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Get started: build a character and a scene

This is a hands-on tour. In a few minutes you'll use the editor to build a character with a face and a short branching conversation — and watch the map, graph, and form stay in sync the whole way. You'll barely type any AMD syntax; the tools write it for you.

You need two things

  • VS Code with the Artemis AMD extension installed — see Install it.
  • A mission open. Use your universe file (the my_reach.amd from the writing walkthrough), or make a throwaway one to experiment in — Command Palette → Artemis AMD: New Content File, which scaffolds a complete .amd with every section stubbed and opens the Map and Graph next to it.

1. Meet the safety net

Open your .amd file. Within a second or two you get syntax colors and, a moment later, error-checking.

Try it: in any # [Name](key) heading, delete the closing ). A red squiggle appears, and the Problems panel (View → Problems) explains it. That broken heading would have made the whole node silently vanish in-game — the editor catches it before you ever launch.

This is the whole reason to use the extension

AMD fails quietly. A typo'd link or a dropped bracket doesn't crash — it just makes content not show up, and you spend twenty minutes wondering why. The squiggles turn those silent failures loud. Put the ) back and the squiggle clears.

2. See your story as a graph

Click the branch icon in the top-right of the editor toolbar (or Command Palette → Artemis AMD: Show Story Graph). Your content appears as swimlanes — one horizontal band per section (Dialogue, Lifeforms, Goals…), with links flowing left to right.

A fresh file is nearly empty. Let's fill it.

3. Add a character — without typing syntax

Double-click an empty spot in the graph. Pick Lifeform (cast) from the menu. Two things happen:

  1. A new character node is scaffolded into the Lifeforms section of your .amd — the heading, a Face:, Roles:, Scene:, and Color: are written for you.
  2. The Inspector opens on it.

Look at your text file: the new ### [New Character](character_1) block is there. You didn't type it.

4. Fill the character in the Inspector

The Inspector is your node as a form. It lives in three places — use whichever you like:

  • the AMD icon on the left Activity Bar (a panel that follows your cursor through the file),
  • the pop-out tab you got from Edit…, or
  • a drawer right inside the graph (click any node).

Change the Display to your character's name — say Quartermaster Vane. Set Roles to something like advisor. As you type, the change is written into the .amd live — no Save, no Apply button. Flip to the text file and watch it update; edit the text and watch the form follow. It's the same node, three views.

Dropdowns where it helps

Common fields (State, Kind, Scope, …) show as dropdowns with the valid choices, so you don't have to remember them. Use + add field for anything else.

5. Give them a face

A lifeform has a Face: field, and the Inspector shows a live portrait next to it (as long as the extension can find your Cosmos install — that's where the face art lives).

Click the face preview. The Face Builder opens: pick a race from the dropdown, then move the sliders — eyes, mouth, hair, and so on — with a checkbox to toggle the optional features. The portrait updates as you drag, and so does your character's Face: field — the changes apply live. When it looks right, you're done; there's nothing to press.

Already have a face string?

The builder starts from whatever's already in the field, so you can open it to tweak an existing face instead of starting over. And the Face… button offers quick options too: a random face per race, the female/male keywords, or paste a string from the in-game Avatar Editor.

6. Add two scenes and connect them

Double-click empty graph space again, twice, choosing Dialogue scene each time. You get two scene nodes in the Dialogue lane, each with a Speaker: and a % dialogue line ready to fill.

Now wire them together three ways — all without touching link syntax:

  • Character → opening scene. In the character's Inspector, set the Scene: field to the first scene's key (start typing and let completion help). That's who they talk to first.
  • Scene → scene choice. In the graph, drag from the first scene node onto the second. The editor writes a choice — - [New Scene](scene_2) — into the first scene's body. Open that scene in the Inspector and rename the choice's label in the Body to what the player should see, e.g. Ask about the cargo.
  • Fill each scene's % line with what the character says.

Your conversation now exists, and the graph shows the character in the Lifeforms lane linking down to the Dialogue lane, with the two scenes joined by a choice.

7. Read the graph like a map of your story

Now that there's something to see, the graph's tools earn their keep:

  • Collapse a branch. A node with children shows a ± badge — click it to fold the conversation below it, so a big story stops being a wall.
  • Filter sections. Uncheck Lifeforms in the toolbar and that lane drops out and the rest recompact — handy for focusing on just the dialogue.
  • Focus one thread. Right-click a node → Focus here to see only the flow reachable from it; widen or narrow with the direction/hops controls.
  • Back-links are chips. A choice that loops back to an earlier scene shows as a small ↩ chip on the source instead of a line running backward — click it to jump to the target.

8. Place it on the map

Some content is physical, not conversational. Open the Mission Map (the map icon in the toolbar, or Command Palette → Artemis AMD: Show Mission Map).

  • Right-click empty space → New landmark here to drop a point (a station, a derelict), or New region here for a tinted zone (Center / Radius / Color are written for you).
  • Drag a landmark to move it — its At: is rewritten; drag a region's dots to move or resize it.
  • Click any landmark or region to edit it in the Inspector drawer, right there on the map.

Everything you do here edits the same .amd your graph and text are showing.

9. Test it in the game

The editor never runs your mission — it edits the files. To see your character and scene for real, use your normal loop: save, restart the mission, and look. (For a universe, that's picking it from the Universe dropdown and launching; see How to test.)

What you learned

You built a character with a portrait and a branching conversation, placed a landmark, and never fought AMD syntax — the map, graph, inspector, and face tools wrote it for you, kept each other in sync, and flagged mistakes before they cost you a launch. From here, the rest of the writing walkthrough gives you the ideas to fill a universe with; this editor is how you build them comfortably.