How do I view the output of a r.CompositionGraphDebug command?

In the Graphics Programming documentation ( Graphics Programming for Unreal Engine | Unreal Engine 5.1 Documentation ) it explains the use of r.CompositionGraphDebug as:

Execute to get a single frame dump of the composition graph of one frame (post processing and lighting).

How do I view the output of this?

Using the command r.CompositionGraphDebug outputs the composition graph to both the console and to several *.gml files. These files will be in your Screenshots/ folder.

Example: With the Effects Showcase project open on a Windows machine, after using the command I had the following files in Documents/Unreal Projects/Effects/Saved/Screenshots/Windows/:

  • CompositionLighting_AfterBasePass.gml
  • CompositionLighting_Lighting.gml
  • PostProcessing.gml
  • ReflectionEnvironments.gml

Opening these files in Notepad reveals the comment: “This file can be viewed with yEd from yWorks. Run Layout/Hierarchical after loading.”

GML (Graph Modeling Language) is a text file format supporting network data. You can download yEd (just one of the several available GML viewers) at yEd - Graph Editor

Opening the PostProcessing.gml file and running the Layout/Hierarchical command got the following output:


Showing the composition graph for post processing.