Tips for Working with Component Mode

See the following tips for adding a Component Mode to your component.

Additional Input Handling

If you want to handle mouse events in a specific way (for example, outside of using manipulators), you can override HandleMouseInteraction, which is part of the EditorBaseComponentMode class that is defined in the ComponentModeRequestBus.

This HandleMouseInteraction function is called whenever a mouse event happens. The MouseInteractionEvent, which is passed as an argument to the function, contains information such as the mouse pick ray, position in screen space, and buttons and modifier keys that are pressed.

// EditorBaseComponentMode
void Refresh() override;
bool HandleMouseInteraction(
    const AzToolsFramework::ViewportInteraction::MouseInteractionEvent& mouseInteraction) override;

Additional Drawing

If you want to add additional debug drawing while in Component Mode, you can implement the AzFramework::EntityDebugDisplayEventBus and then override DisplayEntityViewport. Remember to connect the EntityDebugDisplayEventBus in the Component Mode constructor and disconnect in the destructor.

This can be useful for additional drawing for an entity and its components.

Note
The EntityDebugDisplayEventBus is only addressed by EntityId. You might encounter issues when working with multiple components of the same type on a given entity.

See the following example for the .h file.

// EditorPointLightComponentMode.h
// AzFramework::EntityDebugDisplayEventBus
void DisplayEntityViewport(
    const AzFramework::ViewportInfo& viewportInfo,
    AzFramework::DebugDisplayRequests& debugDisplay) override;

See the following example for the implementation .cpp file.

// EditorPointLightComponentMode.cpp
EditorPointLightComponentMode::EditorPointLightComponentMode(
    const AZ::EntityComponentIdPair& entityComponentIdPair, AZ::Uuid componentType)
    : EditorBaseComponentMode(entityComponentIdPair, componentType)
{
    ...
    AzFramework::EntityDebugDisplayEventBus::Handler::BusConnect(GetEntityId());
}

    EditorPointLightComponentMode::~EditorPointLightComponentMode()
{
    AzFramework::EntityDebugDisplayEventBus::Handler::BusDisconnect();
    ...
}

void EditorPointLightComponentMode::DisplayEntityViewport(
    const AzFramework::ViewportInfo& /*viewportInfo*/,
    AzFramework::DebugDisplayRequests& debugDisplay)
{
    ...
}