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HELIX is in Closed Alpha. Some features and documentation may be non-functional or out of date.

Configuring the map on HELIX Studio#

What the map is#

HelixMap is HELIX's built-in map system. Every map has two surfaces, both driven from one place:

  • A corner minimap that sits on the HUD during play.
  • A full-screen map the player opens with M (scroll to zoom, drag to pan).

The corner minimap on the HUD

The full-screen map, opened with M

Each surface draws its image one of two ways:

  • Scene Capture (live) — a hidden camera renders the world top-down whenever a new image is needed. No setup, but it has a runtime GPU cost and the quality is limited.
  • Pre-Baked — the world is captured once, ahead of time, into static textures on disk. Sharper and almost free at runtime, but you run a bake step whenever the level changes.

Live or baked?

For most maps the live Scene Capture is fine — it's the default and needs no setup. Reach for Pre-Baked when the map is very large (the live capture gets more expensive the more world it covers, so big levels run much better baked) or when you want the sharpest, most consistent visuals. Baked is the choice for a shipping build — see Baking the map.

You choose the surfaces and the strategy per level with a single Map Settings actor. This page walks through setting it up; for the meaning of every individual field, see the companion Map Settings Object reference.

Add the Map Settings actor#

  1. Open the Place Actors panel and search for Map Settings.
  2. Drag one into your level.

Search for Map Settings in the Place Actors panel

Only one Map Settings actor is allowed per level — a second one logs an error and nothing is applied.

The Map Settings actor in the World Outliner

Set the map bounds#

The actor has a Box component that defines the area the map covers — this is your capture size.

  • Move the actor so the box is centred over the playable region.
  • Scale the box (or set its Box Extent) so it covers the whole playable area.
  • The actor's Z position anchors the capture camera — place it slightly above the highest playable surface.

The box drives the map's centre, extent and camera height directly, so you size the map by sizing the box. These bounds are volume-controlled: editing the matching fields in the Details panel does nothing — the box always wins.

The Box component defines the captured area

Drop markers#

To mark a point of interest (a store, an objective, a spawn point):

  1. In Place Actors, search for Map Marker and drag one into the level.
  2. Position it where it should appear on the map.
  3. In the Details panel, expand Marker Data and set:
    • Title / Description — shown on the marker's hover tooltip on the full-screen map. A marker with no Title shows no tooltip.
    • Marker Type — a logical category (e.g. Store, Quest). The full-screen map legend shows one filterable row per distinct type, so set this to group related markers.
    • Override Texture — replace the default pin with your own icon.
    • Override Color — tint the icon.
    • Size Multiplier — scale the icon up or down (1.0 = default).

Add a Map Marker from the Place Actors panel

Configure the marker's data in the Details panel

The marker shows up on both the minimap and the full-screen map. The local player's own marker is added automatically — you don't place one. To add markers from gameplay code, see Configuring the map at runtime.

Reading the full-screen map#

Players open the full-screen map with M (scroll to zoom, drag to pan). Beyond viewing, they can:

  • Filter with the legend — a panel in the bottom-left lists one row per distinct Marker Type on the map (icon + name). Clicking a row filters the map to that type — everything else hides, while the player marker and the navigation waypoint always stay visible. Selecting also pans to the nearest marker of that type to the player; clicking the row again clears the filter and pans back to the player.
  • Read tooltips — hovering a marker shows its Title and Description. Markers without a Title show no tooltip.
  • Set a waypoint — clicking a marker (or double-clicking any empty spot) drops a navigation waypoint; the minimap then shows a clamped arrow pointing to it, and it auto-clears when the player arrives. See Navigation Waypoint in the HMap reference for the scripting side.

Scene Capture vs Baked#

Each surface picks a source — the backend that produces its image. There are four, two per surface:

Source Surface How it works Use when
Scene Capture Minimap Renders the world top-down each frame. Prototyping — no setup, instant.
Pre-Baked Capture Minimap Streams baked tiles from disk. Shipping — sharp, low GPU. Needs a bake.
Scene Capture Full Screen Full-map One live capture sized to the screen. Prototyping the full map.
Pre-Baked Capture Full Screen Full-map Reads the same baked tiles as the minimap. Shipping — pairs with the baked minimap.

You set these on the Map Settings actor via MinimapSourceClass and FullMapSourceClass. Leave a picker empty to use the project default (live). The live setup works out of the box — you only need a bake when you want final-quality visuals.

Pick the source backend for each surface

The options you'll touch most#

Most defaults are fine. The handful you'll reach for first:

  • Minimap zoom — how much world the minimap shows.
  • Projection — flat top-down (orthographic) or a tilted 3D look (perspective).
  • Icon size — pixel size of markers.
  • Open on player — whether the full-screen map opens centred on the player or zoomed out.

Every field, with types and defaults, is in the Map Settings Object companion.

The most-used settings on the Map Settings actor

Baking the map#

A bake turns the live capture into static textures on disk, plus a data asset that links them. Bake when you're shipping a level — baked maps look sharper and cost almost no GPU at runtime — or when the map is large enough that the live capture is too expensive. While you're still moving art around, stay on the live source; it's faster to iterate.

To bake:

  1. Set MinimapSourceClass (and/or FullMapSourceClass) to a Pre-Baked variant. Extra bake fields appear on the actor.
  2. Configure the bake — exposure, zoom depth, sky and water overrides. See Bake settings in the companion.
  3. Save the level, then press Bake Map in the Details panel.
  4. The bake captures each tile in turn; it can take a few minutes on a large map. Don't close the editor while it runs.
  5. When it finishes, PreBakedMapData is filled in automatically. Press Play — the map now reads from the baked tiles.

The Bake Map button on the Map Settings actor

Pan the full-screen map across the whole level to check the result, looking for seams between tiles, exposure jumps, water sparkle, or dark patches.

Troubleshooting the bake#

Tiles look washed out / too bright — decrease ExposureBias (e.g. 1.0 → 0.5) and re-bake.

Tiles look dark / underlit — increase ExposureBias (e.g. 1.0 → 1.5), and confirm bUDSSunCastShadows is true (with it off, Lumen loses the sun contribution and tiles darken). Re-bake.

Visible seams between tiles — disable Capture.ShowFlags.bReflections (reflections are view-dependent and the bake camera moves per tile), confirm bOverrideFluxWaterMaterial is on if the level has Flux water, and confirm UDSCloudCoverage is 0.0. Re-bake.

Sparkle on water — confirm bOverrideFluxWaterMaterial is on, FluxSurfaceActorClass matches your water actor, and MinimapWaterMaterial is a simplified material (no specular, detail wave, or foam). Re-bake.

Deepest zoom-out looks too coarse — cap it: set BakedZoom.MaxZoomOutLevel to e.g. 2 so the player stops at a finer level. Good for small maps where the deepest baked level is just a tile or two.

Bake takes too long — reduce TileResolution, increase TileWorldSize (fewer tiles), or reduce MaxZoomLevel.

Re-baking overwrites the existing tiles and data asset. If your version control marks files read-only (Perforce, Plastic), check the data asset and tile textures out first.