archived-dots

[rotund token]

it's just an IRateManager

that you can attach to a system group

just like how FixedStepSimulationSystemGroup works

[whole gyro]

Is there any way to query for entities that have a disabled component?
I know we can use EntityQueryOptions.IgnoreComponentEnabledState to ignore the enabled bit, but can we query specifically for the entities that have the component disabled?

[rotund token]

yes

use the EntityQueryOptions.IncludeDisabledEntities in the query

            {
                All = new[] { ComponentType.ReadOnly<MeshLODComponent>() },
                None = new[] { ComponentType.ReadOnly<RootLODWorldReferencePoint>() },
                Options = EntityQueryOptions.IncludeDisabledEntities | EntityQueryOptions.IncludePrefab
            });```

some random example (also querying prefabs)

[whole gyro]

I don't mean the Disabled component. I mean an IEnableableComponent that is has been disabled with SetComponentEnabled(entity, false)

[rotund token]

oh

well exactly what i said

except IgnoreComponentEnabledState

😄

well hmm

it will be boht disabled/enabled

do you just want disabled ones?

[whole gyro]

yeah exactly

just the disabled set. I know its a weird thing to ask, but wondering if it is possible

[rotund token]

sorry haven't really played with it enough yet (at all) to know

i know you could totally check the state yourself easy enough in a ijobchunk

[viral sonnet]

i didn't find this out either. haven't needed it but just a question that cropped up

tertle, from docs: var tick = GetSingleton<NetworkTime>().ServerTick;

[whole gyro]

yeah I was wondering that. Thought I saw something about IJobChunk having to check enabled flags yourself. I don't use IJobChunk myself, but I guess I could. Mainly wondering if it is possible in an IJobEntity or just a manual EntityQuery.

[rotund token]

what about it?

that's the new singleton for tick rate (you used to have to get the systemgroup to read it, one of my pain points of updating)

[viral sonnet]

do you know how netcode handles tick? is it in a singleton?
that was my question ^^

[rotund token]

oh i thought you wanted to know how it actually ticks

not how to read the settings

[viral sonnet]

interesting that they use a singleton. that's really the new thing now. previously it was just a field in a ClientSimulationSystemGroup/SimulationSystemGroup

[rotund token]

yeah but they don't exist anymore

and well obviously don't work well in ISystem

netcode has always been about the singletons though

so many of them

[viral sonnet]

netcode is really the best project to see all changes in action 😄

i have stopped with netcode 0.6

kind of want to wrap my head around the unity dev statement to sometimes use static in favor of singletons. i don't really see it ^^

at least not with ISystem and Burst 🙂

is there a faster version than my 2 lines? ```state.EntityManager.CreateEntity(typeof(LoadSpells));

var loadSpellEnt = state.EntityManager.CreateEntity();
state.EntityManager.AddComponent<LoadSpells>(loadSpellEnt); ``` first line uses ComponentType[] which doesn't work with burst

[rotund token]

well the archetype version is going to be better

if you cache the archetype in oncreate / outside burst

[viral sonnet]

ok. do you know why typeof in general is not supported for burst?

is it because it can't make sure that the type is unmanaged?

[rotund token]

typeof returns Type
Type is always managed

public abstract class Type : MemberInfo, _Type, IReflect

[viral sonnet]

oh never realized

[drowsy pagoda]

Not quite sure what's going on here. Bug?
I have a simple Physics Shape dynamic body that spawns on top of static physics shape "floor". The physics works as expected. However, when I go to click on anything in the Entities Hierarchy, the dynamic body "slips" below the floor and starts falling into the abyss. This happens with and without Live Baking turned on.

[rotund token]

seems to be a common complaint in forums

do you have subscene open?

i believe it's probably because the physic colliders is created in the baking systems not from bakers

[drowsy pagoda]

Woah for real? That's annoying. Yes, I have subscene opened, and I have both dynamic and static bodies authoring GOs loaded with PhysicsShapeAuthoring and PhysicsBodyAuthoring.

Is there a common solution to this as well? Or this just a bug waiting for patch?

[rotund token]

close your subscene is really only solution as far as i'm aware

which isn't really a solution

[drowsy pagoda]

yeah...

[rotund token]

that said i pretty much never open my subscenes at runtime which is why i never had this issue

and wasn't sure for ages what people were complaining about

tried to repo it all sorts of ways

[drowsy pagoda]

lol

can you send me the link for the forum where this is mentioned? I'd like to jump on that train 😉

[rotund token]

in 0.51 i actually had a script that would not let me enter play mode if a subscene was open

broke things - but i finally worked around that

[rotund token]

https://forum.unity.com/threads/1-0-0-exp-0-clicking-into-scene-view-breaks-physics.1343342/

[drowsy pagoda]

thx

[brave field]

@proud jackal How to extend idomatic foreach parameters limit without using aspect?

[gusty comet]

If a system does stuff like Raycast queries against PhysicsWorldSingleton, does that system have to have an attribute like [UpdateInGroup(typeof(FixedStepSimulationSystemGroup))]? My systems are randomly getting "nothing hit" for raycasts, and they update in the normal Simulation group

[rotund token]

They do not

But realise it will only update in fixed step simulation

[gusty comet]

Thank you. Any idea why raycasts would randomly fail despite succeeding with barely different start and end points? I have a system constantly raycasting from y=500 to y=-500 with a huge flat cube 1 unit tall and 100 on each side, located at y=0

The cube has a Physics Body, and its PhysicsCategoryTags match that supplied to the raycast

Hmm, are there serious consequences for using CollisionWorld rather than PhysicsWorld or even just PhysicsWorldSingleton?

[rotund token]

PhysicsWorldSingleton just has a reference to PhysicsWorld and CollisionWorld

[gusty comet]

Please excuse the flurry of questions, but also is neglecting to set GroupIndex an issue?

[rotund token]

it should be 0 unless you want to do special things

[gusty comet]

Thank you. I'll keep looking for clues

[rotund token]

sorry i got distracted by work i had some stuff to follow up on this

this means if your fps > fixed update and you create new objects in update, it might take multiple frames before they enter physics world

alternatively if you destroy an entity it might still exist in physics world for multiple frames

[gusty comet]

Useful info! Thanks. I'll keep that in mind

In other news, there's this weird behavior where clicking on the "Entities Hierarchy" tab causes the next Raycast to fail

[rotund token]

with open subscenes?

[gusty comet]

Yes

[rotund token]

probably same issue as things falling through ground

[gusty comet]

Ah. So I just close the Subscene/stop editing them before playing?

[rotund token]

yes

shouldn't be an issue with closed subscene

you can still click them it'll just be entity representation instead

[gusty comet]

Thanks, I'll give it a shot

[rotund token]

we were just discussing this above ^

[gusty comet]

Welp, that fixed the issue. Problem is, all the Entity names have reverted to "Entity (x:y)" and since the Subscene takes 1 or 2 frames to load, some of my systems that rely on singletons from that Subscene throw an exception or two

Thanks a ton tertle for your support

[rotund token]

oh yeah

i have a script to handle this

it basically in OnCreate stops the simulation/presentation systems running

until subscenes you've marked as required have loaded

then starts running world

most people and unity would probably just put RequireForUpdate<T> on the system though

but i really dislike that everywhere

for a once off wait

[gusty comet]

Thanks again. I think it's better if I brush up on Subscenes first before flooding this channel with questions

And yeah I'll try the RequireForUpdate check

[deft pilot]

hmm i feel like i'm missing something from my understanding of how a buffer gets disposed of

            Entities.ForEach((in EnemySpawnTag enemySpawnTag, in EnemySpawnComponent enemySpawnComponent, in DynamicBuffer<EnemyPathElement> enemyPathTags) =>    
            {
                var secondTileWorldPosition = enemyPathTags[1].Value.WorldPosition;
                var spawnPosition = enemySpawnComponent.Value.WorldPosition;
                var enemyPrefabs = EntityManager.GetBuffer<PrefabGroup>(prefabGroupQuery.GetSingletonEntity(), true).Reinterpret<Entity>();

                var newEnemyEntity = EntityManager.Instantiate(enemyPrefabs[0]);
                // EntityManager.SetArchetype(entity, this.enemyArchetype);
                EntityManager.AddComponentData(newEnemyEntity, new EnemyPathStepComponent() { value = 1 });
                EntityManager.AddComponentData(newEnemyEntity, new MoveToWorldPositionComponent() { Value = secondTileWorldPosition });
                EntityManager.AddComponentData(newEnemyEntity, new Translation { Value = spawnPosition });
                var buffer = EntityManager.AddBuffer<EnemyPathElement>(newEnemyEntity);
                buffer.CopyFrom(enemyPathTags);
            }).WithStructuralChanges().Run();

whats causing the buffer here to throw?

ObjectDisposedException: Attempted to access BufferTypeHandle<TowerDefenceECS.Components.EnemyPathElement> which has been invalidated by a structural change.

[rotund token]

any structural change

will invalidate all existing buffers

[deft pilot]

but i cant' see one

[rotund token]

var buffer = EntityManager.AddBuffer<EnemyPathElement>(newEnemyEntity);

invalidates
in DynamicBuffer<EnemyPathElement> enemyPathTags

[deft pilot]

why would it?

[rotund token]

because it's a structural change

any structural change
will invalidate all existing buffers

[deft pilot]

oh wait

literally all

[rotund token]

yes

all

[deft pilot]

not just that buffer

[rotund token]

https://docs.unity3d.com/Packages/com.unity.entities@1.0/manual/concepts-structural-changes.html#sync-points

Structural changes not only require a sync point, but they also invalidate all direct references to any component data. This includes instances of DynamicBuffer and the result of methods that provide direct access to the components such as ComponentSystemBase.GetComponentDataFromEntity.

[deft pilot]

            Entities.ForEach((Entity entity, in EnemySpawnTag enemySpawnTag, in EnemySpawnComponent enemySpawnComponent) =>    
            {
                var enemyPathElements = EntityManager.GetBuffer<EnemyPathElement>(entity);

so this should technically solve it?

[rotund token]

no

it will still be invalidated

you would have to make a copy in a native array

ToNativeArray()

[deft pilot]

wait i'm confused now

does getbuffer not get me a pointer to it?

[rotund token]

which is invalidated

as soon as you call any EntityManager.Create/Destroy/Add/Remove methods

because those methods

might move the buffer

to a new location in memory

therefore it is invalidate

[deft pilot]

and get buffer doesn't point to the new location when its called?

[rotund token]

to stop blowing yourself up, unity forcefully invalidates them all

[rotund token]

no

[deft pilot]

i see...

so getbuffer is a cache of pointers

for like that frame or something

or job?

[rotund token]

getbuffer just gets the current pointer to the data

which is valid until you make a structural change

the TIL here is, don't use entitymanager, use a local command buffer
play it back after the job

[deft pilot]

i'm trying to find out how often get buffer is "refreshed" with new pointer

[rotund token]

or, copy your buffer to a nativearray

[deft pilot]

hmm k

[rotund token]

EM.getbuffer

just gets the current pointer to the current location of the buffer

[deft pilot]

i'll look into command buffers afterwards i guess

for now i'll just use native arrays and manually dispose of them

[rotund token]

you don't need to use a command buffer system

just do a var ecb = new EntityCommandBuffer(allocator.tempjob); before the job

then use that instead of EM

then after job call

ecb.PlayBack(entitymanager)

ecb.dispose

it just defers all the structural changes till after the job has run

[deft pilot]

i see, whats the draw back?

[brave field]

How to extend idomatic foreach 8 parameters limit?

[rotund token]

nothing really, you could even turn burst back on your job

[deft pilot]

            var entityCommandBuffer = new EntityCommandBuffer(Allocator.TempJob);
            var enemyPrefabs = EntityManager.GetBuffer<PrefabGroup>(prefabGroupQuery.GetSingletonEntity(), true).Reinterpret<Entity>();

            Entities.ForEach((in EnemySpawnTag enemySpawnTag, in EnemySpawnComponent enemySpawnComponent, in DynamicBuffer<EnemyPathElement> enemyPathElements) =>    
            {
                var secondTileWorldPosition = enemyPathElements[1].Value.WorldPosition;
                var spawnPosition = enemySpawnComponent.Value.WorldPosition;
                
                var newEnemyEntity = EntityManager.Instantiate(enemyPrefabs[0]);
                // EntityManager.SetArchetype(entity, this.enemyArchetype);
                entityCommandBuffer.AddComponent(newEnemyEntity, new EnemyPathStepComponent() { value = 1 });
                entityCommandBuffer.AddComponent(newEnemyEntity, new MoveToWorldPositionComponent() { Value = secondTileWorldPosition });
                entityCommandBuffer.AddComponent(newEnemyEntity, new Translation { Value = spawnPosition });
                var buffer = entityCommandBuffer.AddBuffer<EnemyPathElement>(newEnemyEntity);
                buffer.CopyFrom(enemyPathElements);
            }).WithStructuralChanges().Run();

            entityCommandBuffer.Playback(EntityManager);
            entityCommandBuffer.Dispose();

welp lets see if this works

[rotund token]

.WithStructuralChanges() - you shouldn't need this

          var newEnemyEntity = EntityManager.Instantiate(enemyPrefabs[0]);

you're still breaking it here

[deft pilot]

ahh yes

okay thats pretty cool that works

thanks

too bad i can't try this on 1.0.0

since ForEach is no longer recommended

[rustic rain]

You can

It still works

[rotund token]

for now

[deft pilot]

you can?

[rotund token]

seems silly to write new code you're doing to have to rewrite anyway

[deft pilot]

i think you misread my comment lol

[rotund token]

you can just do the same thing in IJE

[deft pilot]

who knows when they support TileMaps in 2022.2

it took forever in the past to port stuff

with 2d physics

[rotund token]

I don't think 2d is high on any priority

[deft pilot]

yeah

oh well

[rustic rain]

For 2d you gotta reimplement tons of stuff

Sadly

[tepid radish]

System.IndexOutOfRangeException: Index {0} is out of range of '{1}' Length.
This Exception was thrown from a job compiled with Burst, which has limited exception support. .....

This occurred less on Unity 2019.
But on 2021 it occurs more frequently.

May this be a known issue?
Could anyone help me please?

[rustic rain]

disable burst and see the normal exception

[deft pilot]

if you wanted to destroy all entities with a certain tag and also act on them is it better to do something like:

E.Foreach((Entity entity) =>
{
  // do processing
  ecb.Destroy(entity);
};

// vs

E.Foreach((Entity entity) =>
{
  // do processing
};

ecb.DestroyEntitiesForEntityQuery(someEntityQuery);

[spice vale]

The variants taking a query will always be faster, because then the operation can be done at chunk level, rather than doing it one entity at a time.

[rustic rain]

or also because manual per entity iteration requires to save each entity

and some meta data for ECB

[deft pilot]

this makes sense

i was thinking that was the case

just wasn't sure if the run of the query again

was a big enough overhead or not

[spice vale]

For example adding a tag to a query will simply mark the chunks that they have the tag

[deft pilot]

alright now to figure out how to sync entity component data to UI display

guessing this is gonna be weird

[dense crypt]

Grab the entity manager from world in MonoBehaviour update and you can do what you need

[deft pilot]

i hate that this is the answer

[dense crypt]

Yeah unfortunately that's the case, but if you do all calculations in dots it's kinda a miniscule overhead

[deft pilot]

can't you technically do something like

make an gameobject to an entity

that has a script that takes in the value

but not sure if you can even do that with entity components

haven't tried

[dense crypt]

You could also just expose an array in a system and grab data from that

[deft pilot]

O.o?

[dense crypt]

Yeah, if you have a persistent NativeArray or similar and get a reference to your system from EntityManager.GetOrCreateSystem then all you have to do is grab whatever you need from it. Assuming you "store" the data in said array

[rotund token]

Personally I think you should be doing it in reverse

Make a system write to the ui

[deft pilot]

wait how does a system write to the UI

what

does it just write to a static value

[spice vale]

Use a SystemBase instead of ISystem

[rotund token]

No, a system just needs a reference to whatever element it owns

I personally have 1 system per panel that owns the element

I find this nicer with ui toolkit because then you don't even need to touch monobehaviour

And it highlights the benefit of this approach

[deft pilot]

crap i think i might've had a false assumption

that you can't touch unity mainthread stuff

in systems

outside of the job translation stuff

[rotund token]

You can touch anything in update

You just can't touch it inside a job off main thread

[deft pilot]

shit...

okay time to refactor

[rotund token]

(At least not without considerable effort)

[deft pilot]

time to rip out all of these monob's

i was like how the hell do people deal with this coupling

of monob data vs entity data

[rotund token]

I have no monobehaviours

Outside of authoring

[deft pilot]

yeah i must've mis read about not being able to do that in jobs

meaning not being able to do it at all

ughh

i rewrote all my pathfinding to be stateless

just because i thought this was true

you know how stupid the code looks ughh

[rotund token]

Learning experience! You probably learned something new while doing it!

[deft pilot]

i learnt i'm never doing that again

Lol

in all honestly

its easier to restart this project

i might just archive this one

and start a new one

refactoring starting from now is abit too crazy

[deft pilot]

is there something i can read about getting references of stuff like this?

or is this specifically whatever UI toolkit is

aka it can draw UI's via code

[rotund token]

Ui toolkit is unitys new ui (probably) replacing ugui

[deft pilot]

yeah reading up on it

gives me some wpf vibes

[rotund token]

You don't have to use it and you can stick with the existing ui system if that's what you're comfortable with

But it's nice because you can just load the panel and manipulate it direct in the system

The only thing you have up solve is getting a reference to the ui document

[deft pilot]

i basically hate frontend

so i'll probably stick with the old UI system cause i know abit about it

[rotund token]

So it's just 1 single single pocket in the scene to deal with instead of 100s of elements

Fair enough, I too do not overly enjoy front end

Which is why I assign all those tasks to other people at work 😆

[deft pilot]

i'm a backend only developer at work

so don't even need to delegate 😛

[rotund token]

Our studio historically has not been big enough to have such fixed roles

[deft pilot]

ahh i sold my soul to normal business coding couldn't stomach working for a game studio

cause of pay unfortunately

[rotund token]

And while generally most front end work would end up with same people, at some point you just need to step up and get a job done

Yeah I'm sure I could probably make more elsewhere

But then I'd hate myself 😆

[deft pilot]

but bills mortgage and shit

not sure how i'd live on half my salary

[rotund token]

(I actually don't care that much for making games, I just enjoy game architecture)

[deft pilot]

well anyway back to the actual question, how does a system have a reference to the TMP_Text component to update?

[rotund token]

Well if you're going down the ugui root

Your going to have to write yourself a presentation layer

On monobehaviours to expose to your systems

[deft pilot]

that still begs the question how does the system have a reference to the monobehaviour

[rotund token]

However you want

Bind it to a component during baking

Make it a singleton you read at runtime

Search for it in a scene

[deft pilot]

i see

[rotund token]

Load it from addressable from your system

[deft pilot]

okay thanks

this should be enough for me to start

[rotund token]

Really depends how extensive you want this to be

And how much effort you want to put into it

[deft pilot]

i more trying to understand ECS

so making a super extensible frontend doesn't really matter to me right now

[rotund token]

Debug to console them 😄

[deft pilot]

rofl

you joke but thats what first C# programs are

basically Console.WriteLine

[rustic rain]

🤔

how entities for each lambda captures managed locals?

[rotund token]

what do you mean

[rustic rain]

Entities for each can use managed locals if you run it

without burst

I wonder if I can do the same with IJobEntity

[proud jackal]

Managed fields in IJobEntity are not allowed, but Managed Components are as long as you call .Run :3

https://docs.unity3d.com/Packages/com.unity.entities@1.0/manual/iterating-data-ijobentity.html#execute-parameters

[rustic rain]

🤔

[viral sonnet]

@rotund token did you manage to make your UI systems, ISystem and burst compiled too? (for the most part)

[rustic rain]

🤔

why Material int is 6

and Mesh is 3

while arrays are both [3] size

and it always returns null

bruh

[rustic rain]

🥲

rip selection tool

[stone osprey]

Currently implementing my health mechanic... a health component totally makes sense.
However some entities should be destroyed upon death, others should respawn... So i thought about marking an entity as dead instead of checking its health everytime. Does this make sense ? Are there actually rules for when we should use tag components and when not ?

[viral sonnet]

not really rules. with enabled components this makes a lot sense now, having a IsDead or IsAlive tag

but even without. there is change filtering so you don't need to check every health all the time, only when the health is changed. (not individually, you still need to check the whole chunk)

it's a bit more involved though than just tags

[stone osprey]

Thanks that sounds great ^^
Yeah the lack of "rules" or patterns kinda distracts me... i often sit here and think myself : "Should this feature be an entity event, a component, a tag or even just a read operation from an existing component ?"

[rustic rain]

one way I see it: make a pipeline of damaging

so every you change health

you also check for dead state

[stone osprey]

That makes sense and in that system where i change the health i just enable/disable the "IsDead" component right ? This would atleast save one extra system which more iterations

[rustic rain]

well, allthough it helps avoid structural changes

tbh I'm not sure this is the best way

[stone osprey]

I guess theres no "best" way... But i guess it makes sense to have a "IsDead" component since with it we can filter like collision systems or render systems to not iterate over that particular entity since its dead ^^

[rustic rain]

having component

allows you to be able to query just for dead

but requires ECB on every damage system

having it as bit state

requires you to have check for dead on literally every system that is not meant to run on dead

I'd say it sucks either way 😅

[stone osprey]

Damn... i see :/
But this looks like a typical case of : "Just do what you like more" ^^

[spice vale]

But can't that be solved with aspects?

[rustic rain]

I think so

[spice vale]

I haven't looked so much into them, but It feels like it should be possible.

[rustic rain]

I'd guess, if entities meant to die a lot - bit
if they are not meant to die a lot - comp

[stone osprey]

Guess that makes the most sense... with bit you mean tag cmp right ?

[rustic rain]

bit - enabled/disabled tag state

comp - whole tag

[viral sonnet]

wdym with ECB on every damge system? you can change the enabled flag without ECB too.

[rustic rain]

I was talking about simple tag option

[viral sonnet]

ah ok, yeah tagging (add/remove) sucks 😄

the simplest form is really to just destroy the entity. though that's often a bit problematic with linked GOs or a corpse state where a monster lootable or smth

[whole gyro]

I think an enableable component can work well for these use cases. I've been thinking the same. If you don't want to have to filter IsDead entities out of all normal systems, you could invert the logic and have an IsAlive enableable component that is enabled by default.

It seems like using empty IEnableableComponents allows us to do everything that we could do with the old empty tag components, but without incurring the cost of a structural change.

[viral sonnet]

you'd have to filter regardless in IJobChunk. For IJobEntity it's code generated so either comp will work

that's, imo, the biggest annoyance with enabled comps. the filtering and the boilerplate that comes with it

entity queries basically just return valid chunks. but one entity in a chunk could be disabled or dead

that's the upside of adding/removing a tag comp

[oblique cosmos]

Could anyone provide me with further reading regarding:

[...] two containers may not be the same (aliasing).

I think I sorta kinda understand why this might be coming up, but without understanding a bit better what's actually happening in the magical background world I have no idea how to fix it. Is there any documentation on this aliasing stuff? Specifically I'm running into this with ComponentLookup<LocalToWorld>, which apparently overlaps with the TransformAspect I feed into my job. And I'm not entirely clear why or how, because it appears to work fine in a very similar system 🤔

[whole gyro]

Just don't use IJobChunk 😜

[balmy thistle]

<record scratch> hold up

[viral sonnet]

haha i have 95% IJobChunk

[viral sonnet]

Same comps can't overlap in a job. I don't remember if this only counts for Write comps or in general. Anyway, put a [NativeDisableContainerSafetyRestriction] on the lookup.

[oblique cosmos]

So... is this a bit of a safety misfiring then or should I be concerned about disabling safety restrictions?

(Assuming that works, can't check anymore now)

[viral sonnet]

kind of. the safety system can't make sure that you are doing something wrong. if you know what you're doing it's fine 🙂

same goes for example for any ComponentLookup you want to write to in a parallel system. default safety tells you this is not allowed but if you know threads don't write to the same entity, it's totally fine and often needed.

[quiet magnet]

this seems like something simple im missing, i create a job with NativeArray<Type>, i have a public int output, why can't i seem to access output outside the job?

[viral sonnet]

there are more [Native...] tags to turn some kind of safety off. DisableContainerSafety is a catch all tag

is it just a public int?

or a NativeReference?

[quiet magnet]

ah is nativereference for a variable?

hmm there is no nativereference

[viral sonnet]

variable? it's to get the variable by reference and not by value

[quiet magnet]

yes but i cant seem to figure how to do that

[viral sonnet]

if it's just an int, the int will stay local to the thread

[quiet magnet]

im not exactly going to make a nativearray of 1 item

[viral sonnet]

yeah, that's why NativeReference exists

[quiet magnet]

ok so how do i do a job that updates 1 int, and then i get that int outside the job?

well i dont seem to have NativeReference, what am i missing?

[viral sonnet]

hm, i'm not sure, it's in Unity.Collections

missing the namespace?

public int a; from the job turns into public NativeReference<int> a; to access the int then a.Value

[quiet magnet]

god why cant i access this

i have collections 1.2.4

in the docs its there

i only have the usual array/slice

it doesnt show a solution either like a missing class

[viral sonnet]

are you in a asmdef?

[quiet magnet]

nope

i was thinking why isnt there just a simple Native Reference

it does exist, yet it doesnt

[viral sonnet]

hm, i'm stumped too. NativeReference was around long before collection went 1.0

[quiet magnet]

is it only on Net 2.1?

just a guess

[rustic rain]

NativeReference?

[viral sonnet]

i have .net Standard 2.1 api level

[rustic rain]

Is that a way to have ref to field?

[viral sonnet]

basically, yeah as it's using a pointer

[quiet magnet]

yes well im trying to do things unity way without direct pointers

sometimes i think pointers are just damn easier lol

@rustic rain does NativeReference show for you?

[rustic rain]

yeah

[viral sonnet]

2.1 needs Unity 2022.2 btw

any 1.x version also has NativeReference

[quiet magnet]

well things like this just stump me

is it some dependency?

i have never seen NativeReference in all my time with jobs

actually i thought it was me being stupid

dont think collections was installed haha

and yet i can access unity.collections

ok dumb moment

but yes didnt know native ref existed until now

thought jobs always had to be parallel arrays of input and output (ideally they do)

ok now how do i convert an int to NR int

a .value

[viral sonnet]

ohh, you found it out. yeah some basic version of unity.collections is built in. for nativearray

i'll try to remember the pitfall 😁

init in your job struct like this refInt = new NativeReference<int>(0, Allocator.TempJob)

[rustic rain]

wait a second

so it's like native array of size 1?

[viral sonnet]

in your job you have public NativeReference<int> refInt;

basically 😄

[rustic rain]

that's good stuff

I hate doing array[0]

[viral sonnet]

the implementation just has a void* and allocates sizeof(T)

[rustic rain]

I'd guess so

initially I thought it was actually just a pointer to existing memory

which you accessed through ref

[rustic rain]

        void EntitySelectionTool_6C3936B1_LambdaJob_0_Execute(ref Unity.Collections.NativeParallelHashMap<int, int> map, ref UnityEngine.Rendering.CommandBuffer cmd, SpaceTycoon.StarSystem.StarShared curSystem)
        {
            __Unity_Entities_EntityTypeHandle.Update(ref this.CheckedStateRef);
            __Unity_Rendering_MaterialMeshInfo_RO_ComponentTypeHandle.Update(ref this.CheckedStateRef);
            __Unity_Transforms_LocalToWorld_RO_ComponentTypeHandle.Update(ref this.CheckedStateRef);
            var __job = new EntitySelectionTool_6C3936B1_LambdaJob_0_Job{__this = this, map = map, cmd = cmd, __eTypeHandle = __Unity_Entities_EntityTypeHandle, __mmiTypeHandle = __Unity_Rendering_MaterialMeshInfo_RO_ComponentTypeHandle, __localToWorldTypeHandle = __Unity_Transforms_LocalToWorld_RO_ComponentTypeHandle, __rmaTypeHandle = GetSharedComponentTypeHandle<Unity.Rendering.RenderMeshArray>()};
            __query_1983835779_0.SetSharedComponentFilter(curSystem);
            using (EntitySelectionTool_6C3936B1_LambdaJob_0_Job.s_ProfilerMarker.Auto())
            {
                CompleteDependency();
                Unity.Entities.InternalCompilerInterface.JobChunkInterface.RunByRefWithoutJobs(ref __job, __query_1983835779_0);
            }

            map = __job.map;
            cmd = __job.cmd;
        }

huh

so this is how you can run jobs with managed fields

Unity.Entities.InternalCompilerInterface.JobChunkInterface.RunByRefWithoutJobs

it's even public

[rotund token]

it's just running main thread so no scheduling involved

[rustic rain]

that was my task though

[rotund token]

you just want a convenient way to query data i take it?

[rustic rain]

yeah

[rotund token]

did you get your selection working again?

[rustic rain]

yeah

with normal DrawMesh though

but!

I figured how to do color conversion on GPU

🔥

            int _Index;

            fixed4 frag(v2f i) : SV_Target
            {
                fixed r = (_Index & 0xFF);
                fixed g = ((_Index >> 8) & 0xFF);
                fixed b = ((_Index >> 16) & 0xFF);
                fixed a = 255 - (_Index >> 24);

                return fixed4(r, g, b, a) / 255;
            }

        private static int ColorToIndex(Color color)
        {
            Color32 color32 = color;
            return color32.r + (color32.g << 8) + (color32.b << 16) + ((255 - color32.a) << 24);
        }

oh man, I wish SystemAPI offered getting type handles

that auto updated for me

😅

[rotund token]

that could be a bit slow at scale

but i guess it depends on your game

[rustic rain]

yeah it probably is

but for now

I just want working solution

until I get my project working back at at least 90%

[rotund token]

that's fair enough

[viral sonnet]

i'm currently rewriting a lot of systema to ISystem. get rid of shared containers and handles. i expect a huge fire when i hit play

[rustic rain]

🔥

[viral sonnet]

even BIGGER

🍄

whelp, there's no nuke

but let's see how cool singletons and dependencies are

[gentle gyro]

Is there no way to do unsafe cast?

[rustic rain]

?

this is shader

[gentle gyro]

Ah, missed that

[rustic rain]

🤔

so selection tool works with camera A

but doesn't with camera B

[rotund token]

Do you mean yours or unitys?

[rustic rain]

my selection tool, yes

[rotund token]

(also what is camera b)

[rustic rain]

camera A is topdown view

camera B is map camera

which is pretty much same, but it's static and very far away

so when I switch to map, selection tool also does it's job with new camera

judging by screenshot from selection drawing

nothing is drawn

🤔

meanwhile there's actually 3 draw calls

[gusty comet]

I wrote a script to move an Entity from the DOTS world into the Monobehavior world, but I'm not sure if it's good practice

public sealed class Avatar : MonoBehaviour
    {
        public DecisionMaker Brain;
        public Toggle Run;
    }

    public static class AvatarActions
    {
        /**
         * Should be only rarely called
         */
        public static AvatarCommandComponent Obtain(Unity.Entities.World world)
        {
            var initializer = world.CreateSystemManaged<AvatarInitializeSystem>();
            initializer.Enabled = true;
            initializer.Update();
            var command = initializer.Command;
            initializer.Enabled = false;
            world.DestroySystemManaged(initializer);
            return command;
        }
    }

    [DisableAutoCreation]
    public partial class AvatarInitializeSystem : SystemBase
    {
        public AvatarCommandComponent Command;

        protected override void OnUpdate()
        {
            Command = GetSingleton<AvatarCommandComponent>();
        }
    }

    public sealed class AvatarBaker : Baker<Avatar>
    {
        public override void Bake(Avatar authoring)
        {
            AddComponent(new AvatarCommandComponent
            {
                Brain = GetEntity(authoring.Brain),
                Run = GetEntity(authoring.Run)
            });
        }
    }

    public struct AvatarCommandComponent : IComponentData
    {
        public Entity Brain;
        public Entity Run;
    }

It works, and is necessary to have my InputSystem send commands to Entities, but I'm not sure if there's a better way of doing it

[viral sonnet]

anyone knows a proper way to get a singleton in MB? do i really have to write an entityQuery, get the entity and then GetComp?

[rustic rain]

guy above you literally sent ready solution xD

[viral sonnet]

huh? i only have EntityManager. rest are ISystems, no direct references

[rustic rain]

EM contains reference to World

[spice vale]

does EntityManager.UniversalQuery.GetSingleton() work maybe? not sure...

[viral sonnet]

yeah, i think that does the trick.

[gusty comet]

Doh, I should try that first. Thanks!

[viral sonnet]

huh, seems like OnCreate of systems doesn't follow the same order as Update. getting errors in a system that wants SingletonRW in OnCreate but then complains there's no singleton created. wonder if i should just set a query instead. but first i try [CreateBefore]

[spice vale]

Have you confirmed this works? EntityManager.UniversalQuery.GetSingleton()

otherwise it might be that it needs a specific query

[viral sonnet]

big rewrite. i'll get to it 😄

[gusty comet]

It's claiming that there are 34 entities with the singleton component when there should only be 1

[spice vale]

I see, so does not work

[viral sonnet]

setting [CreateBefore] helps indeed.

[spice vale]

I guess for GetSingleton to work the query has to match only one entity.

[viral sonnet]

well, if there's really just 1 entity it'll work

[spice vale]

But universal query is all entities

[viral sonnet]

yeah, that's always the case for singleton entities

[gusty comet]

There's only 1 Entity as verified by the debugger, but the universal query is throwing an exception saying there are 34

[rustic rain]

universal counts all entities in a World

[gusty comet]

I see. I'll try this instead: Avatar = EntityManager.CreateEntityQuery(typeof(AvatarCommandComponent)).GetSingleton<AvatarCommandComponent>();

[rustic rain]

don't forget to dispose query

they are disposable

[spice vale]

no?

[rustic rain]

yes?

[gusty comet]

Thank you, it worked like a charm

[spice vale]

only when using EntityQueryBuilder

[gusty comet]

hmm, I'm doing this from a Monobehavior

[rustic rain]

pretty much always

[gusty comet]

It worked, but I might be misusing that method

[rustic rain]

unless you use it in system

[spice vale]

huh, did not know.

[rustic rain]

bad part on Unity - the fact that systems cache queries

is like a secret

[spice vale]

but what is the allocation?

we don't specify any

[rustic rain]

you specify world

in which it gets allocated

[spice vale]

But is it not cached in the world for the next time I would access that query if I don't dispose it?

[rustic rain]

idk

the only thing to remember

there are limited slots for entity queries in world

[spice vale]

So simply getting a singleton from world is way too complicated atm I feel.

[rustic rain]

it is

I use EM extension

to get singletons

[spice vale]

Get EM, create query, get singleton from query, dispose query

[rustic rain]

        public static Entity GetOrCreateSingletonEntity<T>(this EntityManager em)
        {
            using var query = em.CreateEntityQuery(ComponentType.ReadOnly<T>());
            var needCreate = query.IsEmptyIgnoreFilter;
            var e = needCreate ? em.CreateEntity(typeof(T)) : query.GetSingletonEntity();
            #if UNITY_EDITOR
            if (needCreate)
            {
                var type = typeof(T);
                var name = new StringBuilder();
                name.Append(type.Name);
                if (type.IsGenericType)
                {
                    name.Remove(name.Length - 2, 2);
                    name.Append(" | ");
                    foreach (var otherType in type.GetGenericArguments())
                    {
                        name.Append(otherType.Name);
                    }
                }

                em.SetName(e, name.ToString());
            }
            #endif
            return e;
        }

pretty much

tbh, this can be made burst compatible even

[spice vale]

but you don't dispose query 😅

[rustic rain]

using

[spice vale]

oh I see

right you can use that without braces

[rustic rain]

yeah, pretty convenient

[viral sonnet]

InvalidOperationException: The previously scheduled job ArrayHashMap`2:CalculateBucketsJob writes to the NZNativeContainers.ArrayHashMap`2[System.Int32,NZSpellCasting.ThreatEvent] CalculateBucketsJob.hashmap. You are trying to schedule a new job GenerateThreatValuesJob, which reads from the same NZNativeContainers.ArrayHashMap`2[System.Int32,NZSpellCasting.ThreatEvent] (via GenerateThreatValuesJob.JobData.threatTargetEvents). To guarantee safety, you must include ArrayHashMap`2:CalculateBucketsJob as a dependency of the newly scheduled job. hm, that's exactly what i wanted to prevent with singleton containers. first has RW access, seconds has RO access, yet the job doesn't understand waiting for it. hm

[molten flame]

y'all been able to connect the rider debugger to Unity in 1.0?

probably completely unrelated issue to DOTS

[rustic rain]

yeah

constantly errors though in specific scenarios

have to restart unity frequently

[viral sonnet]

ok, i really have not added the job to state.Dependency. it's working now 😄

now i could test the universalQuery. uint tick = entityManager.UniversalQuery.GetSingleton<TickSystem.TickData>().currentTick; and yeah, it's not working for some reason :/

no idea why UniversalQuery has a singleton method when it doesn't do what it should ^^

[spice vale]

Well, if your game has only one entity, it is perfect. I don't see what you mean 😆

[viral sonnet]

haha 😄 yeah ...

[rotund token]

what is even going on here

why?

[viral sonnet]

haha 😄

[rotund token]

Universal Query is just a normal EntityQuery which has a GetSingleton method

it'd be weird if it didn't have one

[viral sonnet]

we have realized 😄

wanted to use a method to get a singleton without creating a query

[late mural]

hey wondering quickly, which specific package is needed for NativeList?

[rotund token]

collections

[late mural]

ah thanks!

[viral sonnet]

well that's weird that the extension method return 0 entities but other systems can find the singleton just fine :/ ```public static T GetSingleton<T>(this EntityManager entityManager)
where T : unmanaged, IComponentData
{
var query = entityManager.CreateEntityQuery(ComponentType.ReadOnly<T>());
var entity = query.GetSingletonEntity();
var comp = entityManager.GetComponentData<T>(entity);
query.Dispose();

        return comp;
    }```

[spice vale]

are the others system entities?

[viral sonnet]

... yes! thanks

damn, that throws me off the 2nd time

[spice vale]

I dont really get why they are excluded by default

[viral sonnet]

i don't understand either. i see no reason

hm, do i need a queryBuilder now? i have no idea how to add them with CreateEntityQuery

[spice vale]

use EntityQueryDesc

it has options field

[viral sonnet]

right, that would also work. i've already written the queryBuilder

lol, that sucks. one of my native containers didn't burst compile because i used a typeof for debug. now that i've removed it. it crashes unity hard 😄

i never had it crashing before the singleton rewrite. very odd

but now it does directly on the schedule

        {
            return new ParallelListToArraySingleThreaded()
            {
                parallelList = this,
                array = nativeList
            }.Schedule(Dependency);
        }```

wait, what is this? InvalidOperationException: System.InvalidOperationException: Reflection data was not set up by an Initialize() call. Support for burst compiled calls to Schedule depends on the Collections package. For generic job types, please include [assembly: RegisterGenericJobType(typeof(MyJob<MyJobSpecialization>))] in your source file.

holy why is this happening all of a sudden 😄 i don't get it

ohh, i think the big difference is that i'm now using this in an ISystem instead of SystemBase

i've not the biggest experience with ISystem yet but generics were always problematic.

[drowsy pagoda]

The built-in UI isn't yet "built-in" to ECS 1.0.0 yet right?

[viral sonnet]

wdym? UnityUI, UIToolkit?

[rotund token]

why aren't you just using SystemAPI for this anyway?

[viral sonnet]

do you mean me tertle?

[rotund token]

yeah sorry replying to old messages

the singleton stuff

[viral sonnet]

i would but it's for a MB

[rotund token]

ooooooooo

explains a lot! ok

you mentioned you didn't want to create a query right?

var singleton = world.EntityManager.GetComponent<T>(world.GetExistingSystem<S>())

is slightly annoying that you are loosely coupling on a system though

[viral sonnet]

ah, via SystemHandle? that can also work

do you know why ISystem is especially picky with generic jobs?

it needs a RegisterGenericJobType for this job https://github.com/enzi/Entities.Exposed/blob/main/Collections/ParallelList/ParallelList.cs line 257

yet it didn't in a SystemBase

a bit more direct ```public static TComponent GetSystemSingleton<TSystem, TComponent>(this EntityManager entityManager)
where TComponent : unmanaged, IComponentData
where TSystem : unmanaged, ISystem
{
var systemHandle = entityManager.WorldUnmanaged.GetExistingUnmanagedSystem<TSystem>();
return entityManager.GetComponentData<TComponent>(systemHandle);
}

    public static TComponent GetSystemSingletonManaged<TSystem, TComponent>(this EntityManager entityManager)
        where TComponent : unmanaged, IComponentData
        where TSystem : ComponentSystemBase
    {
        var systemHandle = entityManager.World.GetExistingSystem<TSystem>();
        return entityManager.GetComponentData<TComponent>(systemHandle);
    }```

[rotund token]

if you turn off burst in your ISystem

does it have issue?

[viral sonnet]

no

[rotund token]

yeah i think it's less the job, more the bursted job scheduler

[viral sonnet]

yeah it crashes there

do you think i should make a small repo project for the crash? i mean, there's no error or anything beforehand. it just crashes

[rotund token]

oh didn't realized it just crashes

it shouldn't do that

[viral sonnet]

well, i should say it only crashes with safety turned off 😄

[viral sonnet]

well, this whole singleton thing to get rid of shared containers and jobHandles worked out pretty great. the downside is that it's harder to schedule tight. i got one job that's just running after a big system where previously it was running in between because i could accurately set with which jobHandle it should run. guess i've to move the job also in the system.

still would be cool if the job system would figure it out 🙂 as far as i understand it now, systems are imaginable as blocks on the timeline. the job scheduler does a good job packing jobs together within a system but for another system that just has a RW dependency in the middle of the previous system, the job just runs after the block

[viral sonnet]

on second thought, it's not even the job system that doesn't figure it out. it pretty much can't because the whole system has the RW dependency on the singleton.

[rotund token]

yes

dependencies are per system

you'd have to split system in 2 to have another system inject a job between it

[viral sonnet]

would there be a way to release the dependency after a job or something?

like, now it's okay to write ^^

[rotund token]

doubtful

[viral sonnet]

splitting sounds more reasonable

[gentle gyro]

If I want to avoid subscenes for now in 1.0 to avoid the IL2CPP crash bug, what should I use to author entities?

[brave field]

🥲 How to solve this issue at 0.51? Still the same issue at both Unity 2021.3.8 and 2021.3.11. It's really weird that same project at different pc works properly

[rotund token]

why are you creating 1 million client worlds

i feel the solution to this is don't create a million client worlds

[brave field]

No. It's bugged. I dun want create so many worlds

[rotund token]

i'm confident this is something you're probably doing

is this netcode? have you changed the multiplayer tools settings?

i'm pretty sure this is saved in editorprefs so would only affect 1 machine

Multiplayer -> Play mode tools

[brave field]

👀 you are right. Not sure why client count is 32. lol

thanks a lot

[dense storm]

    [UpdateBefore(typeof(CompanionGameObjectUpdateSystem))]
    public class PostMovementGroup : ComponentSystemGroup, ICombatWorldSystem { }

error CS0122: 'CompanionGameObjectUpdateSystem' is inaccessible due to its protection level

I am getting this error after setting up assembly definition.

But I need this group to update before CompanionGameObjectUpdateSystem

Probably because its internal, but how do I get around this?

[rustic rain]

Use asm ref trick

[dense storm]

Teach me master

[rustic rain]

Create folder with assembly reference file

Create empty cs file here

And add to it assembly attribute 'InternalsVisibleTo(yournamespace)'

[dense storm]

Ok let me try that

[dense storm]

Wow this works, thanks!

[rustic rain]

Yeah, good stuff

[rustic rain]

ok, I figured why selection doesn't work

implementation of graphics is just...

absolutely not obvious

none of built in methods to get meshes/materials work

methods that get array index are also invalid

this is just absurd

[rotund token]

ran into this same error, a bit annoying!

[wicked trout]

Hi! I wanted to know if there is a way to create an Entity without using a Subscene.

[rotund token]

EntityManager.CreateEntity

[rotund token]

oh boy do i have a gross workaround for this
public JobHandle Build(NativeArray<T> positions, JobHandle dependency, QuantizeJob _ = default)

[brave field]

@rotund token Btw have u successfully get a working player runtime build for hello world dots netcode project? At 1.0 release

[rotund token]

haven't tried a netcode build yet

haven't even got around to getting my netcode project running yet

too busy adding cool stuff to libraries

[wicked trout]

Thanks!!

[spice vale]

I'm trying to understand subscenes a bit better. Noticed that when a subscene is open it actually creates two separate worlds. Anyone know what's going on here?
Open:

Closed:

[rustic rain]

it's not separate world, it's just subscene

isolated in it's own

[spice vale]

Why is it not a world? I mean the baking systems run in a separate world right?

[rustic rain]

I'm not sure tbh how it works rn

maybe it is world

[spice vale]

I feel like it should only be one extra world, but then there's this shadow world.

[rustic rain]

you sure it's world?

it says archetype

😅

[spice vale]

The archetypes are inside:

[half jay]

is it possible to not add this components when bake conversion is happening. It should be just entity without any render logic

[rustic rain]

these are only editor components

beside

SceneSection

this one is SubScene component

[half jay]

So I can leave it as it is and not worry?

[rustic rain]

yes

[half jay]

Is there an analogue of CopyTransformToGameObject or how can i solve case when i need control GO from system?

[rustic rain]

can try using companion links for hybrid

wtf

why there's white square over entiites?

[rustic rain]

ok I figured it

kek

forgot to attach with all and with none attributes on job after migrating from foreach

[stone osprey]

As far as i know unitys ecs is kinda "protected" in legal terms right ?

Since i want a similar ecs for my standalone c# console server... i wanted to copy its ecs and create a pure c# version from it.
It would be archetype based and consist of chunks/buckets like unitys ecs does. Is this allowed ? Or does this already violate some legal stuff ?

[rustic rain]

you can copy the way it works

ECS is not new

and certainly not unique

[stone osprey]

Alright thanks, i thought they protected that "bucket/chunk" mechanic ^^ So i wasnt sure about that

[rustic rain]

Burst certainly is

and burst is pretty much the main reason to use Unity ECS

[stone osprey]

Alright, i will totally not copy burst xD

[rustic rain]

tbh

what stops you from building your app on Unity?

xD

[stone osprey]

The client is unity already, for the server however i went with c# and .net core... latest .net... latest language features, smaller, less memory footprint... those were basically the reasons ^^

Even unity in server mode is kinda massive

[viral sonnet]

entities is allowed to only run in unity. no porting. it's all patented

[spice vale]

anyone else getting this error every 5 seconds? Generic message code 233 has not been handled

[misty wedge]

How does the safety system work now exactly? For example, what happens if I have an unsafe collection in a component to modify it, can I then create a safe collection from that unsafe collection and pass it to a job and have safety?

[coarse turtle]

I don't know of any utility method that can set the AtomicSafetyHandle outside of NativeArray

[misty wedge]

I mean you could write one

[coarse turtle]

you might be able to create an asmref so you can do something like NativeCollections.SetAtomicSafetyHandle<T>(ref T collection, AtomicSafetyHandle)

[misty wedge]

I was more asking if that's ok to do, or is there some other magic going on somewhere to facilitate safety

[coarse turtle]

i typically do it frequently w/ native arrays

[misty wedge]

What do you use it for? Since native arrays don't have an unsafe version

[coarse turtle]

I alias the NativeArray to a pinned blittable C# array

[misty wedge]

Why not just use the pointer to the unmanaged array?

Or is this library code

[coarse turtle]

libraryish code

i didn't really want my teammates having to write [NativeDisableUnsafePtrRestriction] in jobs

everytime they needed a pointer

[misty wedge]

By the way are there any usage differences between safe and unsafe collections? I have some code that works fine with safe collections but somehow breaks (doesn't throw any errors) with an unsafe collection 🤷

[coarse turtle]

looks like the primary difference is the ENABLE_UNITY_COLLECTIONS_CHECK on properties between Native & Unsafe versions

[half jay]

im want add some classes from scene to sharedcomponent and im doing it like in screen shot. Is it valid? im afraid that after subscene loaded ill get nulls in fields. Also looks like when im trying build apk im getting an error about nulls, but in play mode this works. May be i should mark somehow to not destroy game object?

[misty wedge]

I just remembered, I'm assuming the issue is I copy the collection somewhere which doesn't write back the length value

[misty wedge]

Why not just check the converted subscene

I really hope safe non-nativearray collections are writeable in components one day, only arrays is pretty limiting

[half jay]

sry can you clarified what should i do? as i understand i checked it and its works in editor

[coarse turtle]

well if you wrap a NativeList around an UnsafeList - the m_length variable would get updated as long as the m_ListData pointer is valid (and the safety handle is set)

[misty wedge]

If you click load on the sub scene in the entities hierarchy, you can see what everything was converted to

[misty wedge]

I know but I'd rather just pass a pointer to make it obvious that it isn't using the safety system

I'm guessing if you ever mess up with race conditions outside of the safety system that's hell to debug

[coarse turtle]

yea

[misty wedge]

which is why I want this

[stone osprey]

And what if i just write a ecs which just makes use of archetypes and chunks ?

I mean they cant patent the idea behind it

Or can they ?

[misty wedge]

I suggest you just check the patent

[stone osprey]

I mean theres c++ entt ecs which is also archetype based and uses chunks... so i guess the can not

[coarse turtle]

yea that's a fair point honestly - I probably have some library code doing some questionable things that i need to recheck with UnsafeLists 😆

[misty wedge]

Yeah I hope one day we don't ever need to mess with unsafe collections (at least if you aren't doing anything crazy)

[misty wedge]

The patent doesn't only say "patented ecs and chunks". It specifies what parts of the design / engineering / implementation are under patent

[misty wedge]

Since the disposal safety is now handled by the allocator, would I need to set the allocator type to None to signal that the NativeList doesn't own the backing UnsafeList? Since it seems the scheduling safety system also requires the allocator handle

[coarse turtle]

yea

[misty wedge]

specifically these lines

m_Safety = CollectionHelper.CreateSafetyHandle(allocator.Handle);
CollectionHelper.InitNativeContainer<T>(m_Safety);
CollectionHelper.SetStaticSafetyId<NativeList<T>>(ref m_Safety, ref s_staticSafetyId.Data);
m_SafetyIndexHint = (allocator.Handle).AddSafetyHandle(m_Safety);
AtomicSafetyHandle.SetBumpSecondaryVersionOnScheduleWrite(m_Safety, true);

[coarse turtle]

let me look into collectionhelper - not too familiar with that static class 🤔

[misty wedge]

No idea if that will work 🤷

Also if I'm storing the UnsafeList normally (instead of as a pointer) in the component, what's the best way to get a pointer to the unmanaged component?

[coarse turtle]

Might have to get the reference to the component from the chunk and then the pointer via UnsafeUtility.AddressOf(ref component.UnsafeListField)

[misty wedge]

I think at that point its easier to just store a pointer in the component 😅

[coarse turtle]

yea lol

[misty wedge]

Thought there may be a method similar to get component but returning a pointer 🤷

[gusty comet]

How would you configure a subscene to fully convert some gameobjects while making others hybrid?

Basically Convert and Destroy vs Convert and Inject but with Subscenes and Baking

[whole gyro]

you can't

[spice vale]

Convert and inject is impossible with subscenes

sad truth

[whole gyro]

Subscenes are only for fully baked entities. The one exception is the companion link stuff that still appears to work for things like cameras and lights.

[spice vale]

A workaround is to instantiate your gameobjects from systems during runtime.

You can check tertles implementation, he has such a setup

[whole gyro]

Yeah, or instantiate your entities from monobehaviours in the normal scene at runtime.

[spice vale]

Check this thread to see tertles implementation https://discord.com/channels/489222168727519232/1027355900496851027

[viral sonnet]

sure they can. they have a very specific implementation. all covered in the patent. but tbh, if you need any kind of game server. just go with a headless unity build

[whole gyro]

@gusty comet And here is someone sharing a solution for runtime entity creation: https://forum.unity.com/threads/entitiesext-runtime-authoring-for-entities-and-tooling.1346108/
It doesn't use baking, but it lets your monobehaviours reference other things in the scene. Tertle's implementation relies on prefabs which cannot have scene references. So the best option really depends on what you are trying to do.

[gusty comet]

I see, so you store the gameobject prefab in a class component data, and once the entity is baked and the subscene is loaded, a system will instantiate the gameobject prefab and perform some wiring logic?

And thanks all of you for the wealth of ideas

[whole gyro]

yeah exactly

[rustic rain]

anyone managed to run profiler?

my editor crashes

always

[misty wedge]

The normal unity profiler?

[rustic rain]

yeah

[misty wedge]

Works fine for me

What unity version are you on?

[misty wedge]

I'm still on b9 so maybe that's the issue?

[rustic rain]

🤔

[balmy thistle]

Have a callstack?

[rustic rain]

I actually already sent a bug report, heh

but hold on

I'll crash it again

😅

[misty wedge]

Any idea why I can't use Unity.NetCode.Tests.NetCodeTestWorld? I've referenced Unity.NetCode.TestsUtils but it can't find the symbols...

[rustic rain]

what's the equivalent of batchIndex of IJobEntityBatch in IJobChunk?

[hot basin]

chunk index?

[hard gulch]

hello!, where can i find good ecs content for learning?

[rustic rain]

moetsi ECS tutorial

look it up

the best I know

[hard gulch]

ty

[balmy thistle]

Thanks, almost certainly memory corruption. Is this consistent?

[rustic rain]

always

both standalone and built in

[balmy thistle]

built in?

[rustic rain]

normal one

I mean

[viral sonnet]

does this happen in an empty project too?

[rustic rain]

nope

empty is fine

[karmic basin]

moetsi guide is indeed awesome, though not up-to-date (still at 0.50)
You can also find the new official guide for latest version (1.0) here https://github.com/Unity-Technologies/EntityComponentSystemSamples/blob/master/DOTS_Guide/README.md
(check pinned messages in this channel for resources)

[stone osprey]

Btw how does the ecs know if an entity has a component ?

I meany does every entity has a bitmask of its components ? Or how is it done ? 😮

[rustic rain]

they belong to archetype

archetypes know exactly what components they have

[stone osprey]

Yeah but... how does the entity know if which archetype it is ?
Like the entity itself is only a struct with an index... and version...
The entitymanager somehow knows in which archetype it is... how ? 😮 Is there a map somewhere "Dictionary<Entity,Archetype>" ? xD

[misty wedge]

If I want to store some data per unmanaged world and then also statically use that data in burst, can I just use a static function that reads a static native collection, or do I need to use shared static?

[hot basin]

what's the best way to update GUI?

[hot basin]

somethig like that

[rustic rain]

they exist in chunks, heh

but if you wonder how EntityManager knows it

they just store a huge hashmap

for every entity and it's chunk

[stone osprey]

Oh... that simple ? I thought theres more magic going on 😄

[rustic rain]

well, maybe there is

last time I looked at GetChunk of entity

in sources

it was literally hashmap xD

[hot basin]

I think I saw explanation somewhere in new tutorials

https://github.com/Unity-Technologies/EntityComponentSystemSamples/tree/master/DOTS_Guide

here

[stone osprey]

Some of the smartest people are working on that project and thats their solution... kinda funny, but sometimes the simplest solutions are also the most efficient ones

[rustic rain]

        public Chunk* GetChunk(Entity entity)
        {
            var entityChunk = m_EntityInChunkByEntity[entity.Index].Chunk;

            return entityChunk;
        }

[stone osprey]

Uh interesting... i just see that unities archetypes are actually structs of arrays

Yeah literally a map, insane 😄

[rustic rain]

ok maybe it's not just map

it's a...

pointer

and entity index is...

offset

[rotund token]

No reason to use a map, index increment

[rustic rain]

🤔

[stone osprey]

Whats index increment ?

[rotund token]

May as well just use an array

[stone osprey]

Oh i see... probably even more efficient

Lets say we create a query and query for entities...
How does this actually behave under the hood ?

My current assumption is that the query actually loops over all archetypes, check if fits the query describtion and than iterates over the chunks and their content. Is this right ?

[misty wedge]

That would be terribly slow

[stone osprey]

Oh there its actually written i see

[rotund token]

Instead of asking why not just look at source! Better to get first hand information than third!

It's nicely all available to us

(this is only directed if you want very explicit implementation details about what goes on under hood.
Asking questions is fine about how things are done but your going to get a summary that is likely a bit wrong and if you're after explicit details they're better read directly imo)

[misty wedge]

Anyone have an idea? I've never had this issue before

I can't see a reason why it's not usable, it's not even marked internal or anything

[rotund token]

If I recall unity test stuff isn't included by default

[misty wedge]

It's weird because it worked in 0.51, so I guess they changed something

[rotund token]

It's been like 2 years so memory is fuzzy but you need to mark tests from a package as being imported specifically

[hot basin]

what't the best way to update GUI from inside ECS?

[rotund token]

This is because 99% of time you don't want unity tests to appear in your test runner

[misty wedge]

What do you mean? I'm not trying to run anything in the test runner, I just want to write helper functions to make writing future tests easier

I can't import unity's netcode helper world though for some reason

(NetCodeTestWorld)

[rotund token]

Because the assembly is ignored

[misty wedge]

I thought it was only ignored in the test runner

[rotund token]

As far as I'm aware no

Test runner shows everything that is loaded

I used to run the actual unity tests because they had reflection stuff for your own code

Then they started shipping broken tests

I believe all test assemblies in package cache are just not loaded by default

[misty wedge]

Is there a way to un-ignore the assembly? Or am I better off just duplicating the class

[rotund token]

(again been 2 years since I've looked at this)

[rotund token]

Yes

There's a field in package manifest to include tests

[rustic rain]

hmmm

so now

for custom ECB systems

I need to define singleton

tbh, I'd expect Unity to just cache that entity in codegen

[misty wedge]

In the Packages/manifest.json?

[rotund token]

Yes

[rustic rain]

while searching for it through query in OnCreate

[rotund token]

testables

[rotund token]

Ah the singleton holds data

That you need to setup

It needs a unique component defined

[rotund token]

"testables": [ "com.unity.package-1", "com.unity.package-2" ]

[misty wedge]

Yeah I just found the docs for it. Never used this before, thanks

[rotund token]

Let me know if it works then I can say memory refreshed!

[misty wedge]

and iirc you are right that in 0.51 the netcode tests were showing up in the runner, they're gone now

[rotund token]

Did you have the package manually imported

Like a local copy

[misty wedge]

Ah, I did. I had a very specific bug that was fixed but not pushed to 0.51 yet. It's fixed now in 1.0.0 and I deleted the package. So that was probably why

[rustic rain]

thing is, there is no need to GetSingleton

you can just query for entities

and compare type index

until you find the one you need

cache entity

[rotund token]

you realise the singleton isn't stored on the system entity?

And that's not the issue

The issue is it still needs a unique component

[rustic rain]

well, it can be stored anywhere

[rustic rain]

why?

[rotund token]

So that normal people can query by singleton

How it was designed

[rustic rain]

but that's not actual must

or convenience

end goal - get data

[rotund token]

But how do you know this data belongs to the specific system

[rustic rain]

you query for it once in OnCreate

component will have some type index

that is unique to Type

so it's burst compatible

[rotund token]

What

That's what a unique component is

[rustic rain]

no no

[rotund token]

A unique type index

[rustic rain]

I'm not talking to unique component index

about*

I'm talking about Type - integer of System

so all ECB entities belong to same archetype

and you just do query over them once

[rotund token]

For the record you can't even query it in oncreate

[rustic rain]

comparing index of system you want

[rotund token]

Because the ecbs might not be setup

[rustic rain]

well, that's not really a problem

because if none found

can be created on demand

which then ECB will figure

goal - cache entity in OnCreate

[rotund token]

This just sounds worse

Than current setup

[rustic rain]

but it's way easier to setup custom ECBs that way

also it's probably better

[misty wedge]

It's like 2 6 lines of code

[rustic rain]

because less achetypes

[misty wedge]

to create the singleton and call the init function

[rustic rain]

in a World

[rotund token]

it's like 6 lines of code to setup a custom ECBS

[rustic rain]

I know

[rotund token]

and it's not something you should really do much anyway

[rustic rain]

that's not the problem though

[rotund token]

and if they fix the bug with SystemAPI

then creating a new ECBS

will be 1 line of code

in future

by just using generics

[rustic rain]

it's just I find it absurd you have to setup whole chunk just to query over it easier

[rotund token]

public class myecbs : EntityCommandBufferSystem<myecbs>

because this is totally possible

the reason it doesn't work atm is that
SystemAPI.GetSingleton<myecbs.singleton> fails on generics

even though it's explicit

[rustic rain]

I don't get though, why you think that my solution is bad

what makes it bad

[misty wedge]

It's a ton more boilerplate

[rustic rain]

if no codegen

it's just 1 method

World.GetECBEntity<T>();

or EntityManager

for Burst

[rotund token]

can be created on demand

[rustic rain]

and then EM.GetECB(entity)

[rotund token]

cant be created on demand

it's a manged system

[rustic rain]

not managed system

entity

[rotund token]

ok

[rustic rain]

with component that says index of that System

[rotund token]

why don't you implement this then

it's extendable

you could probably do it without any changing source

and then you can share it with us and we can benefit

[rustic rain]

Don't think so, it needs to run in OnCreate of ECB

so I can extend my types

but not built in

[rotund token]

yeah but you dont need to change builtin

they are already setup to work nicely

[rustic rain]

besides

I can't affect codegen

[rotund token]

a) you can
b) i dont actually see why what you're suggesting needs code gen

[rustic rain]

Because codegen makes it so much better

literally just 1 method

without any boilerplate

[rotund token]

yeah

you don't need codegen to write an extension method

[rustic rain]

but I need codegen to get rid of boilerplate

[rotund token]

what boilerplate

for ecbs?

[rustic rain]

field, caching oncreate, getting data in OnUpdate

[rotund token]

but that's just 1 line

without codegen

World.GetECBEntity<T>();

[rustic rain]

but that needs to be done in onCreate

which if I don't have overriden

already makes code way bigger that it should

then I have to store it in a field

so OnUpdate is fast

[rotund token]

(could have written every ecbs system you'd ever need in this duration oft he conversion =D)

[misty wedge]

I feel like this is a lot of work for effectively saving like 1 archetype chunk per additional ECB, how many are you making?

[rustic rain]

but I want to share my idea, because I find it absurd you store unique chunk for every ECB

[rotund token]

🤷‍♂️

does it really matter

how many ecbs are you going to have

beyond micro optimizations

[rustic rain]

just built in contains 6
I implement 3 (for now)

[misty wedge]

the devs don't seem to be massively concerned with creating additional archetypes. The whole system entity thing we have now also creates a new archetype per component you slap on instead of storing state in the system directly which skips the archetype

[rotund token]

so 100kb

[rustic rain]

9 archetypes instead of 1

[rotund token]

btw issue, in your custom ecbs you could just make them all use the same entity

so it's same archetype

if this was a real concern to you

[rustic rain]

bruh, stop bullying

[rotund token]

(i should say, i do wish there was like custom chunk options to merge unique entities for settings etc which this would fall under)

[rustic rain]

So I guess that's the code I need to add to my ECB?

        public unsafe struct Singleton : IComponentData, IECBSingleton
        {
            internal UnsafeList<EntityCommandBuffer>* pendingBuffers;
            internal Allocator allocator;

            public EntityCommandBuffer CreateCommandBuffer(WorldUnmanaged world)
            {
                return EntityCommandBufferSystem.CreateCommandBuffer(ref *pendingBuffers, allocator, world);
            }

            public void SetPendingBufferList(ref UnsafeList<EntityCommandBuffer> buffers)
            {
                pendingBuffers = (UnsafeList<EntityCommandBuffer>*)UnsafeUtility.AddressOf(ref buffers);
            }

            public void SetAllocator(Allocator allocatorIn) { allocator = allocatorIn; }
        }

        protected override void OnCreate()
        {
            base.OnCreate();

            this.RegisterSingleton<Singleton>(ref PendingBuffers,
                World.Unmanaged,
                $"{nameof(EndSimulationEntityCommandBufferSystem)} {nameof(Singleton)}");
        }

[rotund token]

yep

nameof(EndSimulationEntityCommandBufferSystem)
probably want to tweak that to be your own system

though i think it's only used for EntityName

[rustic rain]

ugh

can't believe you're defending this solution

[rotund token]

i find that interesting since i've never disliked boilerplate

i only care about dev time and this takes 2 seconds to setup

[misty wedge]

I feel like if anything you'd rework the way singletons interact with chunks instead, and then use that for all singletons

[rotund token]

that said, as i mentioned above this shoudl be as easy as implementing a new system via a generic

[rustic rain]

think about future devs, that will spend 0 seconds to set it up

[rotund token]

and all this singleton stuff should be setup for you automatically

#1028598905774018580 message

this is what i mean

i don't see any reason why this can't be setup via generics in future

[rustic rain]

_bufferSystem.AddJobHandleForProducer(Dependency);
So with SystemAPI no need to call that anymore?

[misty wedge]

No, you don't

[rotund token]

for the record, SystemAPI isn't adding this call it's just ECBS is using the dependency on the singleton instead

[misty wedge]

Yeah I was really confused until I saw the RW handle on the singleton

[misty wedge]

That'd also be weird if it was codegen since then it would break if you just used the "normal" GetSingleton call