Preferences

Opens via File › Preferences.

Controls QtFRED editor settings. Changes take effect immediately; there is no Apply button. The exception is a handful of graphics settings that the renderer can only read while it is starting up - those are marked below, and QtFRED applies them the next time it is launched.

General

Miscellaneous editor options. Hover over each setting for a tooltip description.

Autosave

QtFRED periodically saves a background copy of the mission you are editing so that work can be recovered after a crash. Autosaves are written to a separate autosave folder and never overwrite the mission file you are working on.

• Autosave interval - how often, in seconds, the background save runs. The timer runs on its own; you do not need to trigger autosaves manually.
• Offer autosave recovery - when enabled, opening a mission whose autosave copy is newer than the mission file prompts you to load the autosave instead. Disable this to always open the on-disk mission without being asked.

Classic menu layout

Replaces the Objects, Environment, Mission, Narrative and Tools menus with the two menus FRED2 used: Editors, which lists every editor dialog, and Misc, which holds the object and subsystem commands and the remaining tools. The menu items and their shortcuts are the same in both layouts, and the change takes effect immediately.

Graphics

Controls how the 3D viewport is rendered. These settings affect the editor only - they are stored separately from the game's own graphics options and never change them.

Post-processing

Enable post-processing in the viewport routes the viewport through the same HDR rendering pipeline the game uses, adding bloom, tonemapping, and lightshafts. It is off by default, so missions look the way they always have until you opt in. The same switch is available as View › Enable Post Processing.

Every other setting in this section only changes what you see while post-processing is on, because they are all consumed by that pipeline.

Shadows & anti-aliasing

• Shadow quality - detail level of the shadows cast by the mission's sun. Higher settings cost more performance. Shadows are off until you raise this above Disabled, so enabling post-processing alone will not produce any. Requires a restart - including the first time you turn it on.
• Anti-aliasing - post-process anti-aliasing mode (FXAA or SMAA, in increasing quality). Applies immediately.
• MSAA - multisample anti-aliasing for the 3D scene, off or 4x/8x. More expensive than the post-process modes above but higher quality. Requires a restart.

Textures

• Texture filtering - bilinear or trilinear mipmap filtering. Left alone, QtFRED uses the same default the game does. Requires a restart.
• Anisotropic filtering - sharpens textures viewed at a steep angle. The list is limited to the levels your GPU reports, and the control is greyed out if it reports nothing worth offering. Left alone, QtFRED uses your hardware's maximum. Requires a restart.

Gamma

Brightness of the viewport, from 0.10 to 5.00. QtFRED defaults this to 3.00, higher than the game, because the viewport is not tonemapped unless post-processing is enabled. Applies immediately.

Grid

Configures the reference grid shown in the main viewport. You can set which world-space plane the grid lies on (XZ, XY, or YZ) and adjust the grid's center point to move it to a different position in the world. Use Reset grid to restore the plane and center to their defaults.

Controls

Allows remapping the default input controls, such as camera movement and viewport navigation. Hover over each entry for a description of what it does. The default keyboard bindings are listed on the Viewport page.

• Mouse Orbit Camera - invert the horizontal or vertical direction of mouse orbit rotation.
• Rotate Around Selection Midpoint - when several objects are marked, look at and orbit around the midpoint of the selection's bounding box instead of the current object. Off by default, which keeps the camera on the current object as before.