Launching the Editor
The editor is a web app at editor.awaken3d.dev: this page covers how you get there, what loads in what order, what you see first, and how the workspace is laid out.
Where the editor lives
Awaken's sites are separate deployments:
awaken3d.dev- the home page (a separate Next.js site): the pitch, the devlog and the Launch Editor buttons. None of the editor or WebGPU code downloads there.editor.awaken3d.dev- the editor. It is the whole app, served at its root.docs.awaken3d.dev- this manual.
The editor page paints a "Loading editor…" line first, then lazy-loads the heavy chunk (the WebGPU renderer, every panel, the import pipeline and the script compiler) and its styles (apps/editor/src/main.tsx).
If you run Awaken from source, pnpm dev serves the editor at http://localhost:5180/ (Vite moves to the next free port if 5180 is taken).
First load
- The editor chunk loads. Before it arrives, a browser without WebGPU is already counted by the hosted editor's usage stats, so a failed visit is visible to the team; see the privacy policy.
- A store with the default scene is made. Every session starts with the default scene below, even when the Welcome page covers it.
- The Welcome page opens in front of the Editor tab, unless you switched it off. See Welcome Page.
- The Scene view starts WebGPU when its tab is first shown. If the browser cannot draw, both the Welcome page and the Scene view show a notice saying why and what to do; see Requirements & Browser Support.
On a machine with two GPUs (a hybrid-graphics laptop), a GPU dropdown appears in the Scene view so you can choose the discrete or integrated one. See Requirements.
The default scene
A new project is never an empty void. seedDefaultScene (apps/editor/src/scene.ts) puts three objects in it, so there is something to see, light and orbit:
| Object | What it is |
|---|---|
| Ground | A cube scaled to 12 x 0.5 x 12 m, grey, with its top at y = 0. It has no Collider; add one before anything stands on it. |
| Sun | A directional light tilted 0.9 rad down, warm white, intensity 2.2. |
| Main Camera | A perspective camera (60° field of view, near 0.1, far 1000) at (0, 2.5, 8), tilted slightly down, so the Game view works at once. |
You get this scene from New Project or the Empty scene template on the Welcome page (a new, untitled project), and from File ▾ > New Scene (a fresh scene in the open project, after a "Discard the current scene and start a new one?" confirmation). They are ordinary GameObjects: edit or delete them in the Hierarchy and Inspector.
A new project carries no starter gameplay content. Ready-made pieces (a first-person player, a third-person player, a physics ball, a campfire) are free packages in the Asset Store, and two of the Welcome page's templates install one for you.
The "reopen last project" prompt
When the Welcome page is switched off, the editor offers your last project instead, in Chrome and Edge where the File System Access API lets it keep a handle to the file:
Reopen last project "…"? - Reopen / Cancel
- Reopen asks the browser for permission to the file and restores the project: scenes, meshes, textures, prefabs, scripts and settings.
- Cancel leaves the default scene, and the editor stops asking about that project until you open it deliberately again (File ▾ > Open Recent or Open Project…).
With the Welcome page on, there is no prompt: its Recent list offers the same project, marked Last opened.
Saving is explicit: Ctrl/⌘+S or File ▾ > Save Project. The editor does not auto-save, because an auto-save rewrote every mesh and texture of a large project on a timer. More in Saving & Opening Projects.
The workspace
The editor is a set of dockable, draggable tabs. Drag a tab onto another group's edge to split it, onto a tab bar to join it, or out to float it; the layout is remembered per browser.
| Tab | What it is | Shown |
|---|---|---|
| Editor | The Scene view: the 3D (or 2D) Viewport you build in, with click-select and Move/Rotate/Scale gizmos | Always |
| Game | The scene through its camera, the player's view; Play brings it forward | Always |
| Hierarchy | The tree of every object in the scene | Always |
| Inspector | The components and properties of the selection | Always |
| Assets | The Asset Browser: meshes, textures, materials, prefabs, scenes, sounds and more | Always |
| Console | Log output from the editor, GPU errors and your scripts | Always |
| Code, Shaders, Anim Graph, Particles | The code panel, the shader editor, the animation graph editor and the particle editor | In the tab bar once the project has a script, shader, graph or effect; until then under the tab bar's … menu |
| Screens | The in-game UI workspace | Once the open scene has UI; until then under … |
| Welcome, Render, Store, Plugins, Simulation | The Welcome page, render settings, the store, installed plugins and the Simulation panel | On demand, from their menu or Windows ▾ |
Along the top sits the Toolbar:
- File ▾ - scenes, projects, preview and export, App Settings, Project Settings, Import Model, Render Settings.
- Windows ▾ - every panel by name (a ✓ marks the ones docked) and any plugin panels.
- Help ▾ - Welcome, then Documentation ↗, Quick Tour ↗ and Devlog ↗ in a new tab.
- The project's file name ("Untitled" until the first save, with a • while there are unsaved changes).
- Move, Rotate, Scale, Snap and the snap Cell, Undo and Redo, while a Scene or Game view is visible.
- ▶ Play / ⏸ Pause / ■ Stop.
- Store, the ? help-marker toggle and the sign-in widget on the right.
See Toolbar & Menus and Interface & Workspace for the details. Ready to do something? Take the Five-Minute Tour.