Debug A Shader

Goal

Visualize intermediate values by line while editing GLSL.

Quick Steps

1. Open a shader preview.
2. Click the Debug icon in the preview toolbar.
3. Move your cursor across lines in the .glsl file.
4. Watch output switch to value visualization for the current line.

Debug Panel Controls

The debug panel header provides quick access to all debug tools:

• Pixel Inspector — probe pixel values under cursor
• Inline Rendering — show/hide debug render overlay
• Line Lock — freeze debug target line
• Normalize — cycle Off, Soft, Abs to reveal out-of-range values
• Step — apply binary threshold with configurable edge
• Variable Inspector — capture all in-scope variable values

Common Uses

• Confirm signed-distance-field boundaries with Step at edge 0.0
• Inspect helper function outputs using parameter controls (UV, centered UV, custom values, presets)
• Find exploding values with normalization modes (soft maps zero to gray, abs maps zero to black)
• Cap expensive loop iterations to debug raymarching without lag
• Use the variable inspector in grid mode to see spatial distribution with thumbnails and histograms

Next

Configure Buffers And Inputs — move on to multi-pass shaders, textures, and channel setup.