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* **Inst** is the number of instances of this mesh.
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* **Mode** is usually `tris` for triangle based objects. `points` are very rare.
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* **Vert** is the number of vertices of one instance.
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* **Inst\*Vert** is the product of the vertices and the number of instances.
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* **%** is the percentage of the total workload.
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### Animals
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There is a dropdown where the [score maps](https://wiki.transportfever3.com/doku.php?id=modding:environment:animals#suitable_areas "modding:environment:animals") for animals can be selected. They are visualized with red and blue colors. The current animal movements and distribution can be shown with the two buttons at **Debug rendering** below.
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### Environment
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The settings of [environments](https://wiki.transportfever3.com/doku.php?id=modding:environment:environments "modding:environment:environments") can be tested live in the ENVIRONMENT tab. It provides several input fields to test the different properties. See the documentation of environments for more information on their meaning.
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At the bottom is a Load From Camera Tool and a Save to Camera Tool button. These can be used to temporarily store an environment setting for the use in the camera tool.
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### Dump
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A list of component types of an entity can be gathered from the **Entity information dump**. By entering an entity id, confirming it with REFRESH and pressing GOTO, it is possible to jump to the entity on the map.
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### Crash
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The last tab CRASH provides several buttons that can be used to force a crash of the game. Usually this is not needed for modders, but if you like you can test various ways of forced crashes there.
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## Console
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The ingame console can be used to see the output that is written in the stdout.txt as well as to test and execute lua commands. The console can be opened and closed by default with the key below the ESC key. Depending on your keyboard layout it could be either `, § or ^.
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You can execute lua commands in the command line by typing them and pressing ENTER. To enter complex statements with several lines of code, simply press ENTER inbetween. The console will execute the commands once syntactically complete, even if they span over many lines.
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There are some assisting commands available:
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* `\help` shows this list of available shortcuts and assisting commands.
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* `\clear` clears the console.
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* `\stdout <on|off>` regulates the output in `stdout.txt`. Default is `on`. If set to `off` there will be no output in the `stdout.txt`.
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* `\timestamp <on|off>` shows timestamp in front of output if set to `on`. Default is `off`.
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* `\scrlk <on|off>` does not jump to the bottom if new output appears if set to `on`. Default is `off`.
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* `\history` prints a history of recent sent commands.
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You may use the Up and Down keys to recall and cycle through the recent sent commands from the history.
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To see a list of available functions, press CTRL + SPACE. This opens the autocomplete menu. You may use the Up and Down keys or the scroll wheel to navigate in the autocomplete menu. Press ENTER or click on a command to add the selected command to the console command line.
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If you press TAB in the command line, the command will be completed if it can be completed unambiguously. Pressing TAB twice prints the available commands from the current autocomplete menu view to the console.
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## Construction Development Tools
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To ease the creation of constructions, there are several assistance tools available.
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### Set Dressing Assets & Ground Textures
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To decorate constructions, it is recommended to use the available asset models of the base game. The [Asset Placer mod](https://mod.io/g/transportfever3/m/asset-placer "https://mod.io/g/transportfever3/m/asset-placer") provides most of them in the landscaping menu. As they have the `allowSnapToMesh` flag set to true in the `snapPoint` struct, it is possible to snap them directly to a surface of a model, e.g. to a building wall after pressing Alt.
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To move around some assets after placing them, the Toggle asset manipulator in the Main tab of the debug tools window can be used. Click on a model after activating it and it will be highlighted in turqoise. The shown axis handles can be used to move it around in 3D space. The menu on the left side of the screen allows manually tuning positions, size and rotation as well as to delete and clone the model.
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The terrain can be painted with the brushes in the landscaping menu as well. To define areas that shall not be painted by the construction but what is already there, use a [terrain material](https://wiki.transportfever3.com/doku.php?id=modding:environment:terrainmaterials "modding:environment:terrainmaterials") that has a file name containing `"chroma_key"`. A mod containing such a material is provided below.
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After decorating and painting the terrain, both can be exported. For that to work, the construction needs to have a configured [ground texture](https://wiki.transportfever3.com/doku.php?id=modding:constructions:groundtextures "modding:constructions:groundtextures"). Go to the Dump tab of the debug tools window and click on the construction. On the right side, the Print button allows to update the referenced `.gtex.lua` and its referenced index texture of the construction. Additionally, a `<construction_name>_assets.tl` file containing a list of all model instances is generated. Its content can be copied over elsewhere or the file can be required by a `.script.lua`. The `constructionutil.addModels` function can insert such a list to a subconstruction model result.
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**Chroma Key Mod**
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This mod contains a pink terrain material that will be skipped when exporting the ground texture mask as described above. The mod can be downloaded [here](https://wiki.transportfever3.com/lib/exe/fetch.php?media=modding:tools:ingame:ug_tf3_chroma_key.zip "modding:tools:ingame:ug_tf3_chroma_key.zip (423.3 KB)").
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