HUD & Monitoring¶

The HUD lets you watch the ecosystem with a multi-camera grid and per-camera overlays (energy, age, role, reproduction timers). It’s designed for quick validation and balancing.

HUD grid

In this article¶

What you get
Quick start
Camera grid
Target selection
Overlay info
Hotkeys
Advanced setup
Performance
Troubleshooting
See also

What you get¶

Grid of cameras (e.g., 3×3) that auto-attach to random flora/fauna.
Overlays with role, age, energy bars, birth timers.
Toggle on/off with a single hotkey.
Retargeting (optional) to cycle through interesting agents.
Non-destructive: no dependency on your gameplay UI.

Tip

Use HUD during balancing sessions, then disable it for production builds.

Quick start¶

Drag the HUD prefab (or EcosystemHUD GameObject) into your scene.
Set Rows/Columns (e.g., 3×3), Build On Play = On.
Choose a Target Mode (e.g., “Random Any”).
Press Play. Toggle with H.

Recommended first run - Rows × Cols: 3 × 3 - Target Mode: Random Any - Retarget Interval: 20–40 s - Show Overlay: On

Camera grid¶

Setting	What it does	Notes
Rows / Columns	Grid layout	2×2 (light), 3×3 (rich), 4×4 (heavy)
Build On Play	Auto-create cameras on Play	Turn off if you build the grid manually
Screen Padding	Margin around grid	Avoids UI overlap
FOV	Per-camera field of view	50–65 works well for wildlife
Follow Mode	Static / Soft Follow / Hard Follow	Soft adds gentle smoothing
Layer Mask	What cameras render	Exclude heavy debug layers

Avoid duplicates

If you already placed a custom grid, disable Build On Play to prevent a new set of cameras being created each time you press Play.

Target selection¶

HUD can pick what to watch in different ways:

Mode	Description	Use when
Random Any	Random among GrowthAgent and AnimalAgent	General overview
Random Flora	Only plants	Watching propagation/pollination
Random Fauna	Only animals	Predator–prey loops
Weighted	Bias by role (e.g., more pollinators)	Focus on specific loops

Retargeting - Each camera can retarget (e.g., every 30 s) to keep the view fresh. - Retarget locks are respected during linger (so predators can catch grounded pollinators).

Consistency - HUD keeps a stable mapping (camera i ↔ overlay i) so labels always match the view.

Overlay info¶

Each camera shows an overlay card:

Title: species/asset name + role icon
Vitals: Energy bar, Age (days), Maturity
Behavior: Hungry/Foraging, Linger time, Reproduction timer
For plants: Size %, Mature/Immature, Seeding rate (incl. pollination boost)

Element	Source
Energy / Linger	`AnimalAgent` runtime fields
Role / Locomotion	`AnimalAgent` inspector values
Seed chance / Size	`GrowthAgent`
Labels	Prefab/GameObject names (sanitized)

Note

Overlays update even if the camera is not retargeting. If a tracked agent despawns, the slot marks as lost and retargets on the next interval.

Hotkeys¶

Key	Action
H	Toggle HUD (grid + overlays)
R	Rebuild / rescan targets now
← / →	Cycle highlight across cameras (focus mode)
1…9	Quick focus on that camera cell (if enabled)

Hotkeys can be remapped in the HUD’s inspector.

Advanced setup¶

Persistent monitors¶

Place the HUD in your bootstrap scene and set Build On Play = Off after the first build if you want to lock the layout.
Or keep it On during iteration; just remember it’ll rebuild each Play.

Manual slots¶

You can assign a specific target to a given slot (e.g., the busiest flower patch).
Set Target Mode = Manual for that slot and drag a reference to the target.

Cinemachine (optional)¶

Replace the internal cameras with CinemachineVirtualCamera references for fancier movement; the HUD just needs a Camera per slot that follows a transform.

Performance¶

Cameras are expensive. Prefer 2×2 or 3×3 during gameplay; 4×4 is for debugging on beefy machines.
Reduce Retarget Interval frequency; no need to scan every second.
Lower overlay refresh rate (e.g., 5–10 Hz) for very large scenes.
Limit Sense Radius on agents; it’s often the real CPU hog.

Tip

During heavy profiling, use 1×2 (two tall views) to deep-dive into predator–prey windows without tanking FPS.

Troubleshooting¶

“Cameras keep multiplying every time I press Play.”
- You left Build On Play = On while also keeping previous cameras in the scene. Disable it or delete the old grid.

“Overlay shows wrong info for the camera.”
- Ensure index order is preserved: the HUD pairs camera slot i ↔ overlay slot i.
- If you modified the layout at runtime, press R (Rebuild).

“HUD is empty.”
- No registered agents found yet. Spawn flora/fauna first, or press R after seeding completes.
- Check Layer Mask; cameras might be rendering nothing.

“All cameras are black.”
- Scene lighting/culling/layers may be misconfigured. Temporarily set a default layer on the cameras and retest.

“Pollinator windows are hard to see.”
- Increase post-interact linger (birds ~30 s), and ensure flowers have small trigger colliders so visits register.