Entity State Debugger

Before you start

This manual page is dedicated to working with Entity State Debugger. This assumes you have set up your game to make it provide debug data snapshots to the tool. There are two ways to do this:

  1. With files - the game serializes snapshots with debug data to the disk

  2. Live debugging - the game communicates with the tool via network and provides the data directly

For the purpose of the debugger description, we assume the first case, because the source of data does not affect the workflow of the GUI tool.

In order to see how to set up your game so it produces snapshots, please refer to Debugging Setup: Tutorial.

Load data

Once you have a debug file, load it using the dashboard (Overview). These files will typically come with *.gdi extension (grail debug info).

If the file contains entity debug information, then you can view it by switching to the System tab.

2 0 system tab
Figure 1. System tab

Please note that the file may also contain reasoner debug data.

Debugging Entity States

Entity State Debugger has a single-page layout.

1 entity debugger overview
Figure 2. Entity Debugger Window

In addition to the timeline slider common to all debugger views, the window consists of the following panels:

  1. Entity Group list

    A list of all entities that produced debug data during the debugging session. Entities that haven’t been assigned to any group, are placed inside an artificial group called 'UngroupedEntities'. Each entity group has a checkbox that you can check if you want to see the group’s details.

    2 1 entity group selection
    Figure 3. Entity Group Selection List

  2. Global shared Blackboard list

    A list of all global shared Blackboards from the debugging session.

    2 2 shared blackboard list
    Figure 4. Shared Blackboard List

  3. Entity Group details view

    This view shows details of selected Entity Groups, namely entities (on the left) and blackboards (on the right) belonging to the groups. Each of these items can be selected and viewed in the inspector.

    3 ai group list view
    Figure 5. Entity Group List View

  4. Entity and shared Blackboard inspector

    Here you can view details of currently selected items

Inspector view

The inspector view comes in two versions, depending on the type of the currently selected item.

Entity inspector

4 entity inspector
Figure 6. Entity Inspector

If the selected item is an entity, the inspector view will display the following data:

  1. Entity name

  2. The name of the group than this entity belongs to

  3. Custom tags assigned during debugging

  4. Current behavior name

  5. Private blackboard data

Shared Blackboard inspector

5 blackboard inspector
Figure 7. Blackboard Inspector

If you select a shared Blackboard, the inspector view will display the following data:

  1. Blackboard name

  2. Blackboard data structured as name-value pairs