There's no easy answer to your question, you need to understand how to write basic queries and systems first
#archived-dots
zenith wyvern
opaque ledge
i already know how to do basic queries and systems, i already have a system that updates markets to reflect their current price(depending on supply and demand), its a simple and lovely system ๐
but i couldnt solve the problem i am having
zenith wyvern
but i just couldnt do double query
@opaque ledge
What do you mean by a "double query"?
opaque ledge
i feel like i should do double query somehow
coarse turtle
2 queries and unionize them? I assume that's what you mean
opaque ledge
so what i tried to do is.. every market would hold comparrision information against other markets, so if market1 sells for 1, market2 buys for 5, market1 would hold value of 4(since its a positive transaction since trader is buying cheap and selling high) etc.. so i tried to get all the markets.. then i tried to get all the markets again, so i would compare market1 to market2 market3 and then market2 to market1, market3 etc., after this system is done traderoute chooser system would take a look at this info and find the highest value and send the trade ship.
so... i dont know how to do a query inside a job struct
and i dont even know if my way of thinking is correct
zenith wyvern
You can't run a job from another job. It's an inherent rule of the safety system. If you need information in a second job from a first one, you need to gather it in one job and pass it forward to the next.
opaque ledge
yeah i actually tried that before i gave up, i wanted to get all those markets from job 1 and put into nativelist and send it to job 2 and actually do the calculation there
but it felt like i was doing it in a wrong way because it felt like it was complex
zenith wyvern
If you feel like one system or job is doing too much, you can try to break up your data into smaller pieces that each get processed by their own systems
And Unity will do a nice job of handling the implied dependencies between that data
opaque ledge
so 1 query per job then ?
zenith wyvern
I mean you don't really have a choice but yes that makes sense to me
Maybe someone with more experience writing larger more complicated systems can provide some better insight
opaque ledge
i think you are right ๐
i probably will be working on it tomorrow morning
its.. kinda ugly code but hey if it works it works ๐
vagrant surge
@trail burrow the whole dirty bit thing is 1 bit per entire property
including things like structs
then the actual Delta system unreal has does its thing
thing is, unreal has a huge bottleneck on checking deltas, as it does so every update
typical unreal network update goes something like this
for each connection (player)
find objects relevant to that connection
filter by check rate
go through ALL objects, and their subobjects, and compare with the last snapshot
build deltas
prioritize
send
the go through all objects part is super slow
for reference, doing that in PUBG takes a few miliseconds per player
and we have 100 players at start of the match
the N^2 problem is real
pubg (and fortnite, but fortnite does it better) does some trickery for that. For example pubg will only update 10 other characters per character at each tick check
and the fun part, is that well designed ue4 codebase is much slower than bad codebase. A codebase with a God Class in Character (player) that has a huge fuckton of properties is significantly faster than a codebase with split concerns and stuff in components
low tangle
@coarse turtle you probably know this already, but its not worth it to make a custom engine no matter how much you think you are doing from scratch in unity. its trival to throw together a engine with ecs, jobs, physics, rendering etc but its another to take that and write all the editor tools, all little interactions between the librarys to make things work, setting up a proper build pipeline, cross platform?
in the case with unity dots, you can always fall back onto anything from monobehaviour world to get around something that isn't done in dots yet. like animations and fast rendering
coarse turtle
Yep
low tangle
totally get it though. I'd just love for dots only version of unity with source code
I'd love to just finish up whats missing good enough for my game and rock on
instead of dealing with a million broken projects they are working on (HDRP and URP disgust me)
coarse turtle
Well end of the day - the stuff we end up building on top of dots isn't much of a pain for us
low tangle
thats true
its so pleasant to work with once you get it
ongui debug windows with data is priceless for debugging things in dots
you just query things in your ongui and loop though them displaying the data, it ends up being faster than you might think
coarse turtle
like I get the conversion system is a bit janky for ppl here, but it fit our needs which was quite nice
low tangle
I've used it in my new projects but I can't use it in my main due to project requirements
I just use a custom manual hybrid setup
coarse turtle
ah - and we were debating on using imgui but since we really just work on this on our free time, one of my teammates didn't want to learn how to stylize in imgui - so it was better to stick with uGUI
low tangle
I've got a debug UI I'm thinking about releasing here / fourms soon thats basically just a runtime clone of the entity debugger
has most data and it even works in il2cpp from testing
zenith wyvern
I think the biggest issue with the conversion pipeline is at first they seemed to be leaning towards working naturally with entities in the editor
Then they just completely shifted to conversion system instead which...doesn't seem like anyone wanted
low tangle
theres some things I need to rework before release but it already is super helpful for tracking down the bugs where it only happens in a build
I really want to rework the UI layout of it first and cut down on the number of active elements, but thats all easy to do once I set aside time for it
safe lintel
considering what happens to skinned characters, hierarchical relationships with physics, i kinda get why a dots editor wasnt the right way to go for now
zenith wyvern
Yeah I guess it makes sense to keep everything completely separate for now while they're still changing the higher level stuff so much
Bummer that it causes so much more work for the users though.
coarse turtle
btw @low tangle what is your game, wondering if there's a store front page to look at ๐
low tangle
I'm hesitant to link it because I got review bombed hard by some tolls from another game
coarse turtle
ah - sorry to hear - no worries
low tangle
just sucks a few kids can ruin a game so hard
even with evidence from their discord planning it, valve still didnt care
prepping a big update that should help though
zenith wyvern
It's a bummer that steam is so easy for people to abuse. I like that epic store is giving creators more control over that stuff. Or will be
Right now they don't even allow reviews
low tangle
honestly thats better lol
zenith wyvern
I agree
low tangle
I mean the guys even went to every single social platform it was being posted on about, twitter, youtube etc and shilled the other game while talking trash
so its not exactly the primary selling platform reviews that can be the issue
zenith wyvern
Well you said you're working on a social VR game, then I can imagine where the review bomb may have come from and yeah...that community is something else.
zenith wyvern
Fair
odd ridge
in a JobComponentSystem, what's the difference between using the [ReadOnly] attribute abose a member variable versus using the readonly keyword in front of a member variable?
zenith wyvern
The [ReadOnly] attribute is only needed for job structs, not needed for the new ForEach constructs. As far as I know the keyword has no special meaning in ECS
odd ridge
@zenith wyvern how do I handle input in ECS?
zenith wyvern
You read it on the main thread and either respond to it immediately or translate it into ECS components to be read by systems.
odd ridge
@zenith wyvern I'm trying to create an array of keystates and pass this array to the job struct, but I get error "cannot be of reference type". how do you give an array to the job?
zenith wyvern
gusty comet
If I modify component data in a native array created by ToComponentDataArray
will the updated data be used by the entity?
or do I need to associate the updated data with the entity ?
zenith wyvern
You need to assign it back. But you can do ToEntityArray and I believe both arrays are aligned the way you expect
gusty comet
great!, thank you @zenith wyvern
vale nymph
If I put the IConvertGameObjectToEntity interface on my gameobject in a subscene do I need another method to call the Convert method? At the moment it never gets called during runtime
silver dragon
Maybe you also need ConvertToEntity?
vale nymph
I tried putting that on the gameobject and it 'Convert' it to an Entity but it still doesn't go through the Convert method in the class
silver dragon
Hm, it should do that. Are ConvertToEntity and IConvertGameObjectToEntity on the same gameobject?
vale nymph
Yes they are
silver dragon
Have you rebuilt the entity cache?
crystal zephyr
If you have it in the subscene it is not supposed to get called on runtime, isn't it? It will be converted when the subscene is created in the entity cache. On runtime the already converted stuff should get loaded of the entity cache.
silver dragon
Right, during runtime this isn't called as there are no more gameobjects...
vale nymph
Didn't the Rebuild Entity Cache button get removed since a few months? I've been unable to find
silver dragon
I don't use subscenes currently, don't know. They were so much pain i kicked them all...
Does anyone know hot to make CollisionWorld readonly in a Entity.ForEach? With entities 0.5 .WithReadOnly() doesn't work anymore because CollisionWorld doesn't have [NativeContainer] set.
crystal zephyr
Are subscenes or better its data now be able to be in an asset bundle and will it work on android to load them?
mystic mountain
@silver dragon I think you use ReadOnly on PhysicsWorld?
silver dragon
I tried PhysicsWorld and CollisionWorld and both can't be used with .WithReadOnly in 0.5
fair condor
When using the new Build Settings Scriptable object, (which is required to use subscenes) and I hit build, I get:
Build ClassicBuildSettings failed after 0ms.
Build step BuildStepApplyPlayerSettings is missing required component 'ClassicScriptingSettings'.
Does anyone know what that means?
Happens in the "Apply Player Settings" build step
silver dragon
Started a new forums thread about my physics issue. I feel i miss something important...
mystic mountain
@silver dragon try post your code
silver dragon
silver dragon
Solved (see thread) ๐
gusty comet
i am not able to install Entity from package manager,its stuck in installing
how to fix it ?
using Unity 2019.3.0f5
Win 10 Pro
mystic mountain
Anyone know why I get this error while trying to add to DynamicBuffer<LinkedEntityGroup>?
Use in normal componentSystem with
Entities.WithNone<SpaceshipFinishedSpawningTag>().ForEach((Entity entity, ref SpaceShipData spaceShipData, DynamicBuffer<LinkedEntityGroup> linkedEntityGroup) =>
mystic mountain
Seems like it gets invalidated when you add or instantiate other entities, so "EntityManager.GetBuffer<LinkedEntityGroup>(entity).Add(visual);" worked fine at the spots I needed it.
gusty comet
Hello, still learning. I've written a system that prints a debug message to the console every frame. After adding the second code block, it only prints once and ceases. What am I doing wrong? Thanks
[UpdateInGroup(typeof(ServerSimulationSystemGroup))]
public class GridGeneratorSystem : ComponentSystem
{
protected override void OnUpdate()
{
UnityEngine.Debug.Log("alive");
}
}
Entities.ForEach((Entity ent, ref GridTile tile) =>
{
});
Perhaps remove UpdateInGroup attribute ?
gusty comet
now it runs twice
tawdry tree
Tip: Adding 'csharp' or 'cs' just after the triple backticks,a dn then immediately adding a linebreak gives you code highlighting for C#
Where is the second block located? Does it wrap the debug message?
In that case, do you have any entities with GridTiles? Are you sure?
Have you tried using debug breakpoints? Have you checked the entity debugger to ensure you have them?
gusty comet
give me a few minutes and I'll let you know, thank you
GridTile didn't exist after all
zenith wyvern
@gusty comet A system only updates when the things its querying for exist
opaque ledge
I got a weird issue with getting a singleton from a job system.
My job system:
NativeArray<Entity> markets1 = new NativeArray<Entity>(100, Allocator.TempJob);
var firstJob = new FirstJobStruct()
{
entities = markets1
}.Schedule(this, inputDependencies);
var localbuffer = GetBufferFromEntity<LocalMarketComparissionBuffer>()[GetSingletonEntity<KanwisSingleton>()];
var marketbuffermanager = GetBufferFromEntity<MarketDataBuffer>(true);
var secondJob = new SecondJobStruct()
{
buffer = localbuffer.AsNativeArray(),
entities = markets1,
marketDataBuffer = marketbuffermanager
}.Schedule(this, firstJob);
// Now that the job is set up, schedule it to be run.
return secondJob;
}
At first system is taking 0.2 ms but after 5-10 mins it becomes 1 ms and this is what debugger shows me:
http://prntscr.com/qrvwtq
So it... 'allocates' that entity and doesnt 'release' it i think
that KanwisSingleton spawns every frame on the debugger
This is the first time i am dealing with a singleton so i am not sure whats going on
opaque ledge
follow up thread https://forum.unity.com/threads/an-issue-with-accessing-singleton-entity-within-job-component-system.814764/
safe lintel
@opaque ledge i think its an issue with the latest entities package
it happens with the physics system too, 0.4 doesnt have that issue so im personally not upgrading yet. this is assuming your entities package is 0.5
mystic mountain
@opaque ledge How's the entity list, do you have multiple entities of that type or?
opaque ledge
@mystic mountain yeah, i needed to get a list of markets(which implements faction tag component and market buffer component), which thats what first job does, at second job i do the same thing but this time i get market component from that entity list also, so basically i am comparing markets to each other and save that to LocalMarketComparissionBuffer component inside singleton entity
@safe lintel yeah i am 0.5
mystic mountain
What I was refering to was in the entity debugger, if you could see that it is creating new entities of that singleton type
opaque ledge
oh no, it doesnt create any entities
mystic mountain
The "localbuffer.AsNativeArray()" has to be disposed, are you disposing it? *
mystic mountain
If you're not, try enable Full Stack Traces for LeakDetection
opaque ledge
it doesnt give me any error about it tho
with full stack traces enabled
i think, when you do AsNativeArray it disposes itself later on
zenith wyvern
AsNativeArray just lets you work with the DynamicBuffer as if it was a NativeArray. You wouldn't want to dispose it since you probably don't want to dispose the underlying buffer.
You can think of it as if you were casting the dynamic buffer to a nativearray
opaque ledge
also as a side note, when you create a buffer element data, you should initialize every spot, otherwise when you do AsNativeArray, operation on that array wont be able to access that specific index, lets say i have 10 capacity on my buffer element data, 5 of them initialized, when you do AsNativeArray and want do set index 6 thru that array it wont allow you.
I thought it would work like native container allocation but it doesnt ๐
slow epoch
Anybody knows how Jobs actually handle that you can't use any fields from a Job before it's completed?
low tangle
leaks show up as warnings instead of errors @opaque ledge
opaque ledge
no warnings either ๐
mystic mountain
@opaque ledge I see I have the same thing for a singleton I get in my InputSystem
Guess I'll go back to using EntityQueries x)
Weird, it seem queries has worse performance than Singletons.
opaque ledge
yeah, looks like its a 0.5 version issue
should i create temp or tempjob native array in a job struct ๐ค
zenith wyvern
If it's not going to exist outside the job it should be Temp
And don't call dispose on it, it will be disposed automatically
opaque ledge
oh ? does that happen when its in job struct or all Allocate.Temp disposed auto ?
zenith wyvern
It works anywhere. It will automatically be disposed when it leaves it's current scope
opaque ledge
oh good, i didnt know that, thanks
low tangle
singletons are just a query that asserts there only being one and returns the first componentdata from Query.ToComponentDataArray(temp)[0]
@mystic mountain
you can check the source for them in the entities package
gusty comet
Anyone knows how to get the jobindex in a ICollisionEventsJob to fill the needs for EntityCommandBuffer.Current
verbal pewter
Hey all, I'm trying to create a helper class that will take an Entity and return it as a container with all the different elements that make up that Entity (components/DynamicBuffers). These helper methods would be called from within systems. What I'm trying to figure out is how I can obtain a DynamicBuffer from within this helper class. Outside of systems you're supposed to get the default world's EntityManager, and within a system you're supposed to use EntityCommandBuffers. Am I correct in assuming I need to get the default world's EntityManager within the helper, even though it's being called from within a system?
low tangle
entitymanager is always where you get data from the world outside of a system in that world
verbal pewter
Alright, thanks!
warped trail
@gusty comet try just CommandBuffer without .ToConcurent()
warped trail
it works, but i don't know is it ok to do this or not๐ค
safe lintel
@gusty comet both the trigger and collision events are not yet parallel jobs
.Concurrent only necessary if its an IJobFor or variation of it. as its just IJob then you use the non concurrent version of the entitycommandbuffer ๐
gusty comet
@safe lintel i did not know that! helps alot thanks
opaque ledge
is there any difference between Capacity and Length properties of a native container ?
verbal pewter
Capacity is how many elements it can store total. Length is how many elements it's storing.
gusty comet
@autumn sleet so with NativeSetThreadIndex above an int property, i can use the concurrent Commandbuffer, too?
mystic mountain
@low tangle Hmm, it's werid that with singleton it was round 0.95ms and with manual query.ToComponentDataArray it was around 1.3-1.5ms
low tangle
looks like it does a mem cpy from the root of the chunk
makes sense because it enforces a single componendata in the archtype iirc
I dont use singleton too often so I dont remember all the gotchas with it
its here if you want to take a look
ln 794
@mystic mountain
mystic mountain
Hmm ok
low tangle
that skips a copy and a native array alloc
opaque ledge
Hmm, GenerateAuthoringComponent doesnt seem to work on IBufferElementDatas
that sucks ๐ฆ
gusty comet
@autumn sleet thats nice, thanks for the hint!
autumn sleet
@gusty comet no problem
odd ridge
I have a JobComponentSystem that I want to have access to my GameManager object, so from inside OnCreate() of my job system, I call GameObject.Find("GameManager"), but it returns null because OnCreate() is called before my GameManager object is created, how do I make it that OnCreate() is called after rather than before the object is created?
opaque ledge
i never tried that but have you check the Script Execution Order ? @odd ridge
if you make your script before default time, maybe that can help
low tangle
that wont work
system creation is after bootstrap but still before scene load
I suggest either a init function so you can assign it then to the system, or simply do a null check in the systems update and find it then if it is null
OnUpdate()
if(mgr==null) {
mgr = Find("name");
return;
}
etc
opaque ledge
Hmm, so GetSingleton from system causes system to run even tho my query returns 0, but i need the singleton so i can feed it to my job struct ๐ค
is there a trick for this or i should just accept it and take the performance hit ?
coarse turtle
uh if you want an unsafe route - i haven't profiled this yet:
unsafe struct FetchSomeSingleton : IJobChunk {
[ReadOnly]
public ArchetypeChunkComponentType<U> SomeType;
[NativeDisableUnsafePtrRestriction]
public T* YourSingletonData;
public void Execute(ArchetypeChunk chunk, int chunkIndex, int firstEntityIndex) {
var data = chunk.GetNativeArray<SomeType>();
*YourSingletonData = data[0];
}
}
ofc - you should replace T with a defined type.
@opaque ledge
opaque ledge
thats a scary looking code ๐ ๐
coarse turtle
So you would pass the pointer through jobs
Otherwise you could try using OnStartRunning()
to fetch said singleton
ofc checks are necessary - especially if you have 2 of them - or if your data changes in the singleton
Hmm possibly another way @opaque ledge is (needs profiling to see much of an impact this has)
// In a JobComponentSystem
var data = someEntityQuery.ToComponentDataArray<YourSingletonData>(out var singletonDeps);
var lastDeps = new SomeJobForEach {
SingletonArrayData = data
}.Schedule(this, JobHandle.CombineDeps(singletonDeps, inputDeps));
pliant pike
isnt ToComponentDataArray a job in itself so that would be a lot of overhead
coarse turtle
Yea - i just don't know much of an impact it has since I never tested it
since I dont use much singleton data - I typically just use GetSingleton<T>() ยฏ_(ใ)_/ยฏ
pliant pike
yeah that seems the simplest way, theres always going to be a bit of overhead because you have to sometimes check if it exists
left oak
on a JCS Entites.ForEach, do I have to specify WithBurst?
coarse turtle
If you want BurstCompilation yes
on a separate note I wonder how much impact CompleteDependency() has in GetSingleton<T> ๐ค
left oak
silly that they also include WithoutBurst then
pliant pike
well you cant debug with burst
coarse turtle
Hmm - anyone have recommended readings on assembly and simd? I'd love to learn a bit more ๐
Edit - I might take a look at some processor manuals as a starter ๐ค
left oak
but if it's not burst unless you specify WithBurst, what's the difference?
pliant pike
with burst is faster
zenith wyvern
In JCS ForEach will run with burst unless you specify WithoutBurst
WithBurst let's you specify some specific options
@odd ridge I feel like there's no nice way to do this right now. In the SceneManager class there are callbacks for when a scene is done loading so you can find your game object there. Or you can Inject your GameObject and use GetSingleton in OnStartRunning
Either way kinda sucks. If you can get away with making your manager a scriptableobject it's a bit nicer
By Inject I mean use ConvertAndInject on ConvertToEntity
odd ridge
@zenith wyvern thanks
@zenith wyvern OnStartRunning() was exactly what I needed instead of OnCreate(), I just didn't find the documentation for JobComponentSystem
now I did by reverse looking what you told me
dull copper
is there any docs about the new build system anywhere?
like, how does one do automated builds with it (how to run it from commandline)
it's kinda relevant now that you can't even build recent DOTS with the old build setup
dull copper
as a side note, IL2CPP is broken on 2020.1 again with DOTS
just tried a new project done from scratch on 2019.3 with dots + hybrid + unity physics and it built just fine
same project upgraded to 2020.1 fails on it
mono builds still work
it's nothing new tho, IL2CPP keeps breaking all the time :/
safe lintel
you can call the build command from the asset
var buildSettings = Resources.Load<BuildSettings>("BuildSettings/Win64-Build");
Assert.IsNotNull(Resources.Load<BuildSettings>("BuildSettings/Win64-Build"));
buildSettings.Build();
its been a while since I did a build from command line but i assume it should work inside a static script
dull copper
should yes, I'll try that, thanks
dull copper
it does work if I let it open the editor window while it's building, it doesn't do anything with batchmode enabled
safe lintel
ah yet another thing to investigate ๐
dull copper
there isn't anything obvious on the editor.log for this either
pseudo epoch
i'm trying to setup ecs system in editor with the DefaultWorldInitialization.DefaultLazyEditModeInitialize() which give me a world but adding system don't work when i add system on the editor world any idee ?
twin raven
Do I remember it right that drawing gizmos is now possible from jobs?
Or debugdraw ๐ค ?
amber flicker
PSA if working with subscenes, removing colliders from gameobjects takes the import process down from 30s to nearly instant. Not sure if this is a consequence of not having dots physics installed. Edit: looks like that's not true.. possibly a combo of that with older subscene content. Unsure.
opaque ledge
So i want to create entities in my job component structs, but i cant send Mesh and Material to job struct so i cannot set RenderMesh mesh and material and therefore it wont be rendered, any suggestions on how to go on about this ?
twin raven
Are latest entities packages compatible with 2020.1 alpha?
hollow scroll
@opaque ledge maybe you can create entities in a job, and then do a Entities.ForEach(...).WithoutBurst().Run() to set the components if you need references to those things
after the previous job completes... just an idea, maybe there is a better way
opaque ledge
I am trying to do with prefab, lets see how it will go ๐
dull copper
@twin raven some things work, but I'm getting random issues myself
like, for example the moment I can't make IL2CPP builds work on 2020.1, they still work on 2019.3 with dots
next glen
@twin raven yes, with fewer issues than 2019.3 (in my limited experience)
Seems more stable, unexpectedly
dull copper
I'm getting this now:
next glen
In 2019.3.0f5, DOTS didn't work at all
dull copper
so I'm guessing Unity Physics authoring hasn't been updated to the fast play mode enter
next glen
What version?
dull copper
@next glen 2018?
next glen
Typo 2019*
dull copper
and the error I showed happens on both 2019.3.0f5 and 2020.1.0a20
it's just issue with the domain reload, or more of lack of it
I bet it's a trivial fix
also why is dots not working on 2019.3?
it does work here
next glen
It works on 2019.3.0f4. Just not f5
dull copper
any example what's broken?
next glen
After adding a [GenerateAuthoringComponent] component and pressing play, it's a silent crash. There is a bug report for it, but it isn't getting a lot of attention. So it didn't seem widespread
Upgrading to 2020 fixes it 100%. Tried a bunch of solutions within 2019, but all failed
dull copper
hmmm, the line that gives me errors has this comment before it on authoring script: cs // This requires Entity Conversion mode to be 'Convert And Inject Game Object'
if I move the physics step script out of dots subscene and manually change it to that mode, playmode without domain reload works without errors
I do lose the DOTS Editor's entity conversion preview for that component by doing that tho
hmmmm, it's lack of scene reload that breaks it, not domain reload
eager jungle
Hello everyone, I've been doing OOP for 15 years, and I'm starting with dots a few days ago (you can imagine what my brain is undergoing ;)) , and I have so many unanswered questions in mind, but right now, there is one in particular that one of you may be able to help with: when a system (in my case a camera controller system) depends on different set of entities (different archetypes - in my case a camera and a player - which would be the camera target), what is the proper / efficient way to find the player entity components i need (Translation, but we can imagine it to be something else) for my camera system to work?
And a more general question: where to find "software architecture with dots/ecs" examples / tutorials / or other resources, in order to quickly think "ECS"? I'm not really interested in how to do things with unity, but more of the general process of designing stuff using ECS pattern
next glen
Welcome to the wonderful world of ECS! You don't "find" things. They find you
If you want to run a system on a specific entity, give that entity an empty component, which acts as a tag
Does that answer the question?
eager jungle
I get that, but does that mean my camera system should first query for the components i need on the player entity, pick the data i need, then query my camera components after that, and update them using the data from player? I know this is very basic question, but I'm really trying to not go in a completely wrong path ๐
opaque ledge
Experienced DOTS people generally recommend this: http://www.dataorienteddesign.com/dodbook/
eager jungle
thanks @opaque ledge
next glen
Camera system will never query anything. One of ECS's major features/pains is it's super modularity
Your system will just act on a bunch of components. A system is only logic. It doesn't know what an entity is
I'm sorry, I've gotta get to work. Can't write up a better explanation at the moment
Enjoy ECS though! It's a lot of fun. A great challenge
eager jungle
Thanks, my brain needs to process that. Not sure to get it, if anyone else can help, that's be greatly appreciated ๐
amber flicker
I guess what does your 'camera system' want to do? Rotate towards a target? Well that could be a RotateTowardsTarget system that just requires a target and rotation tag etc.. so what you start of thinking as a specific task can quickly become very generic.
mystic mountain
What is your "Camera system" supposed to do?
amber flicker
Then there's the other aspect of it which is dealing with traditional unity monobehaviours and associating them with entities and/or tagging them with components
eager jungle
@amber flicker this is exactly that "I guess what does your 'camera system' want to do? Rotate towards a target? Well that could be a RotateTowardsTarget system that just requires a target and rotation tag". I absolutely understand that, and the data oriented aspect of it. I'm just asking what is the best way in my system to find the player / or register the player in some way, in order to rotate towards the proper entity
In my mind, the camera system is what makes the camera rotate, so it would run of camera related components
this here is a good example of what i want to do @32:00 : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BNMrevfB6Q0&t=2093s
but he's using a hack to get the player position. What would be the ecs way to do it ?
safe lintel
For my own camera system the camera entity is just a child of the player entity, so by way of the hierarchy, the camera follows the player. But another way would be adding say a PlayerTag component to the player, and in the camerasystem query the tag and look up its translation/rotation etc
eager jungle
so you'd do two queries in a row, 1 (readonly) for finding player translation, and 1 for updating camera component?
amber flicker
One bit of knowledge you may have not picked up (not sure if it's mentioned in the vid) is that you can use a ComponentDataFromEntity (CDFE) to access components related to any other entity. So, if your camera system knows the players entity, you can look up that players translation using e.g. (very psuedo code) allTranslations = ComponentDataFromEntity<Translation>(), allTranslations[playerEntity]
so if its the camera you want to rotate (still not sure what camera specific things this system is doing but anyway...), you could require e.g. <Rotation, CameraTag, CameraTarget> where public struct CameraTarget : IComponentData{ public Entity Value; } - then yup, you'll need to set the target somehow - potentially using another system. There are many ways to achieve a similar thing though.
eager jungle
i get it
how would you deal with a target entity that may change over time?
is it this other target setter system looking every frame for a target change?
is it a lot more costly to query the target entity from an archetype every frame in the camera system?
amber flicker
So much of this depends on your implementation I'm trying to be helpful in a general way.. which may not be very helpful. Feel free to share code here. If your camera system can only ever focus on one player at a time, it may be worth setting the target of a CameraTarget singleton or something. Common patterns for as things change is either to have a special tag in the archetype or filter a job on change of archetype. I guess you might already know but let's say you have 1000 entities with archetype [a,b,c] (let's say c is a tag like NewEntity), you can have a system that requires NewEntity then have another system that runs at the end of the frame that changes archetype [a,b,c] to [a,b] - this is incredibly cheap because it changes the entry for the archetype rather than changing each of the individual entities - so consequently this is a kind of an efficient event pattern where a system would e.g. only run once, when the entity was created
eager jungle
thanks @amber flicker , still processing that
@safe lintel , hmm adding or removing a component or tag for example
gusty comet
@zenith wyvern I still can't contribute much back to the group, but I found that entityQuery.CopyFromComponentDataArray can be used to sync changes made on a entityQuery.ToComponentDataArray array back to the entities.
Hopefully this helps somebody out there
warped trail
@gusty comet https://gametorrahod.com/minimum-main-thread-block-with-out-jobhandle-overload/ good read about your thing๐
gusty comet
Oh nice! Thank you @warped trail !
safe lintel
Well I guess another system to ensure say a CameraTarget is a unique entity would make sense in the context of this. You can split up this logic as much or as little as you want, using a query shouldn't have a bearing on perf, just remember to create your query in OnCreate and cache it.
eager jungle
understood
zenith wyvern
If your system is specifically concerned with when a component changes you can also use the ChangedFilters so it will only run when there's a change
eager jungle
thanks for that @zenith wyvern , guys, I'll try to put all of that new knowledge to practice ๐
warped trail
you can make TargetableComponent and place it on every object which can be a target and HasFolower component on targets that already has something that following it. Then if that 'something' wants to change a target you can query everything that has TargetableComponent but don't have HasFolower component๐
odd ridge
what is a ComponentDataProxy?
coarse turtle
ComponentDataProxy were the old way of "linking" entities to gameObjects - they're effectively replaced via the conversion pipeline
ConvertToEntity
odd ridge
can I still use ComponentDataProxy? is it going to be removed?
coarse turtle
You can still use it - just not recommended and I've no idea when it will be removed. The alternative is: ConvertToEntity w/ ConvertAndInject
coarse turtle
IConvertGameObjectToEntity is part of the ConversionPipeline - if you want to add some custom logic like spawning an entity paired with the gameObject that will be converted, you can do so there
ConvertToEntity is responsible for starting the process of converting the gameObject hierarchy into its entities format and subsequently allowing IConvertGameObjectToEntity to run in the ConversionWorld
5argon wrote a nice tour of it: https://gametorrahod.com/gameobject-conversion-ecosystem-code-tour/
clever depot
How do you all feel about unity deciding to focus on their MonoBehavior->Entity workflow opposed to focusing on core standalone ECS?
coarse turtle
Ppl have their opinions here - for me personally it fits my needs - since the authoring is a traditional workflow so I don't have to change much
safe lintel
standalone ecs wouldnt have rendering beyond tiny's capability or anything so, quite alright..
clever depot
@safe lintel I think the hybrid rendering is its own standalone module
pliant pike
yeah its the only way it could work really, otherwise everyone would be forced to use ECS
odd ridge
why do some components have [Serializable] tag but some others don't?
how do I tell what needs to have [Serializable]?
coarse turtle
[Serializable] attributes allow you to tell the .net backend that you want to be able to object contents into a file
zenith wyvern
Serializable has nothing to do with dots, it's gameobject related and the same rules it's always been forever
coarse turtle
in the context of unity - you can display regular object parameters/fields in the inspector
zenith wyvern
Plenty of material on google to learn about it if you're curious
odd ridge
I heard hybrid ECS is not as fast as pure ECS, anytime I use the conversion pipeline, it's not pure anymore?
or is related to using the hybrid renderer?
safe lintel
conversion != hybrid
conversion is literally converting data from one thing to another, can be hybrid or pure
hybrid implies using regular unityengine stuff, so any pure equivalent will most likely be faster.
coarse turtle
Reliance on MonoBehaviour components would fall into a "hybrid" style of ECS - especially if you need them active in your systems - e.g. like if you needed the animator
and you use a system to set animator params
eager jungle
hey, anybody knows why environment lighting isn't working after my gameobject is converted to an entity?
eager jungle
i am, let me try
thumbs up, thanks ๐
is this a know bug, or just expected behaviour?
safe lintel
known bug, also setting stuff to static causes issues
eager jungle
thanks , amazing feedback, super appreciated ๐
warped trail
i wonder if next "big improvement" in hybrid renderer will be HDRP only?
safe lintel
i think its supposed to be improvement for rendering nonstatic entities
safe lintel
im dying for some package updates
coarse turtle
I realised how important text align is when converting ugui into its entities' format ๐
dull copper
## [Burst 1.2.1] - 2020-01-23
### Fixed
- Fix issue with function pointers being corrupted after a domain reload that could lead to unexpected function pointer calls.
- Fix potential deadlock between Burst and the Asset Database if burst is being used when building the database.
- Fix `AssemblyResolveException` when loading a project with dependent packages that are using Burst in static initializers or `InitializeOnLoad`.
### Known Issues
- The fix for the deadlock requires to temporarily disable the ability to click on a compilation error in the Unity Editor to jump to the source IDE.
south timber
Anyone here ever serialized a WheelFrictionCurve in the inspector? Or am I asking in the wrong thread?
dull copper
that doesn't sound like DOTS/ECS discussion
idle glen
Has anyone seen a more up to date guide to Unit Testing DOTS systems? All the versions I have found so far date back a year and enough has changed that tutorial doesn't work
tawdry tree
Are you familiar with unit testing in general?
Because the concepts (that differ from normal unit tests) are still the same - make a world, add the systems you want to test, add enough entities with the correct components, run one frame, then check the result.
Depending on how your code is set up you might also straight up test jobs' Execute method as well, which can be done as you would any other unit test in Unity, though I'd recommend using the 'Unity way' for keeping things tidy, unless you plan to do 'normal' unit tests as well.
verbal pewter
@opaque ledge Grats ๐ That moment when you see things actually moving on screen is always so nice.
opaque ledge
ikr ๐
next glen
Does DOTS currently support 2D physics?
tawdry tree
There is no built-in 2D physics module(AFAIK), but if you put a restraint on the depth axis you get a similar result
low tangle
yeah that or just make the physics yourself
or import box2d
or use gameobject dummys with old 2d components
autumn sleet
@low tangle box2d?
coarse turtle
dull copper
I dunno what good that would do
I guess if one could port that to DOTS
Unity already uses box2d under hood for 2D physics
also afaik, Unity is working on 2D physics engine for DOTS but no idea where it's at or if their focus has changed
they technically need it for tiny
low tangle
Yep
Just pull in box 2d and make your physics entities match, then just have a system that does a sync of their transforms in, run the simulation steps, sync back.
Super easy with systems
It's exactly what they do with havok if you think about it
You have full control so it's much easier to do things like this and have them fully integrated with the rest of the world
This is also how physx and unity 2d physics work
dull copper
someone did that for bullet and some quite early unity ecs version
I upgraded it for some newer ECS when I tried it
twin raven
I did this with chipmunk2d
dull copper
is there some magic way to search for specific things on profilers timeline?
there's easy searchbox for hierarchy views
but now with DOTS jobs all over the timeline, it's really tedious to find small jobs there now
not to mention jobs getting spread to all 23 worker threads on 3900x :/
low tangle
man I wish I had that many
dull copper
it really makes the whole timeline view pain :/
I can only imagine how this is on new threadrippers
dull copper
would be nice if you could force unity to limit the worker threads for debugging purposes
low tangle
you can actually set the job thread count somewhere
was talked about in here way back when
dull copper
hmmmm
low tangle
I dont know if it will actually do what you want but its close
let me see if I can find it
low tangle
low tangle
dull copper
You can set the value of this property at runtime to dynamically reduce the number worker threads available to the Unity Job Queue.
low tangle
worth a shot
low tangle
np, let me know how it goes. I'd be interested in the results
dull copper
well, it does limit the ACTIVE worker threads ๐
but it doesn't like limit it to the first available ones
here I set the worker count to 3:
wonder what logic it uses to pick the workers there
it just picks a random worker and sticks to it
it does stay same unless I restart editor
on new restart I got this with same 3 worker threads:
imagine it's just coincidence it placed those three worker threads so that they could fit into same view at once on these cases
@low tangle ^
worst part is that I can't see the main thread timeline at all when scrolled that much down
dull copper
setting cpu affinity from task manager didn't change anything either as I think Unity really just detects the hw thread count from cpu anyway
low tangle
true true
dull copper
it's same with job count of 1, it just places that one worker thread then randomly somewhere
when I tried it first, it happened to go to first worker which would have been ideal
on next startup, it put it on worker 19
low tangle
would be good to report
dull copper
yeah I guess
low tangle
would be nice for the editor to place it at the top
dull copper
at least we can now scroll this down again
low tangle
thread on the forum
dull copper
profilers vertical scroll was broken for a long time
dull copper
they only fixed it on some recent 2019.3
yeah, I could make a forum thread about this
I still wonder if there's some way to find specific jobs on this timeline view tho
I've never really had issues finding things from this view prior to DOTS
low tangle
iirc hierarchy view links it up with the block view
so try clicking it there, then switch and hit f
dull copper
hmmm, I don't think it links it back to timeline
but I might just fail on using this ๐
I have like simplest job here where I just try to see what happens with debug draws
it does let me do the debug draws on it (using 2020.1)
it's also unbelievable how laggy Unity Editor is on startup nowadays. I dunno if it's because of dots or just in general
it takes like 10 seconds for me to become responsive after it opens
once it's revived itself, it's fine
I wonder if it's some burst related delay when running unity physics etc
and I don't mean entering playmode, just getting the editor usable
low tangle
ah
autumn sleet
Is there any way to have synchronization of Editor changes with Convert and Inject workflow? Current workaround is to have Proxy with GameObjectEntity that will allow do changes in Play mode and have them serialized with ECS.
gusty comet
is there a way to continue with the next cycle of a Entities.ForEach()? Like "continue" in normal for loops?
karmic pilot
just return from your lambda, then it will execute the next one
opaque ledge
Do you guys think i should make a faction components to each factions like FactionAComponent, FactionBComponent etc. or should i put int field to faction component and make ID from there, like 0 means faction A, 1 means faction B etc..
karmic pilot
depends on how you want to filter and/or use them later on. if in doubt, use both and measure the performance with large amounts of entities
gusty comet
@karmic pilot that easy, thanks
opaque ledge
So umm, my trade ships doesnt render anymore, everything else is working such as movement but it.. doesnt render, i have no idea why
i will just close and re open the unity, maybe it will work ๐
nope, it didnt work ๐ฆ
sigh now i have to deal with this ๐
viral kindle
Ok, so ECS is still in questionable state by the looks of it :P
tawdry tree
Depends on what you're trying to accomplish, and how you do it (built-in? Custom? Porting/coupling external library?)
surreal grail
heyo! is there a way to use interfaces in Burst? when I try it gives this error: "Unable to find interface method ECS_Test.MeshJob.IVoxelType.init() from type object" I'm trying to call methods from an array or a list based on an ID
I guess the interface is somewhat an object so that's why I can't do it that way, but is there an other way to achieve something similar?
tawdry tree
Burst does some compilation magic, so I wouldn't be surprised if it simply doesn't support interface
What is the intefrace on? Job? Component? System?
surreal grail
it's a struct that has the IVoxelType interface
tawdry tree
Huh, but it seems to think there's an object involved
Wait no, bad sleepy brain, I mixed up object and class
surreal grail
this is all I have, it's just an empty method to test if it even works: ``` interface IVoxelType
{
void init();
}
public struct AirVoxel : IVoxelType
{
public void init()
{
}
}```
when I try it gives this error: "Unable to find interface method
ECS_Test.MeshJob.IVoxelType.init()from typeobject"
@surreal grail
Post the code that's giving you this error
tawdry tree
The technical issue aside, that's not very good DOD, I believe
At least if that has anything to do with entities and their components. If it's outside that, then... I dunno.
surreal grail
it has nothing to do with entities, but it is BurstCompiled so it is in DOTS ๐
tawdry tree
Data oriented
surreal grail
@zenith wyvern it's just this IVoxelType air_vox = new AirVoxel(); air_vox.init();
thats in a job that compiles otherwise
tawdry tree
I don't undertsand the best practice well enough to say anything conclusive, so if some DOD folks could weight in and point at best practice, that'd be nice
zenith wyvern
Try AirVoxel air_vox = new AirVoxel()
You can't use any kind of polymorphism in Burst
surreal grail
yea, thats what I was trying to achieve
I thought that it was only inheritance that was not usable
dull copper
I have really basic question here , if I wanted to create additional entities on same conversion script I thought could just use dstManager.CreateEntity() for the extra ones. when the script runs, it doesn't give errors but the additional entities don't show up on the entity debugger either.. any idea what's going on with this?
surreal grail
so then, is there a way to get pointers to methods? ๐
cause I can put those in a list ๐
zenith wyvern
tawdry tree
@dull copper Are you doing basic CreateEntity? It seems more coreect to me to make one, then use that as a template/archtype for more
dull copper
it's super basic
I create entity, add component to it, setname for it so I can ID it quicly
I have system using the component it has, so it's not like it should be inactive either
zenith wyvern
There is conversionSystem.CreateAdditionalEntity but tbh I'm not entirely sure how it's supposed to be used
dull copper
wonder if this is breaking due to some dots editor glitch or because I use 2020.1 atm
that's meant for converting additional gameobjects I think
amber flicker
@dull copper you have to use CreateAddd... ah.. Sark beat me to it.. esp if you want to support subscene workflow, that's what you need to use
surreal grail
Sark, yeah I've seen this FunctionPointer but it will cause me lots of pain without any examples, oh well guess I have experimenting to do
amber flicker
I think you can just pass the original GO
dull copper
ah, I'll try
I did come across that when trying to figure it out on my own but there's barely any mention on how these should be used ๐
amber flicker
tell me about it... caused (causing actually) massive pita for me
zenith wyvern
There's no getting around it, if you want to do polymorphism or anything polymorphism-like in Burst you need to jump through some hoops. I've messed with FunctionPointer a little but gave up on it when I found out you can't pass any structs into a FunctionPointer
amber flicker
wooo ๐
dull copper
var childEntity = conversionSystem.CreateAdditionalEntity(this);
I then added that as ref to my main entity
all good now
surreal grail
@zenith wyvern okay, thanks for the info, I think I'll try to return float3s and stuff, that would be enough for me, I don't really need to return anything more complex
one more craaaazy thing, does this sound possible? : new assetbundles that are loaded in would register their own function pointers into a NativeList that is used by a BurstJob so people could make mod-like assets for a game?
zenith wyvern
I think the FunctionPointers need to be set up at compile-time
surreal grail
yeah, that's what I'm afraid of
zenith wyvern
If you really want to get wild you should check out the source for the physics package, they mimic polymorphism for the different physics shapes. If I remember right they use temporary blob assets to store the polymorphic data until it needs to be used
surreal grail
oh that sounds exciting and complicated, might look into that, thank you again! ๐
left oak
anybody else get allocation warnings the FIRST time you press play in a scene after editor startup? No warnings on subsequent plays...
I am entering playmode with reaload domain disabled
opaque ledge
Its amazing, when i pull prefab to subscene it renders, but when i instantiate from a job, everything but rendering works
๐ญ
Okay well, apperantly i had to do:
DOTS->Live Link Mode->SceneView: Live Game State
gusty comet
this is kinda silly, but I didn't know that math.normalize can return NaN
I hope that this helps somebody out there
I was doing this a lot:
var isNan = math.isnan(nForce);
if (!isNan.x && !isNan.y && !isNan.z)
{
force += nForce;
}```yeah
close to 0 also normalizes to NaN
So, is there a better way than checking for NaN ?
worldly pulsar
normalizesafe? ๐
dull copper
so... of course now that I create entities on code, I will not get that nice entity conversion preview for the additional entities anymore
I wish we really had that DOTS editor
like editor that actually just showed the ECS world, let people pick the objects from it, examine the component values...
low tangle
working on some GUI for that but theres a few missing things in the entity debug api
safe lintel
@dull copper you sure? i see them on mine, could use a little more readability though
opaque ledge
@safe lintel whats that ๐
now that i think about it, i actually have ecs editor ui package but i only have entity debugger
does ecs editor ui package give anything besides entity debugger ?
low tangle
thats the conversion workflow showing on the source gameobjects
opaque ledge
huh, i dont think i ever saw that
safe lintel
yeah but three additional spring entities on the camera are just from code
@opaque ledge this only shows up for subscene entities afaik
opaque ledge
is that inspector or some other editor window ?
safe lintel
its the inspector
if you drag the "Entity Conversion" bar up, it might be sorta hidden
opaque ledge
ah, i dont have it ๐ฆ component datas are just laid out vertically for me
including for subscene entities
safe lintel
what does it look like?
https://gfycat.com/comfortableadolescenthoneycreeper sure it isnt hidden like this?
dull copper
@safe lintel I'll check, I have bad experience on clicking that part of the preview as it tends to get click underneath it ๐
like, it keeps giving tooltips of the inspector values that would be under it
like.. not bugged at all ๐
but yeah, it's early
@safe lintel ah I have to click the dropdown arrow
yeah, I see all things now, this will help a lot
thanks again ๐
oh, you can convert that to floating window too
much better now that I could dock it elsewhere
safe lintel
ah nice didnt know about the floating window
dull copper
so much nicer when don't need to resize and reposition it
I need to figure new editor layout for this now
safe lintel
so many hidden little things, docs team is gonna be put to work when this all gets finalised(heh)
dull copper
I used to stack hierarchy and properties on same side one over another
but with this thing in addition, it's just super crowded
dull copper
it's possibly been there always ๐
low tangle
I asked for exactly that. thank you who ever did add that
dull copper
at least if they added it later on, they forgot to add it to changelog: https://docs.unity3d.com/Packages/com.unity.dots.editor@0.3/changelog/CHANGELOG.html
low tangle
it was from one of those closed tests
dull copper
ah if it was prior to first public version, then that would make sense
low tangle
yeah
viral kindle
but with this thing in addition, it's just super crowded
@dull copper // Just buy another monitor
dull copper
I have three :p
but I prefer to keep editor mostly contained on single window, usually only have game view out or if I do shader graphs, I have that on another
I keep one monitor for VS and one for browser/discord etc
safe lintel
upgrade them all to those ultrawides ๐
dull copper
๐
viral kindle
Buy 4th one
dull copper
I have 4th one on the floor
safe lintel
make a 360 degree setup so you just swivel your chair ๐
low tangle
what you dont want a 8k 80"
low tangle
yeah home project tech has lagged hard
dull copper
anyway, can fit all in the editor, just need to rethink of the nice placing for all this
viral kindle
Why fit where you can just go VR?
dull copper
oh wait.... if I undock the entity conversion preview... it does it only for that conversion
it doesn't keep updating it for other selections
this must be a bug
as it makes no sense, especially since there can only be one floating window for this
viral kindle
Actually, that would be fun to try working in VR ๐ค
viral kindle
No, I mean just mirroring windows and tricking it into thinking it has more monitors
dull copper
I could see lack of resolution becoming a real issue there
maybe better in the future
viral kindle
Would it be noticable with virtual screen being close?
You don't need to worry about monitors being in certain position, you will be able to move them
willow creek
hey, I'm working on a Native quadtree for points and just finished the range query, in case anyone wants to check it out: https://github.com/marijnz/NativeQuadtree/tree/master.
Insertion / construction is very fast, about .7 ms for the given test with 20k elements. Queries should be fast too but need better benchmarks for them.
tawdry tree
My experience with VR says you need pretty high-res screens for a PC desktop to be legible. My Vive is 1080ร1200 per eye, And I have to lean in or stand really close to the desktop when using steamVR's 'see your desktop' feature.
Unfortunately I haven't had the chance to try some newer, higher-res HMDs. From what I've heard the Vive Pro and Valve Index's 1440x1600 per eye makes a pretty clear difference, though. Relevant thread:
https://www.reddit.com/r/ValveIndex/comments/dsl31z/index_vs_original_vive_resolution_from_tyriel_wood/
That's all a bit off topic, though, but I'm playing with the a few potential VR experiences/games, and I would likely try to use DOTS for them, because VR is hard enough on your computer as is. On the other hand, if DOTS means I don't get graphics optimizations (batching and such), then it's right out.
stiff urchin
When your DOTS code crashes unity. ๐ต
System.InvalidOperationException: HashMap is full
Thrown from job: Unity.Transforms.ParentSystem.GatherChangedParents
Maybe turning off burst might catch the issue.
Even without burst it crashes pretty hard same error. I'm pretty sure I only have 1 parent component on the entity..
Perhaps because of the command buffer something funky is going on:
commandBuffer.RemoveComponent<Parent>(index, selectionEntity);
commandBuffer.AddComponent(index, selectionEntity, new Parent() { Value = entity });
updated my visual studio 2017/2019 snippets for the new for each and added newjob which was missing
new foreach is RunFor
old is still ForEachEntity
remote coyote
@willow creek thanks for sharing!
twin raven
That is really cool @willow creek ๐ป I am gonna give a it a try replacing my really primitive spatial hash map
willow creek
Cheers guys, it's still WIP so be careful when using it..
opaque ledge
So, when doing Entities.ForEach lambda you can use WithAll, WithAny and WithNone, but how can you do that in a job struct ?
dull copper
quote from burst 1.2.1 forum post: We hope to release the first preview of 1.3 in the coming days. Stay tuned!
and this was posted earlier about 1.3:
We are also eager to share as soon as possible the next 1.3.0 preview that is almost ready and which is going to bring several improvements: support for cross compilation, cache of generated code between editor restarts, new LLVM version, improved codegen with no-alias analysis, new x86 Intrinsics API for advanced SIMD scenariosโฆ and more.
For strings, we hope to bring basic support for them for the 1.3 timeframe in the case of Debug.Log and also with NativeString.
This is also allowing Burst to completely remove the dependency from Visual Studio SDK C++ installs or from Linux build tooling. But note that certain platforms (e.g Consoles, iOS) are requiring Burst to use their platform SDK to generate an executable. So the cross-platform compilation is mainly for desktop platforms.
of course plans change but looking forward in seeing how much of this actually made into first 1.3 preview
not requiring VS c++ toolchain will make new installs simpler at least ๐
silver dragon
I hope there will be a new entities release soon which fixes those annoying singleton issues....
@opaque ledge There are [ExcludeComponent] and [RequireComponent] attributes. Though i don't remember their correct names right now...
opaque ledge
ooooh i see, thanks i will check it out
twin raven
Was cross platform deterministic floating point setting supposed to come in the first half of 2020?
dire frigate
Would this mean that we can finally compile to linux with 1,3? ๐
stiff urchin
Is there a way to keep an entity from rendering without removing the mesh component?
amber flicker
Haven't tried but adding the Disabled ICD might do it
scratch that.. that will stop it working in other systems too
mystic mountain
Anyone else bumped into problem of subscenes and prefabs? Seems when I update prefab that is also in subscene it won't get updated.
wary anchor
Quick sanity check on NativeList<> - the capacity is the amount of memory initially to earmark for the list, rather than the initial Length of the list, isn't it?
dull copper
@twin raven that was supposed to come a long time ago already
wouldn't hold my breath anymore
2022 then maybe? ๐
opaque ledge
@stiff urchin http://prntscr.com/qtjsab
maybe you can add "FrozenRenderSceneTag" ?
altenative to that maybe you can also remove LocalToWorld component if you dont use it
stiff urchin
It looks like FrozenRenderSceneTag works good.
thanks! ๐
Now I need to figure out how to do OR queries..
I think EntityQueryDesc with any will work..
pseudo epoch
Hey what are current restrictions for ecs and android ?? I've seen some post here about float precision, and i'd like to know if there are others know restrictions, i use android build for VR
willow creek
@wary anchor correct
opaque ledge
is doing GetBufferFromEntity and/or GetComponentDataFromEntity within a job expensive operation ? i generally store entity in my component data and use those functions to get what component data/buffer i need, but i am not sure if i should avoid it or not
coarse turtle
doesn't seem to take a big perf hit- but I didn't stress test it extensively. I use it if I need to recurse and grab data off the children which can happen to be in separate chunks
I think there was a forum post by tertle where he looked at the perf of ComponentDataFromEntity/BufferFromEntity
opaque ledge
thanks, i will take a look
low tangle
Basicly if you need random access, just do it
opaque ledge
So... how is everyone bridging between ECS and Monobehaviours ?
zenith wyvern
That's what ConvertAndInject is for on ConvertToEntity
Gives you full query access to your monobehaviour
wary anchor
@willow creek thank you!
low tangle
AddComponentObject on select entitys with managing of their lifetime with a SystemState and a lookup dictionary in a cleanup system @opaque ledge
left oak
I can't seem to resize a buffer that's a ref parameter in my JCS Entities.ForEach... How does one do that?
low tangle
.WithStructuralChanges()
and you might need to get the dynamic buffer though EntityManager instead of as a ref
zenith wyvern
You shouldn't need WithStructuralChanges. Show the code where you're trying to resize it. @left oak
left oak
I got it working. It seems like you can't access a dynamic buffer's methods when it's an Entities.ForEach parameter, so I just used a Job.WithCode and grabbed the buffer with entity manager first
zenith wyvern
inputDeps = Entities.ForEach((ref DynamicBuffer<ABuffer> buffer) =>
{
buffer.ResizeUninitialized(10);
Works fine
left oak
huh, the first time i tried i got nothing
must've made some bizarre syntax error
my bad
low tangle
all good
for some reason I was thinking you were adding the dynamic buffer then resizing it
which is a structure change. my bad
gusty comet
If I've split up my code into many components and now need to access 8 components in Entities.ForEach (I would do chunk iteration, but netcode is giving me problems), how do I approach that?
safe lintel
i havent touched netcode but there is a problem with it and chunk iteration?
opaque ledge
@gusty comet if you are using tag components you can add RequireComponent attribute to your job struct
but since you said Entities.ForEach, you make a query in component system so you can use WithAll, WithNone, or WithAny methods
so Entities.WithAll<MyTagComponenet>().ForEach()
radiant sentinel
hello, how can i request new feature? for example InnerLoop at IJobForEach
low tangle
forms, but make sure you structure your request post well
gusty comet
hello guys,
does ECS just for optimizing scripts execution on CPU or can be used for GPU massive instanced of gameobjects rendering?
radiant sentinel
@gusty comet Currently CPU but you have structured data that can be pass to GPU.
gusty comet
so, ECS is just best method to making massive Navmesh Crowds?? and not for simple massive trees?
radiant sentinel
@low tangle ๐ its so hard, i forget that.
@gusty comet ECS is Data-oriented programming architecture pattern! you should think about any think that you want to implement. i dont know about unity Supported Components ๐
gusty comet
and where is Entities package on 2019.3.0f5?
radiant sentinel
i don't know, I'm using last preview. other friends should help you.
opaque ledge
@gusty comet from package manager, you have to tick "show Preview Packages" in advanced tab
and after that you also need to install Hybrid Renderer package
then probably restart unity ๐
gusty comet
@opaque ledge
nothing :[
opaque ledge
umm, did you check the show preview packages ?
you also need to check "All Packages"
in same row with advanced tab
vale nymph
So in the Unity DotsSample I am trying to add a new object the player could spawn with a button. The object has it's own Ghost Authoring component and everything. In Editor this works. It spawns the correct prefab at the correct location. However when I try to replicate this in a client build the object gets the default location of 0,0,0 and it's scale is also reset back to 1,1,1.
Anyone with knowledge of the sample that could tell me if I am missing a step in the build process?
opaque ledge
Anyone knows what "EndFrameParentSystem" does ? whenever i instantiate something from commandbuffer.Instantiate it jumps to 800 ms
mint iron
@opaque ledge it looks like it maintains a parenting hierarchy for transforms; and does work when Child associations need to be added/removed from an entity. see: Unity.Transforms/ParentSystem.cs
silver dragon
2019.3 is now out according to their latest blog post. Seems to be 2019.3.0f6 (still listed as pre-release in hub). Hopefully some dots packages will be updated shortly, too ๐
civic bay
How can I set up a system for my entities to raycast if they're going to hit a GameObject
Just need help setting up the most basic raycast system
velvet oxide
Like a bullet passthrough?
{
protected override JobHandle OnUpdate(JobHandle inputDependencies)
{
var physWorld = World.DefaultGameObjectInjectionWorld.GetExistingSystem<BuildPhysicsWorld>();
var colWorld = physWorld.PhysicsWorld.CollisionWorld;
var job = Entities.ForEach((Entity entity, ref RayDetect ray, ref Destroyable des, in Translation trans) =>
{
if (ray.didHit)
{
ray.didHit = false;
}
RaycastInput rayInput = new RaycastInput
{
Start = ray.lastPos,
End = trans.Value,
Filter = new CollisionFilter
{
BelongsTo = ray.belongsTo.Value,
CollidesWith = ray.collidesWith.Value,
GroupIndex = 0,
}
};
Unity.Physics.RaycastHit hit = new Unity.Physics.RaycastHit();
if (colWorld.CastRay(rayInput, out hit))
{
ray.lastHit = hit;
ray.didHit = true;
}
ray.lastPos = trans.Value;
})
.Schedule(inputDependencies);
job.Complete();
return job;
}
}```public struct RayDetect : IComponentData
{
public PhysicsCategoryTags belongsTo;
public PhysicsCategoryTags collidesWith;
[HideInInspector] public float3 lastPos;
[HideInInspector] public Unity.Physics.RaycastHit lastHit;
[HideInInspector] public bool didHit;
}```I realize I have a Destroyable component in there that is not needed. I was just using it for testing before
civic bay
Not to pass through, I have a bunch of entities that rain down from the sky
No physics, just moving at random speeds
But I want to raycast to see if it's going to hit the floor, so I can tell it to stop moving down once it reaches the floor
The floor is a flat plane at y:0
velvet oxide
@civic bay yeah so you would set the move speed in a separate component and have the spawner setcomponentdata on each spawn so the move speed is different
civic bay
Yeah I got that already
velvet oxide
kk you can then attach this raydetect to see if it passes through a certain physics collider...you can add onto this for added funtionality after the hit occurs or you can make another component that compliments this one
civic bay
Thanks I'll try and implement it now ๐
@velvet oxide How are you creating the Entities.ForEach job here var job = Entities.ForEach((Entity entity
Am I missing a namespace?
I've included Unity.Entities
"Entities" doesn't exist in current context
velvet oxide
using Unity.Entities;
using Unity.Jobs;
using Unity.Transforms;
using Unity.Physics;
using Unity.Physics.Systems;```another way to find out what your missing if you are using visual studio is cntrl-period when clicking on the red and it will suggest what you need
civic bay
Do you know what version of Entities you're using?
velvet oxide
I always update to the latest
velvet oxide
yeah the new way of using the job component system is different now
try updating your entity package?
civic bay
I'm apparently up to date with 0.1.1 but isn't it on 0.2 now?
I'm using Unity 2019.2.11f1 so might need to upgrade the engine
velvet oxide
yeah i'de only use dots with the newest beta of unity imo
so you can test out the visual scripting and whatnot
zenith wyvern
0.1 is very old, 0.5 is the latest
karmic pilot
u need 2019.3.+ for latest entities
safe lintel
Use 0.4 there are issues with 0.5 and singletons
frosty siren
if i need push readonly CDFE to lambda job how i will mark it readonly?
frosty siren
ok, thx, will try
and if i have more than 1 RO data i will write Entities.WithReadOnly(...).WithReadOnly(...) ?
zenith wyvern
I believe so yes
frosty siren
I donโt notice the documentation or is it just the effect of the fact that I started to learn lambda jobs too late and life is pain?
zenith wyvern
It actually has one of the best docs pages of any of the dots stuff I've seen https://docs.unity3d.com/Packages/com.unity.entities@0.5/manual/entities_job_foreach.html
frosty siren
yes i didn't notice. Thank you
this is what i looked for
int entityInQueryIndex โ the index of the entity in the list of all entities selected by the query. Use the entity index value when you have a native array that you need to fill with a unique value for each entity. You can use the entityInQueryIndex as the index in that array. The entityInQueryIndex should also be used as the jobIndex for adding commands to a concurrent EntityCommandBuffer.
velvet oxide
Is there a way to GetComponentData from a specific entity without using the entity manager? I am trying to make a spawn system burstable using the spawn position as an entity transform.
I know @worldly pulsar posted GetComponentDataFromEntity<Thing>(); but how do you use this to get a stored entity?
velvet oxide
example: ```void SpawnProjectile(Entity entity, quaternion rot, ref Shoot shoot)
{
var spawn = EntityManager.Instantiate(shoot.projectilePrefab);
//set position and rotation
var local = EntityManager.GetComponentData<LocalToWorld>(shoot.spawnPosition);
EntityManager.SetComponentData(spawn, new Rotation { Value = rot });
EntityManager.SetComponentData(spawn, new Translation { Value = local.Position });
//set shot data
EntityManager.SetComponentData(spawn, new Move
{
moveSpeed = shoot.projectileSpeed,
MoveInput = new float3(0, 0, 1)
});
}```
so I am getting an entity transform from the Shoot component
I can spawn and set component data using the command buffer but I cant GET component data
opaque ledge
ah right, like you said you can use GetComponentDataFromEntity<type>(entity), which will return you.. a list of entities that has that component
velvet oxide
oh its a list.. doh
opaque ledge
then you can get the component data with GetComponentDataFromEntity<type>(entity)
yep, it also has Contains method so you can check if your entitiy has that specific component
velvet oxide
beauty thought I was missing something stupid thanks
opaque ledge
yeah they are quite good ๐
@velvet oxide btw, for buffers you need to use GetBufferFromEntity
velvet oxide
ah okay thanks!
worldly pulsar
GetComponentDataFromEntity() returns a ComponentDataFromEntity struct which you pass to your job and inside that job you can do
Entity e = someEntity;
var myComp = compDataFromEntity[e];
DoStuff(myComp);
think of ComponentDataFromEntity<T> like a Dictionary<Entity, T>
velvet oxide
amazing that makes things so much easier. Thanks
worldly pulsar
yup, also compDataFromEntity.Exists(e) tells you if e has the specific component
opaque ledge
yeah they are quite useful, imagine that someone doesnt know those methods exists and struggle ๐ญ
dull copper
havent tried the last package but changelog suggested there weren't really that many changes
wonder if it's even functional now
in past it totally ruined rendering with HDRP for whatever reason and also just having the package sitting idle on your project had huge perf impact
zenith wyvern
Yeah, I find it hard to believe anyone would pay to use dots physics right now
You'd have to be a real brave company to integrate that with something you expect people to pay for
dull copper
did DOTS sample have landing page before? https://unity.com/releases/2019-3/dots-sample
zenith wyvern
No. 2019 is "officially" released today
So there's a bunch of new pages
As far as I can tell there's not much new for those of us who have been messing with the 2019.3 preview this whole time
dull copper
yeah, I know it released, just reading the announcement blog post ๐
yeah, it's expected, whole RC stage was only getting the engine more stable
zenith wyvern
For some reason the blog post mentions UIElements runtime, but I don't think it's actually available as a package yet
dull copper
and beta on most parts too
it's available as package
but I dunno if PM lists it automatically
opaque ledge
yeah, its like 0.0.3 tho ๐
dull copper
I know I had it on my manifest few months ago
opaque ledge
zenith wyvern
Yeah it seems weird for them to be advertising it on the blog post when you have to go to the github and manually add their in-development repo to the PM
I was hoping there was something further along that was integrated already
zenith wyvern
Oh snap
dull copper
https://bintray.com/unity/unity/com.unity.ui.runtime/0.0.4-preview was actually released on 21st this month
zenith wyvern
Maybe it's coming soon then
amber flicker
it is but just fyi pretty sure it doesn't support worldspace and might not support overlay either
dull copper
do note that bintray is the old registry, 2019.3 actually fetches packages now from Unity's own server afaik
opaque ledge
it supports overlay but not camera one i believe
dull copper
so, there could be some differences on the packages between the two
opaque ledge
and yeah no world ui either
dull copper
you can still put that package to your manifest manually
after it's there, it'll show up on PM and can get updates there
I'm actually quite torn about the runtime UI
I know the reasonable thing to do is to use the old setup
but I really dislike it in many ways
at the same time, new system is still half baked
zenith wyvern
UIElements feels more natural for dynamic UI that changes a lot at runtime
To me anyways
amber flicker
haha you sure you're only talking about the UI @dull copper ๐
zenith wyvern
Ugui always felt like I was frankensteining stuff together and trying to piece together stuff at runtime is awkward as hell
dull copper
@amber flicker well, it's just one of the things, new input, most of DOTS etc are still too broken for me
input system bugs me especially since it almost works for me, just breaks on some devices I need to support
also binding breaks on devices where idle state isn't 0 on some axis
(which is typical scenario for wheel controllers pedals where the pedal axis can be from -1 to 1)
vagrant surge
Explore the new features: DOTS updates and DOTS sample
literally the entire page on either Experimental or Preview ๐ค
zenith wyvern
Seems like they're really going out of their way to highlight the fact that this is not a LTS release
Based on their release cycle we can't expect dots to be stable for another year at least
dull copper
I really liked that they did mention 2019.3 shouldn't be used in production
it's not what they've messaged before about tech releases
they are essentially previews toward the upcoming LTS and should be treated as such
dull copper
this is new too: weโre reducing the number of TECH stream releases from three to two per year.
it does make sense, considering they keep falling behind on 3rd tech stream all the time now
tbh, they could just have one tech stream and put feature freeze to it on Q3-Q4 and then just keep stabilizing it for LTS
this is bit off topic here tho
safe lintel
surprised the dots sample gets such a fancy landing page when it feels so rough around the edges
left oak
Any newbie advice I can solicit here for making accelerator structures (spatial hash maps, trees, etc) that don't take me straight to dependency hell?
tawdry tree
Do you mean that as a DOTS-specific question?
left oak
Definitely, yes
Everything I do that sounds good normally just screams runtime errors at me about previously scheduled jobs, etc
zenith wyvern
If you're asking how to share a container between systems without managing dependencies the answer is DynamicBuffers
Otherwise you need to manually manage your job handles.
If you absolutely can't fit your problem into a dynamic buffer you should look at how EntityCommandBuffer handles it with AddJobHandleForProducer
left oak
I'll try to rely on dynamic buffers, thanks. Native containers make me tear my hair out.
Are dynamic buffers that exceed their internal capacity a special case? Any special care I need to take?
zenith wyvern
They automatically resize themselves
As you add to them
If they grow too large I believe they lose some mild performance from not fitting nicely into a chunk but it's not worth worrying about unless you're doing something insane
tawdry tree
Better than breaking the DOTS model, at any rate
With DOTS, in many cases you should probably ask yourself why before trying to use some complex collection type (so basically anything that is not basically arrays). Of course you can use them outside jobs, but if you're using such complex data inside a job... why?
It might be valid, mind you, but it might not. I've made a habit to stop and think whenever something I try is hard to achieve
left oak
That's worth thinking about. I feel like I'm supposed to jobify all of my code when using dots, but that's obviously a misconception.
opaque ledge
Yeah, please consider usage of IJob and IJobParallelFor as well, they are not entity Jobs, and i am using on many cases in systems
Also, native arrays is pretty useful and the only way to get results from a job, so maybe if you explain your issues with it we can help better ?
they are kinda core mechanic imo, maybe you should invest in them
left oak
I thought I could do everything with Job.WithCode and Entities.ForEach, but that's seemingly not the case
opaque ledge
I.. think you can, but it depends on what you are trying to do
left oak
How do I even dispose of a NativeHashMap.ParallelWriter?
It doesn't seem to expose its Dispose method
opaque ledge
For example, in one of my systems i run 3 jobs, first job gets faction's owned markets, 2nd job gets some data of owned market to market comparision, 3rd job creates trade ships according to results of 2nd job, so i use native array to carry data job to job, and my 3rd job is IJob, and it calculates what is the most profitable route and creates a tradeship
Are you trying to write to NativeHashMap in a job paralely ?
zenith wyvern
@left oak ParallelWriter is wrapped around the original container. You dispose the original NativeHashMap.
left oak
so, is the original a member variable, and the parallel writer is local?
zenith wyvern
NativeHashMap map = new ()...
var writer = map.AsParallelWriter();
inputDeps = Entities.Foreach(// Uses writer)
map.Dispose(inputDeps);
if you are only creating that hashmap to carry data for jobs, then you should create with Allocator.TempJob and call .Dispose() after all jobs are finished.
zenith wyvern
Does that make sense?
left oak
yeah that makes sense, thanks
left oak
yeah nativearray seems a lot easier, cause you can just DeallocateOnJobCompletion
opaque ledge
you cant do that on hashmap ?
zenith wyvern
All the containers seem to have Dispose(jobHandle), works the same way and makes it clearer when it's actually being disposed
opaque ledge
also a side note, if you create a nativearray with Allocator.Temp, you dont need to dispose it, but otherwise you need to, but you cant use it for jobs
left oak
interesting
zenith wyvern
You can create temp containers inside jobs. The only rule is they are disposed as soon as they leave scope, so you can't pass them to anything
left oak
I'm torn on how to implement a spatial map: I could see myself using a native hash map that consists of keys that are the occupied integral coordinates; or, I could make an enormous dynamic buffer that's an xyz grid compressed into 1d and just index into it by a hash of the coordinates to check for occupancy. The former seems easier, but the latter seems better.
warped trail
look at boid sample, i think it will help you with spatial map๐ค
zenith wyvern
The boid method is a very specific use case though where the map is only used in a single system. It gets a lot more complicated if you want to have a spatial map that's used frequently by different systems throughout your game
Still not sure of the best way to approach that problem myself
left oak
yeah, if I was throwing many things into fewer buckets, I would do it like the boid sample
this is more of a voxelized "is this coordinate occupied, or not"
I can't decide if it's better for each system to make its own map, if it needs it, or to find a way to share a single map
The former's certainly easier, but involves a lot of duplication of efforts
zenith wyvern
You could always fully integrate it with ECS where each bucket is a DynamicBuffer, with a SharedComponentData for it's spatial index. Something about that feels off though, but maybe I'm just not thinking about it right
tawdry tree
Is your space limited, as in, do you know how big it will be?
How frequently does contents change? (several times per frame, once per frame, every few frames, once per second, etc)
zenith wyvern
I was starting to do something like that for my voxel game but it was so horribly annoying to work with SCD I gave up on it
left oak
I could def put in hard limits and just eat the space cost of creating a huge "3d" buffer
But I liked the NativeHashMap solution, as it works without setting bounding boxes
tawdry tree
For voxels... I have been thinking about how I'd do a voxel game (or 2D equivalent), and basically came to the conclusion that I'd either go restricted (known, bounded) size, or probably move all the generation out of entities and possibly partially systems and just save the end result.
At any rate I'd start in non-DOTS(prototype the logic/algorithm), then jobify the procGen, then put the end result in entities, and see what I did from there.
zenith wyvern
Yeah I was trying to make a Minecraft clone, with the blocks set up like I described, it was not fun
left oak
it's def a hard problem
low tangle
You have jobs that produce the mesh and then turn that into a ecs render mesh and collision
tawdry tree
The end result should hopefully have chunks being single entities with just the mesh (and related), and the actual terrain data existing in ECS-friendly structures elsewhere (when it was loaded - otherwise just serialized to disk)
low tangle
You will be working with native arrays mostly to create the chunks
tawdry tree
If more convenient, I might put the data in entities, but I feel like that would add complexity with little benefit
zenith wyvern
My biggest headache was, no big surprise, trying to explictly define my spatial map in a NativeHashMap. I think it might be better if I was going that route again to just restrict all chunk access to queries via SharedComponentDataFilter
low tangle
You can do a full chunk (unity) based chunks
With the data per entity but I would not suggest doing that till you really understand the way memory is stored in them. To do it that way you well be still using a single entity as the output mesh
You mentioned integer cord bullets buckets into a hashmap, that's what boids does and it's quite fast. @zenith wyvern
tawdry tree
Actually, some ChunkDataComponent holding the data with an associated ChunkPositionComponent on the same entity, and an external map/dictionary of those entities (Dictionary<int2, Entity> or native equivalent) could work...
zenith wyvern
@tawdry tree That's exactly what I tried to do
low tangle
I'd suggest if you need to look lots of things up, just use a hash map, multi if it makes sense, and don't over think it
tawdry tree
I really ought to get back to experimenting with that; been distracted from Unity and ECS for too long. Just updated the editor, though.
zenith wyvern
Managing the native container for access between systems was an annoying headache
low tangle
Stop trying too make things more complex than you need. You need to just try and figure out if the simplest solution would work.
zenith wyvern
Yeah that's why I would just stick to entity queries next time for all chunk/block access. Let Unity manage the dependencies for me
Of course like it was said, if the world is bounded everything becomes a lot simpler. In my case trying to fit the concept of an infinite world into a NativeContainer was a bit too much for me
zenith wyvern
Yes, obviously I would load/unload chunks as needed
low tangle
Meaning you can add another array that was the index map
zenith wyvern
I never even got that far because chunk and block access became so annoying to manage I gave up
low tangle
I'll actually be writing a voxels generator soon
I can share how I solve it and how fast it runs if you like
zenith wyvern
Sure, I'd be interested to see how other people do it
tawdry tree
If you can release the code for the relevant ECS and jobs, that'd be super helpful, partially because it's a common mechanic/feature, and partially as a 'real example'
tawdry tree
in fact, the very loose coupling makes that a cakewalk with ECS
Or more like, if you do ECS correctly there is no coupling unless needed?
low tangle
Yup
low tangle
Typically the only coupling is the base data types, but not even the structue
zenith wyvern
Code is a mess
low tangle
It's not bad
tawdry tree
My philosophy when it comes to collection types in C# is:
- Use list. Seriously, why not?
- Arrays if and only if you know the specific, fixed size.
- Dictionary, queue, and stack are convenient and have a place
- Otherwise, ask yourself why?
- Really, though, you can probably just use a list.
That's in general, of course; with games, ECS, and looking for perf there are concerns that outweigh 'just use list, dummy', but as I get familiar with the relevant collections I figure I'll end up with something similar.
low tangle
Theres a really good section in the dod book on this
tawdry tree
Oh, and to be clear: In that philosophy is the assumption that the code is not performance critical, and will run on decent, modern hardware.
low tangle
Basicly, you can gradually go up the complexity scale if profiling actually says it's slow
But not before
tawdry tree
That too.
Premature optimization (root of all evil and all that) is not about being smart about choice of algorithms and data structures - it's about avoiding complexity and losing convenience/readability/maintainability in favor of some nebulous potential performance loss.
I saw a talk, by Kevlin Henney I believe going over that. If you think it's going to be slow, profile it! And if it is slow, make sure it's a part that you care about whether is slow or not.
low tangle
Exactly
Don't go for the big guns when you are developing something new. Think, plan, prototype with simple solutions
Don't just jump into chunk iteration with 4 hashmaps and 2 custom ones
That's got a good chance of being in the wrong train of thought anyways
zenith wyvern
How would you represent a chunk?
low tangle
Think about the data first, not how you would process this complex idea
zenith wyvern
Meaning a voxel chunk, not the ECS chunks
tawdry tree
The raw data would probably best be stored as an array type structure - in this case of known size, and outside ECS you could make it 3D, or 1D for some more complexity but also better perf
zenith wyvern
I eventually landed on just a DynamicBuffer<byte> for block types. Then per block data could be added as needed with SharedComponentData
tawdry tree
For example, I've made 16x16x16 chunks in mono-land, stored as 3D arrays for convenience
zenith wyvern
It works well since, yeah, a chunk is by definition a finite space
tawdry tree
Bear in mind the difference between infinite(unbounded), and finite(bounded) and known(specific) sizes, too
low tangle
dynamic buffer with internal capacity set correctly to stay in chunk memory. Then a some for each runs over each 'chunk' which is a CD generating and updating it's own mesh
That simple
zenith wyvern
For me the mesh was the easy part. The hard part was deciding how to iterate over voxel chunks in a readable way
SCD doesn't make it very readable
low tangle
Got a 'chunk'? Generate a mesh
It's all in a single dynamic buffer
Per 'chunk'
Need to edit a block? Find the chunk, set the index in the buffer
opaque ledge
I was wondering, i have a very big DynamicBuffer which exceeds the size of a limit of an entity so i guess Unity carries it to Heap and not in a chunk, does this impact performance ? should i avoid it somehow or its an acceptable loss since buffer needs to be that big anyway ?
zenith wyvern
Right, and let's say I want to place blocks across three chunks. I figure out the chunk indices my blocks are covering, that's easy. Now iterating them is something like:
NativeArray<int2> chunkIndices;
for( int i = 0; i < chunkIndices[i].Length; ++i)
{
inputDeps = Entities
.WithSharedComponentFilter(chunkIndices[i]).. Iterate
}
Does that seem right to you?
opaque ledge
well, right now its 1190 item amount and size is.. 120 KB
low tangle
Personally I don't use shared components
zenith wyvern
That's basically the direciton I was heading
low tangle
But yeah that looks fine
zenith wyvern
What would you use instead?
low tangle
Yes that will never fit, 16kb is chunk size @opaque ledge
There pointer to unity heap is fast
So don't worry about it
opaque ledge
ah cool, thanks ^^
low tangle
Profile if you are ever worried
Always use large n when you do
Typically 1000, 10000
@zenith wyvern I'd use a format that doesn't need to be sorted
I'll get up and write some code hold up
zenith wyvern
If you can give me a better alternative to SCD that would be amazing
Because SCD sucks
opaque ledge
what is this spatial thing you guys are talking about ?
zenith wyvern
@opaque ledge Basically a spatial hash map that's fully integrated with ECS IE: Not a native container
zenith wyvern
Yup
tawdry tree
You should, but tl;dr grouping data by 'position' in 'space'.
it's a mathematical concept, and as such applies to 'space' that is not about actual positions, but in games it usually is.
opaque ledge
space as in 2d/3d space or.. arbitary type of input ?
yeah actually nevermind, i am too noob for those i think
i will just make some simple ECS systems and go happy when they work so i can boost my self confidince
low tangle
thats the sprit
the way I look at it is ecs games are wide not deep when it comes to the code
if you can make simple systems to achieve the little bits of logic you want, you can make the whole engine
tawdry tree
The same data structures are used in some AI stuff, among others. Except there the 'dimensions' tend to be pretty much arbitrary data, and a lot more of them.
zenith wyvern
@opaque ledge Just look up spatial hash or spatial partition tutorials, there should be plenty online that are outside dots so much easier to understand
tawdry tree
Spatial partitioning, that's the good keyword
opaque ledge
will do ๐
Btw, does ECS works with Unity UI or UIElements Runtime?
like.. can i turn them to entities ?
low tangle
its going to eventually work with UIElements