Hide
An extensible IDE for Heaps game engine, providing tools for 3D/2D asset editing, level design, and visual effects.
What is Hide?
Hide (Heaps IDE) is an extensible integrated development environment built for the Heaps game engine. It provides a suite of tools for editing 3D models, materials, levels, particle systems, and visual effects, serving as middleware to streamline game development workflows. It integrates directly with Heaps projects and supports custom extensions for game-specific tooling.
Game developers using the Heaps engine who need an integrated environment for asset creation, level design, and visual effects editing. It's particularly useful for teams building 3D or 2D games with custom tooling requirements.
Developers choose Hide for its deep integration with the Heaps engine, extensible plugin system, and comprehensive toolset tailored for game development. Unlike generic editors, it provides Heaps-specific workflows and the ability to create custom editors and prefabs directly within the IDE.
Overview
Heaps IDE
Use Cases
Best For
- Editing materials and shaders for Heaps-based 3D games
- Creating timeline-based visual effects and animations
- Designing 3D levels with terrain painting and light baking
- Building custom particle systems for 2D or 3D effects
- Extending game editors with project-specific prefabs and tools
- Managing game data through Castle database integration
Not Ideal For
- Projects using game engines other than Heaps (e.g., Unity, Godot)
- Teams needing a quick, out-of-the-box editor without compilation or dependency management
- Developers focused solely on 2D sprite animation or tilemap editing without 3D assets
- Environments with strict performance or memory constraints, as NWJS adds overhead
Pros & Cons
Pros
Tailored specifically for the Heaps engine, enabling seamless material editing, shader preview, and asset management directly within the IDE, as shown in its support for Heaps libraries and prefabs.
Allows developers to create custom plugins, prefabs, and file views, with clear examples in the README for extending the editor to match game-specific needs.
Includes timeline-based effects, 3D level design with light baking, and particle system editors, covering multiple aspects of game development without switching between external tools.
Integrates directly with Castle database for editing game data, streamlining data-driven workflows for Heaps projects, as mentioned in the key features.
Cons
Requires installing Haxe, multiple Haxe libraries from git, and NWJS, which is time-consuming and error-prone compared to downloadable binaries or simpler editors.
Only useful for Heaps engine projects, offering no support for other game engines, which restricts its applicability in multi-engine or transitioning teams.
The README provides basic instructions but lacks detailed tutorials, API references, or community resources, potentially hindering learning and troubleshooting.
Built on NWJS, a Chromium-based framework, which can lead to higher memory usage and slower performance compared to native desktop applications, especially with complex scenes.
Frequently Asked Questions
Related Projects
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