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Debugging

A guide to using the rendering debugger in Flora.

Flora integrates with Unity’s Rendering Debugger to provide tools for visualizing and inspecting instance behavior, culling, and performance in real time.

For Editor-only inspection of sources, templates, draws, graphics buffers, and culling-grid structure, use the Rendering Inspector.

Rendering Debugger tab

Accessing the Rendering Debugger

Flora adds a dedicated tab to Unity’s Rendering Debugger window.

Access Options

  • From the menu bar: Window → Flora → Rendering Debugger

  • In a development build (Play Mode or standalone): Ctrl + Shift + Backspace

Flora debugger hotkey

The Flora panel is available when a FloraSystem is active. If the system is not running, the panel shows a Not Running message.

Debug Properties

General

Debug Shading Mode

Visualizes internal instance data using shader debug colors:

  • None - disables Flora debug shading.

  • LOD - colors instances by selected LOD.

  • InstanceHandle - colors instances by handle. Editor only.

  • RandomID - colors instances by the per-instance random value, when allocated.

  • Template - colors instances by Flora template.

  • Draw - colors instances by draw entry.

  • DrawVariant - colors instances by draw variant.

  • CullingBatch - colors instances by culling-grid chunk.

  • BatchDomain - colors instances by BatchRendererGroup batch domain.

Display Culling Stats

Enables collection and display of compact CPU and GPU culling stats in the Culling Stats section. GPU statistics use asynchronous readback and may affect performance.

Debug Shading Opacity

Blends Flora debug shading with the normally shaded surface. This control is shown when a debug shading mode is active.

Enable GPU Checks

Enables GPU validation checks in the culling system. This is intended for debugging rendering or culling issues and may affect performance.

Open Rendering Inspector

In the Editor, opens the snapshot-based Rendering Inspector for source, template, draw, buffer, and culling-grid relationship diagnostics.

LOD

Controls how Flora selects LODs while debugging:

  • None - uses normal LOD selection.

  • ForceLOD - forces all eligible instances to use the selected LOD Index.

  • OnlyLOD - renders only the selected LOD Index and culls other LODs.

LOD Index is shown only when a LOD mode is active.

GPU Occlusion

These controls are shown when GPU occlusion is available for the active Flora system. If GPU occlusion is disabled by Runtime Settings, Scene Settings, or camera settings, the debugger shows an info message instead.

  • Occlusion Overlay - draws the occlusion test overlay.

  • Opacity - controls the occlusion overlay opacity.

  • Count Visible - includes visible-instance counts in the occlusion overlay.

  • Depth Overlay - displays the occluder depth pyramid debug view.

  • Range Min / Range Max - remaps the depth-overlay display range.

Culling Overrides

Temporarily bypasses individual culling stages to diagnose missing or unexpectedly sparse instances:

  • Disable Density Culling - makes density culling pass every instance.

  • Disable GPU Occlusion Culling - makes GPU occlusion tests pass every instance. This control is shown when GPU occlusion is available.

Culling Grid

Displays Flora's culling grid as procedural debug lines.

Mode

  • Disabled - no culling-grid overlay.

  • Heatmap - visualizes occupancy/intensity.

  • Level - visualizes culling-grid levels.

The debugger includes a color legend for the active mode. Heatmap colors progress from cyan at lower occupancy through orange, red, and burgundy at higher occupancy.

Types

  • Blocks - top-level grid regions.

  • Cells - mid-level grid cells.

  • Chunks - instance chunks inside cells.

Draw Distance limits how far the overlay draws from the camera.

Culling Stats

When Display Culling Stats is enabled, the debugger shows:

  • View Count

  • Per View Stats

    • View and view type

    • CPU-visible chunks and instances

    • CPU draw commands

    • GPU-visible and occluded instances

    • GPU-visible draws

These stats form a compact culling pipeline for checking whether Flora produces CPU draw work for each view and how GPU occlusion reduces it. Detailed Editor-only tables remain available in the Flora Scene Settings inspector.

How To Verify

  • Set Debug Shading Mode to LOD and confirm Flora instances are tinted by LOD.

  • Enable Display Culling Stats and confirm view rows update while cameras render.

  • Enable Disable GPU Occlusion Culling when GPU occlusion is active; missing instances that reappear were being occluded.

  • Enable Culling Grid > Cells and confirm the culling grid overlay follows active Flora content.

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