TextScene Inspector: Godot .tscn preview for VS Code
See your Godot .tscn scenes in 3D without opening the Godot editor.
Renders meshes, PBR materials, lights, cameras, environments and instanced
scenes from the text file with three.js, and lets you click, orbit and
inspect every node. Works in desktop VS Code and in VS Code for
the Web (vscode.dev).
Why it is different
- 🧊 A real 3D viewport, not a node tree. The official godot-tools
"Scene Preview" is a tree view; this draws the scene.
- 🚫 No Godot install, no editor cache. It renders straight from the
.tscn text. Thumbnail extensions depend on Godot's cache.
- 🔎 Inspect as you go: scene-tree viewer, node property panel,
click-to-select in the viewport, jump-to-definition, hot-reload on save.
- ✅ Built-in
.tscn linter to catch malformed scenes.
What it is not
A drop-in replacement for the Godot editor. Rendering is an
approximation of Godot's renderer (custom shaders and some advanced
material and lighting features may differ). Use it for inspection and
review, not pixel-exact validation.
Usage
- Open a folder containing
.tscn files (a Godot project root works best, so res:// paths resolve).
- Open a
.tscn file.
- Run TextScene: Open Preview to the Side from the Command Palette, the editor title bar, the editor/Explorer context menu, or the
ctrl+k v (cmd+k v on macOS) keybinding.
Features
Interactive scene preview
- Navigate the viewport as you would in Godot's 3D editor: middle-drag orbits, Shift+middle-drag pans, Ctrl+middle-drag and the wheel zoom, right-drag freelooks (with WASD/QE flying while held), Numpad 1/3/7 snap to the front/right/top face (Ctrl for the opposite one), Numpad 5 toggles orthographic, and F frames the selection. Alt+left-drag orbits for a mouse or trackpad without a middle button. The camera position survives edits and reloads.
- On a trackpad, Shift+two-finger scroll pans and pinch zooms. On a tablet, one finger (or a stylus) orbits, a tap selects, two fingers pan and pinch zooms. Press ?, or click the summary pill over the viewport, for the full list on whichever device you are using.
- Scene-tree and inspector panels beside the viewport: click an object in the 3D view to select it in the tree, inspect its parsed properties, and double-click a node to jump to its line in the source.
- 2D/3D viewport toggle for scenes containing Control or Node2D content (UI, sprites). The
textscene.defaultViewportMode setting controls which mode a new preview starts in: auto (default) matches the Godot editor's own rule, and 2D or 3D forces every new preview into that mode.
Editor integration
- Syntax highlighting for
.tscn files: section headings, property keys, strings, numbers, and Godot's typed-literal constructors (SubResource(...), Color(...), Vector3(...) and so on) are colored instead of plain text.
- Outline view: document symbols for nodes and resources in
.tscn files.
- Go to Definition on
SubResource(...) and ExtResource(...) references.
res:// document links: res://relative/path references are clickable, opening the referenced file.- Problems panel diagnostics: open
.tscn files are linted live, reporting both syntax errors and semantic rule violations. Toggle with textscene.diagnostics.enabled, or tune re-lint timing with textscene.diagnostics.lintDebounceMs.
- Hot reload: the preview refreshes when you save the scene, or any sub-scene, texture or material it references.
Resource resolution
res:// paths resolve from the workspace root, so project-relative textures, materials, GLB meshes, and instanced sub-scenes (PackedScene) load the way they do in Godot.
Supported nodes
Every instantiable node type of Godot 4.6.3 is parsed and lint-checked, each as a self-contained slice. These render:
| Category |
Nodes |
| Meshes |
MeshInstance3D with Box, Sphere, Cylinder, Plane, Capsule, Torus, Prism and Quad primitives; CSG nodes with union, intersection and subtraction; external GLB meshes |
| Lights & environment |
DirectionalLight3D, OmniLight3D and SpotLight3D (with shadows), AreaLight3D (no shadows), WorldEnvironment (ambient, fog, background), Camera3D |
| Materials |
StandardMaterial3D PBR: albedo, metallic, roughness, normal, emission, AO, UV transforms, transparency, external textures |
| Physics |
StaticBody3D, RigidBody3D, CharacterBody3D, Area3D and their 2D counterparts, with CollisionShape gizmos |
| 2D & UI |
Node2D, Sprite2D, AnimatedSprite2D, Polygon2D, Line2D, TileMapLayer, Camera2D, Label3D, Sprite3D, and Control nodes drawn in the WebGL canvas |
| Non-visual |
Audio, timer and other nodes that draw nothing stay in the tree, and a spatial one still positions its children |
An unrecognised node type stays in the scene tree, so its children still render.
Requirements
- VS Code 1.85 or later (desktop or vscode.dev).
- No Godot installation required: the extension parses and renders
.tscn files on its own.
More
License
MIT
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