I’m building a visual editor for LibGDX without hiding LibGDX — Pixscape
Hi,
I've been building Pixscape, an open-source visual studio and runtime on top of LibGDX.
One of the main design goals is to provide visual authoring without turning LibGDX into a hidden implementation detail.
The Runtime is ECS-based, and the editor produces scene data that the Runtime loads and processes. Game code can use Pixscape's higher-level APIs for common operations, but direct LibGDX and Artemis access remains available when lower-level integration is needed.
That balance has been one of the most interesting parts of the project:
visual authoring
→ ECS runtime
→ high-level gameplay APIs
→ direct ECS / LibGDX access when needed
Pixscape currently supports things such as Tiled/TMX maps, isometric and 2.5D spatial ordering, physics authoring, animations, particles, prefabs, sprites, shaders, lights and parallax.
I've made a small isometric demo to exercise several of these systems together rather than showing them only as isolated editor features.
Website:
Demo:
Demo source:
https://github.com/pixscapegames/tiled-iso-demo
Pixscape Studio Free and Pixscape Runtime are both open source under Apache 2.0.
I'm especially interested in feedback from people working on engines and editors.
In particular, I'd be curious what you think about the boundary between the visual editor and the underlying ECS/runtime: how much convenience should an editor provide before it starts getting in the way of developers who want direct control?