#archived-dots | Official Unity Discord | Page 107

zenith marsh Feb 2, 2020, 8:15 AM

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Good to know

low tangle Feb 2, 2020, 8:15 AM

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keep up the good work though

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more dots is always a good thing

zenith marsh Feb 2, 2020, 8:16 AM

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I only started using DOTS about a month ago but I already realized the benefits of using it so if I can I use it

low tangle Feb 2, 2020, 8:17 AM

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excellent

opaque ledge Feb 2, 2020, 8:37 AM

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So i am trying to raycast in a job but i am gettting errors(it was fine on ComponentSystem but not fine on JobComponentSystem)

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my job:


 public struct RayCastJob : IJob
    {
        [ReadOnly]
        public PhysicsWorld physicsWorld;

        [ReadOnly]
        public UnityEngine.Ray ray;

        public ComponentDataFromEntity<PlayerMovementData> movementDatas;

        [ReadOnly]
        public Entity playerEntity;

        public void Execute()
        {
            uint layer = 1 << 8;
            var input = new RaycastInput
            {
                Start = ray.origin,
                End = ray.direction*1000 +  ray.origin,
                Filter = new CollisionFilter
                {
                    BelongsTo = ~0u,
                    CollidesWith = layer,
                }
            };

            physicsWorld.CollisionWorld.CastRay(input, out Unity.Physics.RaycastHit raycastHit);

            var playerMovementData = movementDatas[playerEntity];
            playerMovementData.targetPos = raycastHit.Position;
            movementDatas[playerEntity] = playerMovementData;
        }
    }

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OnUpdate :

    protected override JobHandle OnUpdate(JobHandle inputDependincies)
    {
        if (clicked)
        {
            clicked = false;

            var physicsWorldLocal = physicsWorld.PhysicsWorld;

            var playerMovementDatas = GetComponentDataFromEntity<PlayerMovementData>();

            var playerEntity = GetSingletonEntity<PlayerMovementData>();

            var ray = Camera.main.ScreenPointToRay(pointerPos);

            inputDependincies = JobHandle.CombineDependencies(inputDependincies, physicsWorld.FinalJobHandle);

            var job = new RayCastJob
            {
                physicsWorld = physicsWorldLocal,
                movementDatas = playerMovementDatas,
                playerEntity = playerEntity,
                ray = ray
            }.Schedule(inputDependincies);

            return job;
        }

        return inputDependincies;
    }

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i added [UpdateAfter(typeof(BuildPhysicsWorld))] attrbitute to system, its working now

tawdry tree Feb 2, 2020, 9:26 AM

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Tip: put csharp or cs after the triple backticks (these: ```), and a linebreak immediately after that (no whitespace at the end of the line) for C# syntax highlighting.
This will make your code easier to parse.

public static void Main(string[] args){
  //Example comment
  ExampleMethod();
}

opaque ledge Feb 2, 2020, 10:14 AM

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thanks 🙂

low tangle Feb 2, 2020, 10:52 AM

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it still blows my mind how much you can drill down and speed up things that were already fast

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📎 unknown.png

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moved 0.120ms on the main thread to 0.004 and shaved the final job (my code instead of the transport layer) down to this

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just blows my mind

opaque ledge Feb 2, 2020, 10:55 AM

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wait a minute

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are you the same June ? or different June ?

low tangle Feb 2, 2020, 10:55 AM

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same june

opaque ledge Feb 2, 2020, 10:55 AM

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i dont recognize that profile pic 👀

low tangle Feb 2, 2020, 10:55 AM

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decided to update my pfp

opaque ledge Feb 2, 2020, 10:55 AM

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ah cool

low tangle Feb 2, 2020, 10:56 AM

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I stare at discord so much I like to change things when I can

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my friends hate it

opaque ledge Feb 2, 2020, 11:13 AM

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        var transDatas = GetComponentDataFromEntity<Translation>();
        var playerEntity = GetSingletonEntity<PlayerTag>();

        var posArray = new NativeArray<float3>(1, Allocator.TempJob);

        new FollowPlayerJob
        {
            transDatas = transDatas,
            playerEntity = playerEntity,
            pos = posArray,

        }.Schedule(this, inputDeps).Complete();

        UnityEngine.Camera.main.transform.position = posArray[0];
        posArray.Dispose();

        return inputDeps;```

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So this is my camera movement job system, do you guys think that this is the proper way of doing this ?

low tangle Feb 2, 2020, 11:15 AM

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nope but it will work

opaque ledge Feb 2, 2020, 11:18 AM

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😄

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i need to learn some hybrid approaches then, but most of the info is like 2018-2019

low tangle Feb 2, 2020, 11:21 AM

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post your code where you make the player entity

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or the camera entity

opaque ledge Feb 2, 2020, 11:57 AM

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both in subscene

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@low tangle

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should i be handling it in authoring somehow ?

low tangle Feb 2, 2020, 11:59 AM

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ah its a converted gameobject then?

opaque ledge Feb 2, 2020, 11:59 AM

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yeah

low tangle Feb 2, 2020, 12:00 PM

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yeah you will need to make a new authoring component for it

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there isn't one for what you need to add to the entity

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ConvertAndInject on the ConvertToEntity as well

opaque ledge Feb 2, 2020, 12:05 PM

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What should i do when i am authoring tho ?

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ConvertAndInject doesnt work since it gives me a warnning that converttoentity script wont work because its in subscene

low tangle Feb 2, 2020, 12:07 PM

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yeah you need to pull the player entity out of the subscene

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cameras and players are usually not part of the static physics and mesh world

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they are the dynamic interactive part of the world and need to be handled like the special case they are (until unity converts everything to ecs in 2032)

opaque ledge Feb 2, 2020, 12:13 PM

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alright done but they are not syncing, transforms i mean

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aw man i hate this 😄

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tried to add CopyTransformToGameObject but it doesnt work

opaque ledge Feb 2, 2020, 12:41 PM

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nvm it does work, i was using [GenerateAuthoring] instead of my own

low tangle Feb 2, 2020, 1:25 PM

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yeah thats it

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got it

pliant pike Feb 2, 2020, 2:06 PM

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ironic I'm trying to do the same thing as well move a camera with a player using jobs, and figure out how to use Copytransformtogameobject

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How do you add the Main Camera game object to the CopytransformtoGameobject component?

low tangle Feb 2, 2020, 2:22 PM

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main thread,

EntityManager.AddComponentObject(your entity, maincamera's transform);
EntityManager.AddComponentData(your entity, CopyTransformToGameobject);

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CopyTransformFromGameobject is a option as well

pliant pike Feb 2, 2020, 2:24 PM

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cool thanks, I wasnt if there was some other way

opaque ledge Feb 2, 2020, 3:45 PM

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So i was wondering (again)

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if i did entity query in a monobehaviour, will dependincies automatically handled ? and/or race conditions prevented ?

low tangle Feb 2, 2020, 3:47 PM

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monobehaviours already update outside of the loop but you can't actually access any entites data without using a entitymanager method or a entityquery.ToComponentData() method

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which all do a sync internally

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in my monobehavour testing ongui's I typically do this:

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📎 unknown.png

opaque ledge Feb 2, 2020, 3:49 PM

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oh i understand, is it because monobehaviours run on main thread right ? but what if some random system's job is running at the same time ?

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oooh, it does syncornize always ?

low tangle Feb 2, 2020, 3:49 PM

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the internal sync on those will force them to stop

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it is smart where the types you are selecting from are the only jobs forced to stop

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jobs that access those types, will be forced to sync if they are running at the time

opaque ledge Feb 2, 2020, 3:50 PM

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ah great

pliant pike Feb 2, 2020, 3:52 PM

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@opaque ledge did you figure out how to get CopyTransformtoGameObject working?

opaque ledge Feb 2, 2020, 3:52 PM

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Yeah i did

pliant pike Feb 2, 2020, 3:53 PM

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cool, you couldn't tell me how could you?

opaque ledge Feb 2, 2020, 3:54 PM

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why wouldnt i 👀 , i would love to 😄

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Fortunately its.. easy

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dstManager.AddComponent(entity, typeof(CopyTransformToGameObject));

When i am authoring

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and thats it really

pliant pike Feb 2, 2020, 3:55 PM

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I've got the component on the entity I just need to figure out how to add the object to the entitys component

opaque ledge Feb 2, 2020, 3:56 PM

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oh ? like a monobeaviour ? well i was just going to experiment on that actually

pliant pike Feb 2, 2020, 3:56 PM

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EntityManager.AddComponentData(cam, new CameraTransferData {value = Camera.main});```

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I think I need to do something like that except to update the objects camera position with the entitys camera

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are your camera positions updating?

opaque ledge Feb 2, 2020, 3:58 PM

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Well, if you just add CopyTransformToGameObject to camera's entity, and when that entity's translation/rotation change that entity's GameObject transform will change as wll

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yeah

pliant pike Feb 2, 2020, 4:00 PM

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so you've just added the component to the entity and the gameobject is updating?

opaque ledge Feb 2, 2020, 4:00 PM

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yep

pliant pike Feb 2, 2020, 4:01 PM

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I'm using a [generateauthoringcomponent] to add it maybe that is what I'm doing wrong?

opaque ledge Feb 2, 2020, 4:01 PM

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ah yeah, you have to add that type somehow, is your camera entity instatiated on code or from editor/subscene ?

pliant pike Feb 2, 2020, 4:02 PM

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I'm just using converttoentity with inject thing

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I can move the entity camera version just the gameobject is not moving

opaque ledge Feb 2, 2020, 4:02 PM

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Are you using a tag for your camera ?

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then you can make a custom authoring for that and simply add the type

low tangle Feb 2, 2020, 4:03 PM

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you just need to create a new monobehaviour to add onto that gameobject thats being converted and injected

opaque ledge Feb 2, 2020, 4:03 PM

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        dstManager.AddComponentData(entity, new CameraTag());
        dstManager.AddComponent(entity, typeof(CopyTransformToGameObject));```

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this is my custom tag authoring

pliant pike Feb 2, 2020, 4:03 PM

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no I'm not using a tag didn't think I needed to

low tangle Feb 2, 2020, 4:03 PM

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the convert and inject already attaches the Transform for you

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so you only need the CopyTransformToGameObject

opaque ledge Feb 2, 2020, 4:03 PM

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well you can simply make an 'empty' authoring to add the type then

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yeah

pliant pike Feb 2, 2020, 4:05 PM

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I dont understand

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[GenerateAuthoringComponent]
public class CameraTransferData : IComponentData
{
   public CopyTransformToGameObject value;
}

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that is what I'm using on the camera object to add it to the entity

opaque ledge Feb 2, 2020, 4:06 PM

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No you dont need to do it like that

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sec

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[DisallowMultipleComponent]
[RequiresEntityConversion]
public class CameraTagAuthoring : MonoBehaviour, IConvertGameObjectToEntity
{
    public void Convert(Entity entity, EntityManager dstManager, GameObjectConversionSystem conversionSystem)
    {

        dstManager.AddComponentData(entity, new CameraTag());
        dstManager.AddComponent(entity, typeof(CopyTransformToGameObject));
    }
}

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So this is my camera tag authoring, authoring means that unity will run this code to convert your gameobject to an entity

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So you can make an empty authoring for example and simply drag it to your camera gameobject

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[DisallowMultipleComponent]
[RequiresEntityConversion]
public class EmptyAuthoring : MonoBehaviour, IConvertGameObjectToEntity
{
    public void Convert(Entity entity, EntityManager dstManager, GameObjectConversionSystem conversionSystem)
    {
        dstManager.AddComponent(entity, 
typeof(CopyTransformToGameObject));
    }
}

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For example

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you can literally just copy this and make a script, and drag it to your camera gameobject

pliant pike Feb 2, 2020, 4:09 PM

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ok yeah I'll try that thanks a lot

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woot! it works awesome, thanks again

opaque ledge Feb 2, 2020, 4:11 PM

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@low tangle I was wondering (again) i added a monobehaviour to my entity in authoring, i set the entity field in my mono to entity that is being converted, so... is there way to access this mono from jobs ? or does monobehaviour always needs to check the data that every frame ?

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enjoy Calabi 😄

low tangle Feb 2, 2020, 4:12 PM

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not from jobs

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but you can do it in main thread

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so a .Run()

opaque ledge Feb 2, 2020, 4:12 PM

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system's OnUpdate then, but how ?

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i didnt see any method to retrieve it

low tangle Feb 2, 2020, 4:12 PM

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you can just get them like any other component

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no ref but just place them first inside the lambda

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📎 unknown.png

opaque ledge Feb 2, 2020, 4:13 PM

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well, when i want to get data from entity inside a job, i use GetComponentDataFromEntity<> and Buffer version, i didnt see any object version

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ooooooh

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wow i never knew that

low tangle Feb 2, 2020, 4:13 PM

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there isn't a way to get the monobehaviours in jobs

opaque ledge Feb 2, 2020, 4:14 PM

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so always from ForEach ?

low tangle Feb 2, 2020, 4:14 PM

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and for direct getting you can use EntityManager.GetComponentObject()

opaque ledge Feb 2, 2020, 4:14 PM

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i thought ForEach and Jobs were the same

low tangle Feb 2, 2020, 4:14 PM

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not exactly no

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the new ForEach get converted into jobs for free

zenith wyvern Feb 2, 2020, 4:14 PM

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There's also https://docs.unity3d.com/Packages/com.unity.entities@0.5/api/Unity.Entities.EntityManager.html#Unity_Entities_EntityManager_GetComponentObject__1_Unity_Entities_Entity_

opaque ledge Feb 2, 2020, 4:14 PM

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i think you or someone else said that ForEach constructs those job structs, so it didnt really matter

low tangle Feb 2, 2020, 4:14 PM

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as long as you do .Schedule at the end

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yeah it makes a job for you as long as you are using .Schedule()

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if you use .Run() its going to run on the main thread

zenith wyvern Feb 2, 2020, 4:15 PM

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@opaque ledge You should really really watch that pong video I linked to you yesterday. It explains all this very clearly

low tangle Feb 2, 2020, 4:16 PM

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and even still if you dont use WithoutBurst() you cant use managed stuff (monobehaviours) anyways

opaque ledge Feb 2, 2020, 4:16 PM

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i actually watched it before you mentioned that link but i wasnt really paying attention to it much, i should check it again

low tangle Feb 2, 2020, 4:16 PM

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so the only time you can use monobehaviours is if you .WithoutBurst() and .Run() on a ForEach in a JobComponentSystem

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but dont worry about that really, if you need to use monobehaviours they have to be used on the main thread anyways

opaque ledge Feb 2, 2020, 4:17 PM

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So, in order to reach monobehaviours that i added to my entities, i have to run ForEach on my JobComponentSystems with .Run()

low tangle Feb 2, 2020, 4:17 PM

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yes, and no burst

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burst cant touch managed c# stuff

opaque ledge Feb 2, 2020, 4:17 PM

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yeah

low tangle Feb 2, 2020, 4:18 PM

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which includes all classes

zenith wyvern Feb 2, 2020, 4:18 PM

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Or get it directly from the EntityManager with GetComponentObject

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If you already have the entity

low tangle Feb 2, 2020, 4:18 PM

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thats still main thread only access

pliant pike Feb 2, 2020, 4:18 PM

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one think about GetComponentObject I added an object supposedly to an entity how do I find it?

low tangle Feb 2, 2020, 4:18 PM

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even with main thread mb stuff you could be writing in serial processes / loops / foreach's

opaque ledge Feb 2, 2020, 4:18 PM

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we are just literally talking about that Calabi 😄

pliant pike Feb 2, 2020, 4:19 PM

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I know I tried this

opaque ledge Feb 2, 2020, 4:19 PM

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are you using this 'hybrid' approach for your UIs June ?

pliant pike Feb 2, 2020, 4:19 PM

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EntityManager.AddComponentObject(cam, Camera.main.transform);```

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but then I dont see how to find it with GetComponentObject

low tangle Feb 2, 2020, 4:20 PM

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for UI and quite a bit of stuff

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but I've reworked lots of stuff where its all done in entities, then a few linked entities is where it 'writes out'

opaque ledge Feb 2, 2020, 4:20 PM

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like Sark said, you can use EntityManager.GetComponentObject<T>(entity) Calabi

low tangle Feb 2, 2020, 4:20 PM

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I'm trying to minimize the number of hybrid things I have to the bare minimum

opaque ledge Feb 2, 2020, 4:21 PM

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yep

pliant pike Feb 2, 2020, 4:21 PM

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oh I see yeah thanks

opaque ledge Feb 2, 2020, 4:21 PM

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i was trying to use these monobehaviours to 'interact', like.. to show UI and such

low tangle Feb 2, 2020, 4:26 PM

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instead of interaction with the mb's or invoking events on them

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modifiy the mb's public data to be exactly what you want

opaque ledge Feb 2, 2020, 4:32 PM

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yeah, thats what i was going to do

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hopefully

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when my entity dies, will that mb also dies ? will it's memory cleaned etc.

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actually nvm, i probably could have a bool field in mb and if thats true i simply destroy mb

low tangle Feb 2, 2020, 4:38 PM

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Yeah it won't be deleted

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But you can call GameObject.Destroy from anywhere if you want to removed it

opaque ledge Feb 2, 2020, 5:01 PM

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So i was wondering again

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in burst documentation it says using wide primitives such as float4, double4 etc, should be preferable because of performance reasons, so i have my player movement data and i have float3 for target position(where to go) and float for player speed, should i make them into float4 ?

warped trail Feb 2, 2020, 5:04 PM

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BpwvXkoFcp8&t=336s

YouTube

Unity

Intrinsics: Low-level engine development with Burst - Unite Copenhagen

This session addresses how we are expanding the scope of the Burst Compiler to enable even the most demanding, hand-coded engine and gameplay problems to be expressed in HPC# via direct CPU intrinsics. Andreas shares the reasoning and use cases; as well as discussing implemen...

▶ Play video

opaque ledge Feb 2, 2020, 5:04 PM

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yeah i am just watching that actually xD

warped trail Feb 2, 2020, 5:04 PM

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😅

opaque ledge Feb 2, 2020, 5:04 PM

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i gave up yesterday because it was too techincal, but imma watch it

warped trail Feb 2, 2020, 5:15 PM

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How to read NativeArray<float> as NativeArray<float4> ?🤔

pliant pike Feb 2, 2020, 5:17 PM

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sounds like more trouble than its worth

opaque ledge Feb 2, 2020, 5:17 PM

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😄

valid haven Feb 2, 2020, 6:21 PM

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anyone benchmarked a dots+burst raycasting job vs traditional method? Say 10,000 casts, are we talking a (numOfCores * 0.5)% difference or something even more significant?

dull copper Feb 2, 2020, 6:31 PM

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if you compare jobified DOTS physics raycast, at least compare it against RaycastCommand on that implements jobified raycasts on physx

valid haven Feb 2, 2020, 6:34 PM

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k, do u know if anyone has done this already?

dull copper Feb 2, 2020, 6:34 PM

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I'd expect the results depends also on the way you use it

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I dont really like comparing things randomly without a real use case

valid haven Feb 2, 2020, 6:36 PM

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I am just thinking its fairly common to queue up a bunch of raycasts for say projectiles (say big space battle) per game step then resolve them for the next frame, this can be fairly expensive.

opaque ledge Feb 2, 2020, 6:40 PM

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There is a way to do it as batch in their manual but i never tried on performance

valid haven Feb 2, 2020, 6:44 PM

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Sigh, I see PhysX added origin shifting, but doesnt appear either havok or unity physics has similar functionality. I am curious what type of performance could be achieved in a large world with unity physics + dots and a origin shifting scheme.

zenith wyvern Feb 2, 2020, 6:53 PM

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There was a post not too long ago from a Unity dev who said they are working on origin shifting

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Or "floating origin" he called it which I assume is the same thing

safe lintel Feb 2, 2020, 7:38 PM

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tbh the batch raycastcommand for physx might rival the dots raycast but if you are anchored to physx then you wont be able to scale as well as dots if you wanted say 10,000 spaceships to be raycasting using gameobjects. like 0lento said a use case is what matters, both are really performant though.

dull copper Feb 2, 2020, 7:50 PM

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queries are supposedly a thing where unity physics should be really performant

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at least according to their own docs

safe lintel Feb 2, 2020, 7:56 PM

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its funny, the perf of raycastcommand was really good when I was using it, if it hadnt been for the clunky way of using it(ie it is its own job rather than being able to use them in jobs like dots version) i might not have gone the full ecs route

dull copper Feb 2, 2020, 8:12 PM

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technically, the Unity Physics docs do imply that you should actually do similar approach with it's raycasts if you want optimal performance (add all raycasts operations to a native container and perform them on a separate job

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oh wait, they just said that if you don't use it on burst jobs already, you should

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so nevermind

valid haven Feb 2, 2020, 10:03 PM

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ya I was wondering if burstCompile is where u would see the big speed up, due to SIMD and the noaliasing stuff

pliant pike Feb 2, 2020, 10:55 PM

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It seems like I found a bug setting InverseInertia all to zero crashes unity

low tangle Feb 3, 2020, 3:55 AM

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most of the physics stuff will already be bursted so your code will be the only slow part, until you burst compile it as well

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physx got jobified a bit in the latest versions and its pretty dang fast

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you really shouldnt think of ecs - gameobjects as either or

ocean tundra Feb 3, 2020, 5:01 AM

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Hey has anyone seen this exception

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Unity.Properties.CodeGeneratedPropertyBagRegistry.System_Collections_Generic_List_1PropertyBag has invalid vtable method slot 4 with method

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happens only in Mono build 😦

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so doing some digging, propertybag's are generated for ISharedComponentData's and object IComponentData's

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What are the rules around them? no generices? no other managed references??

opaque ledge Feb 3, 2020, 6:13 AM

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yep, afaik no generics and no managed references in component data

zenith wyvern Feb 3, 2020, 6:18 AM

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You can have managed references with unsafe code, I'm not familiar with the process though

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And you can have generics, you need to explicitly declare them, I forget the syntax. I'll see if I can find it

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There we go, it's in the changelog

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[assembly: RegisterGenericComponentType(typeof(TypeManagerTests.GenericComponent<int>))]

ocean tundra Feb 3, 2020, 6:58 AM

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hmmm... there must be some more complex rules somewhere

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as i changed/removed most of my object IComponentData's

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i still have some generic types but i have them all registered like that

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and im now getting

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TypeLoadException: Type Unity.Properties.CodeGeneratedPropertyBagRegistry.System_ObjectPropertyBag has invalid vtable method slot 4 with method Unity.Properties.PropertyBag`1<object>:Accept<TVisitor> (object&,TVisitor&,Unity.Properties.ChangeTracker&)

zenith wyvern Feb 3, 2020, 7:00 AM

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Not sure, sorry, those are some pretty damn arcane errors

ocean tundra Feb 3, 2020, 7:00 AM

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yup 😛

zenith wyvern Feb 3, 2020, 7:00 AM

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Are you using the latest version?

ocean tundra Feb 3, 2020, 7:00 AM

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i think so

zenith wyvern Feb 3, 2020, 7:01 AM

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0.5.1?

ocean tundra Feb 3, 2020, 7:01 AM

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yup

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preview.11

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0.5.1-preview.11

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and unity 2019.3.0f5

zenith wyvern Feb 3, 2020, 7:02 AM

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All I can suggest is to post about it on the forum. Make sure you make it clear in the thread title that you're dealing with an indecipherable error, hopefully that will make someone from unity pop their head up since they seem to care about making the errors more user-friendly

ocean tundra Feb 3, 2020, 7:03 AM

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yea thats a good idea

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im loving most of this DOTS stuff

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but when getting errors like this it drive me mad

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😛

zenith wyvern Feb 3, 2020, 7:04 AM

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Yeah it's insanely frustrating when you get an error that doesn't explain anything

ocean tundra Feb 3, 2020, 7:05 AM

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thanks again

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probably make a post tomorrow if i cant solve it

opaque ledge Feb 3, 2020, 7:14 AM

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maybe upgrading to 2019.3.0f6 will help

lusty otter Feb 3, 2020, 8:18 AM

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ECS works for 2D projects as well, right?

low tangle Feb 3, 2020, 8:22 AM

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yep

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a terraria clone was my first project to test ecs when it first came out over a year ago

lusty otter Feb 3, 2020, 9:10 AM

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Thanks, good to know.

opaque ledge Feb 3, 2020, 11:57 AM

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Hmm, my text is shown properly on subscene but not when its turned into an entity 🤔

plush portal Feb 3, 2020, 12:02 PM

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Is there an alternative to OverlapBox with PhysicsShapes?

warped trail Feb 3, 2020, 12:27 PM

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@plush portal have you read this? https://docs.unity3d.com/Packages/com.unity.physics@0.2/manual/collision_queries.html#query-types

plush portal Feb 3, 2020, 12:42 PM

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I didn't, thanks!

low tangle Feb 3, 2020, 2:17 PM

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RTM

pseudo plover Feb 3, 2020, 4:58 PM

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What is DOTS? How is it different than ECS?

pliant pike Feb 3, 2020, 5:02 PM

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I don't suppose anyone knows how or if you can draw stuff in the editor view, something like this using dots

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https://docs.unity3d.com/ScriptReference/Handles.DrawLine.html

dull copper Feb 3, 2020, 5:16 PM

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@pseudo plover DOTS = Data-Oriented Technology Stack , it's just Unity's umbrella term to communicate everything that goes under this tech, including their ECS, burst compiler, job system, all compatible packages etc

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I do notice that Unity deliberately tries to stop using term ECS on their promo pages, which can cause some confusion: https://unity.com/dots

Unity

DOTS - Unity’s new multithreaded Data-Oriented Technology Stack

Unity’s high-performance multithreaded Data-Oriented Technology Stack (DOTS) takes advantage of multicore processors, creating richer user experiences. Use it to iterate faster and to create easily reusable C# code.

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I see that page also got some weird sentences like, "The DOTS stack consists of a growing number of packages." where they are essentially saying: "the data-oriented tech stack stack consists of.."

#

(yeah, I'm nitpicking :p)

zenith wyvern Feb 3, 2020, 5:23 PM

#

@pliant pike Unfortunately I don't think there's anything official, I think you would have to manually create a world and do updates in the editor. Something like https://forum.unity.com/threads/editor-scripting-with-ecs.527687/#post-4845995

Unity Forum

Editor scripting with ECS

Hi,
I'm thinking of writing editor code using ECS archtecture, which is quite interesting. I wonder if it's possible to do it without running play...

#

With the conversion system worfklow it seems like they want us to avoid things like this and just use the normal EditorWindow/Inspector workflow to represent our entities at edit time

pliant pike Feb 3, 2020, 5:26 PM

#

thanks, figure's so how would I display things like lines bezier curves just in the editor view?

zenith wyvern Feb 3, 2020, 5:27 PM

#

Should be plenty of material online about creating fancy editors. Once you have a normal editor working you then just have to set up a IConvertGameObjectToEntity script to convert your edit data to entities

pliant pike Feb 3, 2020, 5:29 PM

#

yeah I'm looking at one of the physics.examples and they seem to use a monobehaviour with OnDrawGizmos to draw some things maybe that will do

zenith wyvern Feb 3, 2020, 5:29 PM

#

Yeah they have a whole fancy system for that, it seems like they've taken steps to make it less accessible for us to use, but it should be possible

pliant pike Feb 3, 2020, 5:31 PM

#

then again it may be to complicated for me

zenith wyvern Feb 3, 2020, 5:34 PM

#

I would honestly recommend just learning the normal workflow for creating fancy editors. It's a completely separate problem from ECS so there's plenty of material online about it and that style of editor isn't going anywhere now that they've made the conversion system the "normal" way to do things

pliant pike Feb 3, 2020, 5:37 PM

#

I'll give it a try yeah thanks

stable fog Feb 3, 2020, 5:38 PM

#

its not nitpicking, thats a totally valid complaint

#

it should be "The DOT stack consists of a growing number of packages."

#

or they should just not use acryonyms

zenith wyvern Feb 3, 2020, 5:40 PM

#

I don't know about that, most people accept ATM machine as completely sensible english

stable fog Feb 3, 2020, 5:40 PM

#

accept, but many more just say "I need to go to the ATM"

zenith wyvern Feb 3, 2020, 5:40 PM

#

It's just about what sounds more natural, and dots stack sounds natural

stable fog Feb 3, 2020, 5:40 PM

#

if they want natural they should just say "The Data-Oriented Tech Stack consists of"

#

also, its not casual english, its documentation and press releases, grammar matters in these contexts

#

Also in Technical Documentation the grammar is exceedingly important. The text should be technically accurate at all times to minimize confusion for those being prudent in their reading

safe lintel Feb 3, 2020, 5:46 PM

#

heh my username overlaps with this; the le baron or the the baron 😄

pliant pike Feb 3, 2020, 5:49 PM

#

I thought you were thebaron all along, leahWTF I must have tuned out le

gentle osprey Feb 3, 2020, 7:12 PM

#

Is there any particular trick to using concurrent EntityCommandBuffer.Concurrent with IJobForEachWithEntity? I manage to use it just fine in my other jobs (IJobChunk), but now I suddenly run head into The previously scheduled job BleedOutSystem:BleedOutSystemJob writes to the NativeArray BleedOutSystemJob.Data.CommandBuffer. You must call JobHandle.Complete() on the job BleedOutSystem:BleedOutSystemJob, before you can write to the NativeArray safely.

#

public class BleedOutSystem : JobComponentSystem
{
    [BurstCompile][ExcludeComponent(typeof(DeathTag))][RequireComponentTag(typeof(BeeTag))]
    struct BleedOutSystemJob : IJobForEachWithEntity<SecondsToDeath>
    {
        public float DeltaTime;
        public EntityCommandBuffer.Concurrent CommandBuffer;

        public void Execute(Entity entity, int index, ref SecondsToDeath secondsToDeath)
        {
            secondsToDeath.Value -= DeltaTime;
            if (secondsToDeath.Value <= 0.0f)
            {
                CommandBuffer.AddComponent<DeathTag>(index, entity);
            }
        }
    }

    private EntityCommandBufferSystem mCommandBufferSystem;

    protected override void OnCreate()
    {
        mCommandBufferSystem = World.GetOrCreateSystem<EntityCommandBufferSystem>();
    }

    protected override JobHandle OnUpdate(JobHandle inputDependencies)
    {
        var job = new BleedOutSystemJob();
        job.DeltaTime = Time.DeltaTime;
        job.CommandBuffer = mCommandBufferSystem.CreateCommandBuffer().ToConcurrent();
        return job.Schedule(this, inputDependencies);
    }
}

opaque ledge Feb 3, 2020, 7:15 PM

#

i think you need to add the job to system's producer or something, so you need to do something like

var jobHandle = job.schedule(this, inputDependincies);
mCommandBufferSystem.AddHandlerForProducer(jobHandle);
return jobHandle;

gentle osprey Feb 3, 2020, 7:17 PM

#

Ah, now it stopped complaining. Thank you, appreciate it :)

opaque ledge Feb 3, 2020, 7:18 PM

#

👍 , also i think you should get EndSimulationEntityCommandBufferSystem's command buffer.

#

I am not sure if it actually makes any difference but EntityCommandBufferSystem itself is abstract class, also in their manual they use the class i mentioned

#

but glad its working now, happy hunting 😄

gentle osprey Feb 3, 2020, 7:19 PM

#

I'll look into it, thanks for the tip :)

warped trail Feb 3, 2020, 7:32 PM

#

    * BeginInitializationEntityCommandBufferSystem
    -  -
    -  -
    -  -
    * EndInitializationEntityCommandBufferSystem
* SimulationSystemGroup
    * BeginSimulationEntityCommandBufferSystem
    -  -
    -  -
      *TransformSystemGroup
    * EndSimulationEntityCommandBufferSystem
* PresentationSystemGroup
    * BeginPresentationEntityCommandBufferSystem
    -  -
    -  -
    -  -``` They are default sync points. For example if you spawn something with Transation and LocalToWorld in simulation system group  using EndSimulationECBS, Translation won't be applied to LTW untill next frame and this something will render in 0,0,0🤔 So choose wisely😄

velvet oxide Feb 3, 2020, 8:22 PM

#

@warped trail this may be why my instantiations keep flashing for one frame on 0,0,0 thanks

warped trail Feb 3, 2020, 8:23 PM

#

you can just set Translation and LocalToWorld at the instantiation to avoid this

opaque ledge Feb 3, 2020, 8:23 PM

#

ooooh 👀 thats literally happened to me

#

i do set the translation but didnt bother with localtoworld

velvet oxide Feb 3, 2020, 8:23 PM

#

same here thanks man

twin raven Feb 3, 2020, 8:46 PM

#

I have a job system that creates nativecollection. What is the recommended for passing this data for other systems to use.

#

NativeList<float> list = GetComponentSystemFromWorld.Distances?
Entities.WithReadOnly(list)

zenith wyvern Feb 3, 2020, 8:49 PM

#

Use a dynamic buffer

#

You can attach it to an entity in the creating system and query for it in the consuming systems

#

Otherwise you're headed for dependency management hell

stiff urchin Feb 3, 2020, 8:56 PM

#

you can also use tag components

twin raven Feb 3, 2020, 8:57 PM

#

NativeList<float> was just an example, I am using https://github.com/marijnz/NativeQuadtree as a broadphase to figure out close elements.

GitHub

marijnz/NativeQuadtree

A Quadtree Native Collection for Unity DOTS. Contribute to marijnz/NativeQuadtree development by creating an account on GitHub.

opaque ledge Feb 3, 2020, 8:57 PM

#

@twin raven I am not sure what you are trying to do, but you can have multiple jobs in a single system

twin raven Feb 3, 2020, 8:57 PM

#

But I also find the quadtree useful in other systems

opaque ledge Feb 3, 2020, 8:57 PM

#

Then yeah what Sark said, you write to Dynamic Buffer from 1 system, and read those and process from another

zenith wyvern Feb 3, 2020, 8:58 PM

#

@twin raven If you're absolutely sure your data won't fit into a ComponentData/DynamicBuffer then you'll have to basically do what you showed and keep track of any consuming systems. Basically think about how the EntityCommandBuffer pattern works with AddJobHandleForProducer. That's what you need to do.

opaque ledge Feb 3, 2020, 8:59 PM

#

also, i think you need to make sure write system updates first and read system updates later

#

not entirely sure

zenith wyvern Feb 3, 2020, 9:03 PM

#

@twin raven If you're confident you could also take a look at fholms collections. He made a bunch of fancy collections that can be used in components, so you can basically use them like a dynamicbuffer. You could do whatever he's doing and re-create a quad-tree in the same way

#

https://github.com/fholm/UnsafeCollections/tree/master/UnsafeCollections/Assets/UnsafeCollections/Collections

stiff urchin Feb 3, 2020, 9:42 PM

#

@zenith wyvern I was looking for something like that! 😮

#

thanks!

zenith wyvern Feb 3, 2020, 9:44 PM

#

No worries, but you should thank @trail burrow , he wrote it, hahah

opaque ledge Feb 3, 2020, 10:00 PM

#

So

#

I have this piece of code for updating UI, as June advised

#

protected override JobHandle OnUpdate(JobHandle inputDependencies)
    {
        var cameraEntity = GetSingletonEntity<CameraTag>();
        var rotations = GetComponentDataFromEntity<Rotation>(true);
        var positions = GetComponentDataFromEntity<Translation>(true);

        Entities.ForEach(
            (Entity entity, TestMono testMono) =>
            {
                var entityPosition = positions[entity].Value;

                var cameraRotation = rotations[cameraEntity].Value;
                var cameraRot = new Quaternion(cameraRotation.value.x, cameraRotation.value.y, cameraRotation.value.z, cameraRotation.value.w);

                var canvas = testMono.worldUI;

                canvas.transform.position = new Vector3(entityPosition.x, entityPosition.y - 2, entityPosition.z);
                canvas.transform.LookAt(canvas.transform.position + cameraRot*Vector3.forward, cameraRot * Vector3.up);
                canvas.transform.Translate(Vector3.back, Space.Self);
        
        
            })
            .WithoutBurst()
            .WithReadOnly(typeof(ComponentDataFromEntity<Rotation>))
            .WithReadOnly(typeof(ComponentDataFromEntity<Translation>))
            .Run();

        return inputDependencies;
    }

#

The thing is.. one of my systems changes Rotation, so this system gives me error, one thing i could do is adding UpdateBefore, but that means text position will be moved before entity position changes so it gives 'glitches' so to speak(since it will update its position 1 frame later).

#

I am guessing its because this job system isnt depending on inputDependincies ? but since Run runs on main thread it shouldnt either way right ?

#

Ok i added "AlwaysSyncSystem" it works properly now

#

I should rewatch that ping pong video before Sark beats me up

left oak Feb 3, 2020, 10:39 PM

#

DynamicBuffer methods create sync points, yes?

#

Do they just play back at the end buffer command system of whatever group they're processed in?

#

A lot of DynamicBuffer methods call for reallocations, it seems.

untold night Feb 3, 2020, 11:03 PM

#

reallocations of plain old data don't cause sync points.

It's structural changes.

You can change the buffers contents in a job as long as it's not adding or removing the buffer itself, writing to the buffer doesn't change the entity's structure, only the buffer pointer in the DynamicBuffer itself.

Of course, you can't write/add/remove elements in the buffer from multiple jobs, but that's the case with most data access in a job anyway.

plush portal Feb 4, 2020, 12:25 AM

#

Am I doing something wrong if I am using the same sub-scene for two different scenes?

safe lintel Feb 4, 2020, 1:03 AM

#

i dont think so, but pretty sure you cant use the same subscene twice in a scene

plush portal Feb 4, 2020, 1:51 AM

#

It's fine, I am not using it twice in the same scene.

olive garden Feb 4, 2020, 2:51 AM

#

Hi all! I'm getting started with DOTS and was curious what are the latest versions of hybrid/entities/physics/netcode that work well together? I've spun up multiple projects recently and always run into issues. Even using the versions from the DOTSSample are causing me problems. I'm running on 2019.3.0f6 and usually just setup the simple netcode cube demo. At the moment i'm just running hybrid/entities/physics with a physics block above a table. When it hits the table unity crashes with BlobArray.cs: IndexOutOfRangeException: -1 is out of range Length 24. But that seems to be a common error across my setups. Any advice would be appreciated! 🙂

plush portal Feb 4, 2020, 4:06 AM

#

I am using ECS in a more hybrid way, and I decided to refactor my code by following some sort of principle/pattern I thought of.

Basically, the concept is that my entity world only handles game logic. And the managers, UI, etc. are all in the gameobject world. The manager sends events to the entity world (by creating/setting entities with "event" components), like movement/input events and other stuff that changes game logic.

And so the "principle" I am trying to follow is that the entity world should never be aware of the game object world, and only knows about those events it receives.

My game/code flow feels cleaner like this, but I don't want to hit a wall and have to refactor again later.

So am I going in the wrong direction with this?
Should I go back to having "manager" components that handles inputs and acts on game logic in my entity world?
Will I regret structuring my game like this later?

coarse turtle Feb 4, 2020, 4:13 AM

#

Aint really gonna know till later truthfully - you can plan ahead, but needs can change - I typically didn't find it too much of a hassle restructuring since the data stayed the same - just the system order/logic ended up changing (I dont exactly know the full context of the manager stuff so I can't really comment much about that)

zenith wyvern Feb 4, 2020, 4:42 AM

#

@surreal grail Last week you were asking more or less if you could do polymorphism in burst? Turns out you kinda can:

        public interface IVisibilityMap
        {
            bool IsOpaque(int2 p);
            bool IsInBounds(int2 p);
        }

        public static NativeHashSet<int2> VisiblePointsInRange<T>(int2 origin, int range, T visibilityMap) where T : IVisibilityMap
        {
            NativeHashSet<int2> points = new NativeHashSet<int2>((range * 2) * (range * 2), Allocator.TempJob);

            new GenericFOVJob<T>
            {
                origin = origin,
                range = range,
                visiblePoints = points,
                map = visibilityMap
            }.Run();
            
            return points;
        }

#

You just need to ensure the compiler generates the concrete struct via generics

#

Works beautifully

#

I was kinda amazed, I thought for sure Burst would thwart me somehow

low tangle Feb 4, 2020, 4:47 AM

#

@plush portal you wont run into issues that way, but you need to think about your code base and keep everything separated proper. its far to easy to screw up your separation and have something to fix later on
at first I actually did what your doing now, but I eventually figured out clean ECS is way more sane to manage on large projects instead of lots of monobehaviours

#

so I slowly transitioned from gameobject / MBs doing some logic, to porting it all over to MBs processed by systems

#

then transitioning those MBs to full ecs systems, with proper componentdatas

#

then after that I've moved to a setup where a few select systems handle output one way to gameobjects

#

and a few systems work on a process MBs way (mostly built in stuff like Animators)

plush portal Feb 4, 2020, 4:48 AM

#

@coarse turtle
Okay.
So basically, it's like a sandbox, and the player can interact with objects in the sandbox(entity world), selecting them, moving them, etc.

And for a comparison here's an example on how I would do manager stuff:
Before, I would handle selecting objects with a component that stored the selection area's coordinates(basically a selection manager) and had a system that did the casting when it recieved inputs. A scriptable object contained the component, so I could retrieve it in my UI.
Now, I have the selection manager in the gameobject world, and it recieves inputs sends an "event" to the entity world, which is retrieved by that systems that does the casting and destroys the event.

That way I can easily disable and enable features by removing monobehaviors, instead of having to disable systems, while useless "manager" entities hanging around in the entity world.
I can make new gameobject scenes that interacts with the same entity world differently, so I can have a scenes where the sandbox features are different, or even make a playable world scene and throw in a physical player.

low tangle Feb 4, 2020, 4:49 AM

#

ah you have it backwards in the ecs world

#

you shouldn't be disabling systems ever

#

just removing data that causes things to happen

plush portal Feb 4, 2020, 4:50 AM

#

Yeah that's what I am doing right now.

low tangle Feb 4, 2020, 4:50 AM

#

I just did a activation system like this for my game

#

let me open the notes on it

plush portal Feb 4, 2020, 4:51 AM

#

Since the monobehaviour doesn't throw events(entities) when desactivated, the system doesn't do anything because it doesn't find the data.

low tangle Feb 4, 2020, 4:51 AM

#

Raw input is polled and set into values on a CD, every frame, always if the input poll component exists
the input component also has the KeyCode's it should use (so another system could update or rebind them if needed)

#

another system, handles all RayCastInteractiors
every frame these are processed and the pimary selection is added if one exists

another system then processes InputPoll to see if Activation is being pressed this frame, which then emits Activation (point that interaction entity) entites

coarse turtle Feb 4, 2020, 4:55 AM

#

Sounds like you're doing a simple messaging system from MonoBehaviours -> Component Systems, that should be fine as long as you know how those events are triggered, should be easy to debug too

low tangle Feb 4, 2020, 4:55 AM

#

then instead of processing all Activations, its done in reverse, and all Interactable things are looped though of x interaction type. At the start of the system all activations are hashed to their targets. This allows for the exact kind of interaction to check the hashmap if that entitiy is in the map, its being activated this frame

#

this inversion of processing allows for grouped types of interaction entities to be processed of the same kind

#

since Activation events are separated from source, you can simply change what emits them, instead of a RayCastInteractor it can be a PointInteractor

#

this also alows for activations to even come directly from the server, or scripting languages

#

at no point does any of that pull in data it doesnt need. and only the very ending might even touch a mb/gameobject. like for InteractToggleGameobject

#

also if you read the DOD book

#

the input processing first step is a condition table style

#

and activations are emissions

#

and all of it is done as existance based processing

#

since if the entity or data doesn't exist, then nothing happens

#

want to disable interaction while in a menu?

#

add a condition to the input polling stage

plush portal Feb 4, 2020, 5:02 AM

#

Thanks

low tangle Feb 4, 2020, 5:02 AM

#

I can help explain better if you have questions

#

events from monobehaviours is a good approach though

#

I use that for my http / web stuff

#

they produce entity events

coarse turtle Feb 4, 2020, 5:03 AM

#

same here regarding addressable assets - until an alternative comes out - it works for me for now 🙂

plush portal Feb 4, 2020, 5:06 AM

#

Yeah that's a lot of stuff all at once, but I get the general idea.
I would have some questions, but I have to go, so I might ask them another time, if you don't mind 🙂

low tangle Feb 4, 2020, 5:07 AM

#

yep I'm around if you need me

#

I dont like just directly giving away my source code to my game but I'll see what I'm comfortable with

plush portal Feb 4, 2020, 5:18 AM

#

Nah, I won't try inquire your source code from you, there's just some stuff you said I don't fully understand 🙂 Anyways, goodbye.

surreal grail Feb 4, 2020, 7:35 AM

#

@zenith wyvern ^^^^ that's very nice! thank you! 🙂

vale nymph Feb 4, 2020, 7:40 AM

#

Not sure if this is the correct place:
Trying to replace the Colliders on my gameobjects with the new Unity Physics Shapes, however the object are made with probuilder. This means I cannot link the mesh in the Physics Shape component when changing the shape type to mesh (unless I export them). I tried to make an editor script that runs through my selected objects to replace the original Collider with the Physics shape and link the mesh on the object in there. Is there a way to achieve this? It seems the Physics Shape component is made up from different ComponentData and only visible in the editor for easy use.

zenith wyvern Feb 4, 2020, 7:45 AM

#

@vale nymph Have you seen this video? https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=1274&v=tI9QfqQ9ATA&feature=emb_title

YouTube

Unity

Overview of physics in DOTS - Unite Copenhagen

This session gives an overview of the physics systems and workflows powering our Data-Oriented Technology Stack (DOTS). Get insight into design considerations underlying Unity Physics, how its use cases differ from those of Havok Physics, and how both offerings express concep...

▶ Play video

#

I don't know if it applies to your case but he is able to use their physics authoring script to convert complex physics objects

#

To the entity versions

vale nymph Feb 4, 2020, 7:46 AM

#

Oh I haven't seen this one yet. Thanks @zenith wyvern I will check it out!

gusty comet Feb 4, 2020, 7:51 AM

#

does exists an method to using Physics.Raycast and Physics.OverlapSphere as Jobs?

slow epoch Feb 4, 2020, 8:08 AM

#

Check https://docs.unity3d.com/ScriptReference/RaycastCommand.html if you are not using ECS Physics

dull copper Feb 4, 2020, 8:35 AM

#

also https://docs.unity3d.com/ScriptReference/SpherecastCommand.html (and bunch others but no direct overlap ones)

mystic mountain Feb 4, 2020, 10:13 AM

#

Trying to ask again x) Anyone know the correct way to "dynamically" add subscenes? E.g. I have different maps which are equal to a few subscenes, but I don't want all subscenes to exist in the mainscene from start, but want to load them if requested. Currently I do this by instantiating a prefab that is the subscene GameObject, but this doesn't seem to work in built player.

low tangle Feb 4, 2020, 10:16 AM

#

https://forum.unity.com/threads/new-subscene-converttoentity-workflows.638785/page-3#post-4515892

Unity Forum

New SubScene & ConvertToEntity workflows

Hello,
I Need some heelp with the conversion workflow. How would one get the reference to an entity on another entity from the inspector.

Setup :
In...

#

I remembered joachim said something about it way back when but I remember a scene load component being mentioned

#

skimming the rest of the thread for you

mystic mountain Feb 4, 2020, 10:19 AM

#

Thanks. I'll check out megacity and try using normal scenes as well then (?)

low tangle Feb 4, 2020, 10:19 AM

#

thats what I do personally

#

additive regular scenes

mystic mountain Feb 4, 2020, 10:30 AM

#

@low tangle May I ask do you use it for singleplayer or netCode? I'm a bit curious how you would solve the mixed part, handle the "normal scene" as a resource that can be split between the two?

remote coyote Feb 4, 2020, 10:36 AM

#

Hah, this problem I need to solve soon as well (manual loading/unloading of subscenes). I'll know to ask you about it Jaws when the time comes 😉

low tangle Feb 4, 2020, 11:00 AM

#

custom networking multi player

#

its very very easy to write a entity to represent the current scenes in whatever transition they might be

#

then you can make systems to create load/unload requests

#

@mystic mountain

mystic mountain Feb 4, 2020, 11:04 AM

#

@low tangle Yeah, that part is ok. But since I use the NetCode where both of the worlds exist alongside the same scene, there is some problematics. You cant create two subscenes of the same, as well as can't load an additive scene twice which has a subscene in it (same thing). So you'll have to make some logic around to load the scene when either get request from client or server, and keep the scene there as long as both want it as well.

low tangle Feb 4, 2020, 11:06 AM

#

oh yeah thats going to be really tricky then

#

weird restriction on them

#

I went custom netcode a long time ago but I noticed the new netcode wasn't going to be a fit for my game

#

what was your reasoning for going with it. if you dont mind me asking

mystic mountain Feb 4, 2020, 11:09 AM

#

Mostly that I wanted to use data oriented programming, compatible with all other unity stuff, not write netcode myself, and release date far ahead in time : )

low tangle Feb 4, 2020, 11:10 AM

#

ah so not write netcode then

#

I get that

#

I've always enjoyed netcode programming myself

mystic mountain Feb 4, 2020, 11:11 AM

#

It's not that I don't enjoy it, just that if I would do that part as well I would not really have time to make the game to use it with x)

low tangle Feb 4, 2020, 11:12 AM

#

yeah but now you get to deal with working around the new netcode lol

#

I get it though, time management is number one

#

its why were all smart and not writing our own engines

remote coyote Feb 4, 2020, 11:28 AM

#

I was 50/50 on using that or rolling with the new steamworks/valve based client/server. On DOTS Netcode for now.

#

Valve does some interesting things to wall against ddos

low tangle Feb 4, 2020, 11:47 AM

#

at the side cost of being locked down to valve

opaque ledge Feb 4, 2020, 11:50 AM

#

Hmm, so i am trying to create UI gameobject everytime i am creating a certain entity, but.. when i am instantiating an entity, monobehaviour wont be copied so they are using the same mono, so... in order to create a monobehaviour and add it to an entity i must use the EntityManager on OnUpdate, and right now my entity is created on my job.. so i will simply store the data on that entity to native array, and i must call Job.Complete() and instantiate my entity after that using EntityManager and create a new GameObject, add my mono to it and add that mono to my entity

#

Which i feel like this would create a code abomination

#

is there a better way to handle this ?

#

Perhaps i should make a Dynamic Buffer, and when i create that new entity i would add it that to dynamic buffer, and some other system reads that and creates a new monobehaviour and add that monobehaviour to that entity and remove it from dynamic buffer ?

#

Suggestions are welcomed 👀 😄

low tangle Feb 4, 2020, 11:52 AM

#

dont create the entity in a job

opaque ledge Feb 4, 2020, 11:53 AM

#

i will store the component datas to native array then and use Entity manager to do it ?

low tangle Feb 4, 2020, 11:54 AM

#

I mean cant you just create the entity on main thread

#

instead of in a job

#

that way you can create the gameobjects and join them all as one?

remote coyote Feb 4, 2020, 11:55 AM

#

well, not locked to Valve, just the added ddos protection would be locked to valve + their special convenient steam id handshake

opaque ledge Feb 4, 2020, 11:56 AM

#

i create the entity after i process some stuff tho

low tangle Feb 4, 2020, 11:59 AM

#

process then create the create requests

#

then process those on the main thread

warped trail Feb 4, 2020, 1:18 PM

#

@opaque ledge https://docs.unity3d.com/Packages/com.unity.entities@0.5/manual/system_state_components.html

opaque ledge Feb 4, 2020, 1:27 PM

#

Whats this 👀

#

I.. i dont know how to use system state components for my example

#

im too noob 😭

pliant pike Feb 4, 2020, 1:35 PM

#

I've used them briefly its just basically a component that persists and tells you when structural changes have occurred

#

like you can search for that component and if it exists and the other components don't then that tells you the entity has been destroyed

opaque ledge Feb 4, 2020, 1:38 PM

#

hmm, i understand now i think, i will tinker, thanks

crystal helm Feb 4, 2020, 2:10 PM

#

iam looking for a good learning ressource for the DOTS physics package. can anyone throw me a good link? 👾

pliant pike Feb 4, 2020, 2:12 PM

#

https://docs.unity3d.com/Packages/com.unity.physics@0.2/manual/index.html

#

I think its just that and the physics samples really

crystal helm Feb 4, 2020, 2:13 PM

#

uh perfect, exactly what i needed 😄

opaque ledge Feb 4, 2020, 2:27 PM

#

@pliant pike @warped trail thanks 😄 i was actually able to do the thing i tried to

#

me is happy now

mystic mountain Feb 4, 2020, 3:30 PM

#

@digital scarab I know you can manually load subscenes, but you still need to keep track on what exist in managed code in scenes and whatnot. Right now I've set it up to have one level in one normal scene which consist of subscenes that don't auto load, and I keep references of the request to load this scene through SO. My thoughts now are that this will lead to all subscenes will end up in both binary when building later, so I could divide the client,server,mixed into normal scenes as well - but it will require some more logic built around it, and this might just be a non problem in the end.

velvet oxide Feb 4, 2020, 3:55 PM

#

Anyone else having issues losing one frame of position information when spawning using a buffer? I am having a problem where if I use EndSimBuffer it spawns entities for one frame on 0,0,0. If I use beginSimBuffer I just lose one frame of information, so my bullets will appear to spawn a bit further away from the spawn point. I have set LocalToWorld values on spawn as well but it still flashes at 0,0,0.

opaque ledge Feb 4, 2020, 3:59 PM

#

Are you spawning using Create Entity or Instantiate ?

zenith wyvern Feb 4, 2020, 4:00 PM

#

Sounds like you need to use BeginSimBuffer and tell your generating system to [UpdateBefore] the processing system

#

The manual shows the update order of systems so you need to order your own systems around that https://docs.unity3d.com/Packages/com.unity.entities@0.5/manual/system_update_order.html

velvet oxide Feb 4, 2020, 4:02 PM

#

@opaque ledge I am using Instantiate. I will try these @zenith wyvern as well thanks

opaque ledge Feb 4, 2020, 4:05 PM

#

I had the same problem with instatiating from a prefab entity, i made it's position to some arbitary number, like 0, 1000, 0 in my case, so when it spawns it spawns there for 1 frame then it comes back to where i want it to be. i am using EndSimBuffer.

#

This is probably not the proper way to solve this issue, but it works for now 😄

zenith wyvern Feb 4, 2020, 4:06 PM

#

Definitely not. If you read the default system update order it should be obvious why an entity would appear at origin for a single frame if you create it with EndSimBuffer

warped trail Feb 4, 2020, 4:07 PM

#

just set Translation and LocalToWorld when you instantiating👍

zenith wyvern Feb 4, 2020, 4:08 PM

#

I think generally you wouldn't really know the proper values to set until you were inside the processing system, which is probably separate from the generating system in a lot of cases

#

So you might need to fiddle with the [UpdateBefore] and [UdateAfter]. Just try to avoid just setting random update orders and hoping it works - read the default update order and set your order based on that.

velvet oxide Feb 4, 2020, 4:12 PM

#

@warped trail I tried this by setting the LocalToWorld using a float4x4.TRS and it still flashed on 0,0,0. Do you have a different approach for setting this?

zenith wyvern Feb 4, 2020, 4:12 PM

#

You may have to set Position as well for the first frame

#

Err

#

Translation

velvet oxide Feb 4, 2020, 4:13 PM

#

yeah tried that too haha. I think the initial settings on the Translation component is set to 0,0,0 that's what may be overriding the LocalToWorld?

zenith wyvern Feb 4, 2020, 4:14 PM

#

Sorry for the obvious question but are you sure you're instnatiating before TransformSystem updates?

velvet oxide Feb 4, 2020, 4:14 PM

#

I also tried removing translation and re-adding it but it seemed wrong

zenith wyvern Feb 4, 2020, 4:15 PM

#

TransformSystem updates between begin sim and endsim, so you should be instantiating at least before BeginSim

#

If you're sure you're instantiating in the correct place and it's still not working you may have to resort to the Nightmare Page https://docs.unity3d.com/Packages/com.unity.entities@0.5/manual/transform_system.html

velvet oxide Feb 4, 2020, 4:22 PM

#

damn yeah thanks ill be seeing this in my dreams tn

warped trail Feb 4, 2020, 4:23 PM

#

instantiate before TransformSystemGroup, or apply your transforms yourself🤔

#

instantiate, set Translation, set LocalToWorld👍 😅

zenith wyvern Feb 4, 2020, 4:26 PM

#

Yeah it's been a long time since I've used the transform system but when I was remember having a similar problem and setting both translation and local to world fixed it, aside from ensuring my update order was correct

velvet oxide Feb 4, 2020, 4:32 PM

#

Yeah I must be missing something here is what I have for my spawner:

#

public class SpawnerSystem : JobComponentSystem
{
    private EndSimulationEntityCommandBufferSystem simBuffer;

    protected override void OnCreate()
    {
        base.OnCreate();
        simBuffer = World
            .DefaultGameObjectInjectionWorld
            .GetOrCreateSystem<EndSimulationEntityCommandBufferSystem>();
    }

    protected override JobHandle OnUpdate(JobHandle inputDependencies)
    {
        var ecb = simBuffer.CreateCommandBuffer().ToConcurrent();

        var job = Entities.WithAll<Spawner>().ForEach((DynamicBuffer<BufferElementSpawn> buffer, int entityInQueryIndex) =>
        {
            for (int i = 0; i < buffer.Length; i++)
            {
                var spawn = buffer[i].entitySpawn;
                var pos = buffer[i].spawnPosition;
                var rot = buffer[i].spawnRotation;

                ecb.Instantiate(entityInQueryIndex, spawn, pos, rot);
            }
            buffer.Clear();

        }).Schedule(inputDependencies);

        job.Complete();
        simBuffer.AddJobHandleForProducer(job);

        return inputDependencies;
    }
}```

#

static method

#

    {   
        Entity ent = _man.Instantiate(_jobIndex, _entity);
        _man.SetComponent(_jobIndex, ent, new Translation { Value = _pos });
        _man.SetComponent(_jobIndex, ent, new Rotation { Value = _rot });
        _man.SetComponent(_jobIndex, ent, new LocalToWorld { Value = float4x4.TRS(_pos, _rot, new float3(1,1,1)) });
        return ent;
    }```

zenith wyvern Feb 4, 2020, 4:36 PM

#

If you change EndSimulationEntityCommandBufferSystem to BeginSimulationEntityCommandBufferSystem does it work?

velvet oxide Feb 4, 2020, 4:36 PM

#

yes kind of.

zenith wyvern Feb 4, 2020, 4:36 PM

#

It's possible the transformsystem needs to run on it to set something up for the renderer

velvet oxide Feb 4, 2020, 4:37 PM

#

it doesnt flash anymore at 0,0,0 but I still lose one frame

zenith wyvern Feb 4, 2020, 4:37 PM

#

Oh, so like, if it's a moving bullet it appears one frame ahead of where you would expect to see it the first time?

velvet oxide Feb 4, 2020, 4:37 PM

#

yes exactly

#

I know its very nitpicky but its bothering me

zenith wyvern Feb 4, 2020, 4:38 PM

#

Not nitpicky at all, it's obviously incorrect behaviour

#

It sounds like your movement system is updating after the transform system

velvet oxide Feb 4, 2020, 4:38 PM

#

😬 ....ah mah gawd

zenith wyvern Feb 4, 2020, 4:38 PM

#

Hahah, was that it?

velvet oxide Feb 4, 2020, 4:39 PM

#

just sec

zenith wyvern Feb 4, 2020, 4:41 PM

#

Or I guess that would be your movement system updating before the transform system, so the momement system moves your object after it spawns but before it's had a chance to render for the first frame

#

So I guess...your movement system should update BEFORE your generating system, and your generating system should update before the transform system?

velvet oxide Feb 4, 2020, 4:42 PM

#

public class MoveSystem : JobComponentSystem```

#

yup that was it lol

zenith wyvern Feb 4, 2020, 4:43 PM

#

That made my head hurt more than it should have

velvet oxide Feb 4, 2020, 4:44 PM

#

sorry about that! haha

zenith wyvern Feb 4, 2020, 4:44 PM

#

No worries, my fault for being so tired

velvet oxide Feb 4, 2020, 4:44 PM

#

Thanks for your help though finally got this load order stuff figured out

surreal grail Feb 4, 2020, 5:01 PM

#

I got some weird errors when I tried to build my project (it failed to build), anyone seen this before, or knows what it is? what player assemblies is it missing, is it a unity bug? (unity version 2020.1.0a9)

📎 unknown.png

#

some kind of a burst error

#

oh actually when I click on it it says: Unable to retrieve windows 10 sdk base

opaque ledge Feb 4, 2020, 5:05 PM

#

hmm, you should probably update your unity

#

current version is a21 i think

surreal grail Feb 4, 2020, 5:07 PM

#

I maaay download the win10 sdk from their website, see if that fixes it, idk if it should come with visual studio by default but I'll try

safe lintel Feb 4, 2020, 5:10 PM

#

probably need to update your visual studio install with the correct sdk, burst documentation has info on what you need https://docs.unity3d.com/Packages/com.unity.burst@1.2/manual/index.html#standalone-player-support

low tangle Feb 4, 2020, 5:10 PM

#

make sure you restart the editor after burst fails to start like that. it seems to error out the process and never run burst again or something @surreal grail

surreal grail Feb 4, 2020, 5:12 PM

#

well it must run burst since in playmode it is working, I guess its having issues with the windows specific part of burst

#

works now, thanks guys!

opaque ledge Feb 4, 2020, 6:11 PM

#

what was the problem ?

surreal grail Feb 4, 2020, 6:16 PM

#

well it was either windows build support not installed in the version of unity I'm using (I thought it is for building on universal windows platforms) or windows sdk not being installed on the computer

#

if it was the windows build support then its really weird how it's only needed for Burst

mystic mountain Feb 4, 2020, 6:35 PM

#

@digital scarab You have client and server in the same project, the worlds are side by side, but use the same scene. You can't create two instances of the same subscene. If I start my game with both client and server, the server first wants to load the world X, then I authenticate player and connect to the server who says it should load world X. Now the client disconnects and I should unload world X for client, but not server.

#

Can, but it throws error or warning.

#

Not that I know of, it just says you can't have two of the same same subscene.

#

@digital scarab

📎 unknown.png

#

Right now I've tried with either loading a scene twice (which contains a subscene) or load two different scenes which contain the same subscene.

#

📎 unknown.png

#

Alright, so it should work even thought the warnings then. I'll still have to tinker a bit how I will connect the normal scene to the specific world. Thanks for the help! @digital scarab

#

I can share issues all day x) haha

trail burrow Feb 4, 2020, 7:21 PM

#

@digital scarab hey, anything new on the wonky jobs scheduling?

dull copper Feb 4, 2020, 7:35 PM

#

also any info on being able to limit the worker threads to the FIRST available worker threads? 😄

#

trying to debug unity job system with 23 worker threads is not fun

#

and when I limit it to few workers, they get split to random workers

#

so I might get worker 22 active

#

which I have to scroll down to see and it then hides the all the regular info

#

on DOTS dev I do miss my old 4 core 4 hw thread cpu

sharp nacelle Feb 4, 2020, 9:38 PM

#

Hey folks... I might have missed something but I get (again) some compile errors on the latest packages on 2020.1.0a21. Seems the Build package and the Platforms package conflict for some reason. Already tried deleting the whole Library folder, but to no avail. It seems downgrading all Platforms packages to 0.20 seems to fix it, but I wonder why this conflict exists in the first place. Also I'm not sure what the Platforms packages are even about, tbh, they seem to be not a dependency for anything really.

📎 unknown.png

warped trail Feb 4, 2020, 9:42 PM

#

@sharp nacelle https://forum.unity.com/threads/compilation-error-in-unity-platforms-preview-2-0-2-0.813063/

Unity Forum

Compilation error in Unity Platforms preview.2-0.2.0

I updated DOTS Platforms package in Unity 2019.3.0f5 and see compilation errors:...

sharp nacelle Feb 4, 2020, 9:44 PM

#

Thank you! didn't find the post with the search, because I was looking for unity.builds and not platforms 🙂 well, it's meh, but I can revert for now to the older packages and wait or entities 0.6.0. thanks again

plush portal Feb 4, 2020, 10:01 PM

#

@low tangle So here's a question. When you talked about Activations, you mean event entities/components that determine if a feature is activated and interacts with entities right? I am not sure I fully understand what you said about inverting the processing, but did you mean that instead of giving entities info about the Activation, you give the Activation info about all the entities it interacts with? And if that's the case, an Activation that only acts on enemies the frame it is emitted, doing that would be useless in that specific case, right?
Or am I misunderstanding?

#

Because the way I am doing it is that my systems are looking for "events" that gets destroyed by the system on the next frame.
Except for stuff that happen every frame, then the event emmiters(in my case, monobehaviours) sends info to event entities that stays alive and get destroyed by the emmiters themselves when those get disabled. But even then, the events themselves are simply data that never get written by systems, only read and destroyed.

Considering I am not misunderstanding, why would it be better for the events to act as activators and contain the entities they act upon?

#

And 2 other questions, but those I am asking to anybody that can help:

Is there a safe way/a preferred way to activate/deactivate physics? I want to be able to freeze/unfreeze the world whenever I want, like on the click of a button.
Is there a safe and efficient way to create a new entity world and transfer entities between it and the default world? How will systems react to having two entity worlds in the same scene?

warped trail Feb 4, 2020, 10:43 PM

#

you can change PhysicsStep.SimulationType to SimulationType.NoPhysics

plush portal Feb 4, 2020, 10:54 PM

#

thanks

opaque ledge Feb 5, 2020, 10:47 AM

#

Anyone has a rotate around function who can share ? because i just crashed my editor while i was creating my own lol

opaque ledge Feb 5, 2020, 11:04 AM

#

nvm i got it

opaque ledge Feb 5, 2020, 1:47 PM

#

Is there a way to get all entites that has a certain tag without making a job struct ? Right now i am doing like this:

    [BurstCompile]
    struct GetMarketEntitiesJob : IJobForEachWithEntity_EB<MarketDataBuffer>
    {
        public NativeArray<Entity> entities;

        public void Execute(Entity entity, int index, [ReadOnly]DynamicBuffer<MarketDataBuffer> b0)
        {
            entities[index] = entity;
        }
    }

As you can see i am not interested in MarketDataBuffer, doing like this is fine, but i feel like there is a waste of performance, is there a way to do it or should i just go with it ?

pliant pike Feb 5, 2020, 1:51 PM

#

maybe an EntityQuery?

solar ridge Feb 5, 2020, 1:52 PM

#

Entities foreach can as well

#

the lambda that is

#

But really it comes down to what level of verbosity you want

verbal pewter Feb 5, 2020, 1:56 PM

#

What's the best way to handle setting up new entities? As an example, I have a Block entity (think, city block) that I need to subdivide into Lots, and I'd like to create a system to handle the subdivision process. This only needs to be done once per Block. Right now my thinking is that I use WithChangeFilter and add an IsSetup bool, only running the code for values set to false. Is there a better way to go about doing this?

warped trail Feb 5, 2020, 2:00 PM

#

@opaque ledge cs NativeArray<Entity> entities = m_Group.ToEntityArray(Allocator.TempJob, out JobHandle gatherArrayJH);

opaque ledge Feb 5, 2020, 2:01 PM

#

So you want to do something once an entity is created ? i asked that yesterday as well, you should use SystemComponentData

#

m_Group is entity query ?

warped trail Feb 5, 2020, 2:01 PM

#

yes

opaque ledge Feb 5, 2020, 2:02 PM

#

alright so, create entity query at OnCreate, and put this to OnUpdate then, thanks

warped trail Feb 5, 2020, 2:02 PM

#

https://gametorrahod.com/minimum-main-thread-block-with-out-jobhandle-overload/

Game Torrahod

Minimum main thread block with out JobHandle overload

There are 3 interesting methods on EntityQuery that has an overload with out
JobHandle :

public NativeArray CreateArchetypeChunkArray(Allocator allocator);
public NativeArray CreateArchetypeChunkArray(Allocator allocator, out JobHandle jobhandle);

public NativeArray ToCom...

verbal pewter Feb 5, 2020, 2:07 PM

#

@opaque ledge Ah okay, so you mean that the IsSetup bool should be a ComponentSystemData?

opaque ledge Feb 5, 2020, 2:08 PM

#

yeah

#

I mean you should have a seperate system that catches these newly created entities and do something and put the SystemData tag on them.

#

i have a 'working' example if you like, i can DM you or post here

velvet oxide Feb 5, 2020, 2:10 PM

#

do you recommend something similar for doing instant "events" when adding a component to an Entity?

#

trying to figure out how to do something instantly once I add a component instead of waiting a frame for the logic to see the component

opaque ledge Feb 5, 2020, 2:10 PM

#

Yep, that is indeed possible

verbal pewter Feb 5, 2020, 2:12 PM

#

@opaque ledge I found the docs for that which has an example so I'll start with that for now. Thank you though!

opaque ledge Feb 5, 2020, 2:13 PM

#

however.. SystemData is special, when entity is destroyed, the entity isnt actually destroyed until all of the SystemData on it is removed. So this behaviour can let you do something like..
Do something when entity is created, add the system data
Do something when entity is destroyed, remove the system data

#

I am using it to instantiate some monobehaviour and add it to that entity.

#

You can also do it to do something when a component is added or removed, but that means more tags to create

#

and good luck Edvard o/

#

it was kinda hard for me to grasp at first 😄

pliant pike Feb 5, 2020, 2:32 PM

#

I don't suppose anyone knows the simplest way to create/render a bunch of points/lines in ECS?

solar ridge Feb 5, 2020, 2:37 PM

#

Anything I have needed to render enmasse be like points I have used the VFX system with entity backing;however that has some limitations

pliant pike Feb 5, 2020, 2:37 PM

#

I mainly just need it for debug purposes, so I can see what I'm doing

#

I could just create small spheres I guess

solar ridge Feb 5, 2020, 2:39 PM

#

spheres would potentially be ideal if you just need something quick 🙂

zenith wyvern Feb 5, 2020, 3:01 PM

#

@pliant pike You can call Debug.DrawLine in a Entities.WithoutBurst.Foreach(...).Run()

pliant pike Feb 5, 2020, 3:02 PM

#

yeah I did try that thanks

mellow heath Feb 5, 2020, 3:16 PM

#

Yooo anyone have any satisfying examples of extreme performance gains with dots?
Along the lines of this:
https://www.reddit.com/r/Unity3D/comments/e5rjpv/converted_my_character_controller_to_dots_and_the/

I just love to see the crazy improvements

r/Unity3D - Converted my character controller to DOTS, and the per...

104 votes and 50 comments so far on Reddit

verbal pewter Feb 5, 2020, 3:36 PM

#

Hahah, that's a great video 😄

low tangle Feb 5, 2020, 4:16 PM

#

I dont really have any modern videos or screenshots

#

but when I was first working on a way to drive 1000 animated skinned meshes I had to really structure the job right per instance

#

at like 52 bones per each one of the thousand with one entity each and a jobchunk that ran over each grouping I just barely got it running

#

at first with a simple foreach it was somewhere in the ballpark of 40fps on a quad core

pliant pike Feb 5, 2020, 4:18 PM

#

there's another good recent example here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ubUPVu_DeVk&t=852s

YouTube

Code Monkey

Pathfinding in Unity ECS! (Epic Performance!)

✅ Get the Project files and Utilities at https://unitycodemonkey.com/video.php?v=ubUPVu_DeVk
Let's take our Unity DOTS Pathfinding and apply it to Unity ECS so we have Entities roaming around calculating their path.

📍 Support on Patreon https://www.patreon.com/unitycode...

▶ Play video

low tangle Feb 5, 2020, 4:19 PM

#

eventually after lots of profiling I got it to about 400fps

#

then I had the next problem which was networking

#

visible sets means you need to check per each thing your observing

#

if you have a 1000 players its 999 other observations in memory somewhere

#

rounding up thats a million iterations with random access

#

no mater how you slice that its a big n

#

but yeah again dots made it easy to come up with a flexible setup that can push that many at about 200fps

pliant pike Feb 5, 2020, 4:21 PM

#

thats kind of ridiculous

low tangle Feb 5, 2020, 4:21 PM

#

other than sheer gpu crying from all the computing all the bones and then rendering all those unique meshes, I can actually run 1000 players. if I can ever get that many of my users on

#

full skinned animated models

pliant pike Feb 5, 2020, 4:22 PM

#

it kind of shows how badly we've been using these hardware all along

low tangle Feb 5, 2020, 4:22 PM

#

yup

#

stream processing and focusing on memory access is a godsend

#

I really wish hardware vendors would give low level access to the cache

#

so that way smart people like the dots team could get even more out of l2/l3 cache

pliant pike Feb 5, 2020, 4:24 PM

#

well 10 times better performance is good enough for a start

low tangle Feb 5, 2020, 4:25 PM

#

I've gotten more than 10x

#

some things being ported from monobehaviours got that three times as I improved it

pliant pike Feb 5, 2020, 4:26 PM

#

yeah I think thats like the average you can get without really trying though

low tangle Feb 5, 2020, 4:26 PM

#

keep in mind this doesnt always happen

#

mb 1x
ecs main thread 10x
ecs jobed, burst 100x
ecs jobed wayyy better arch 1000x

#

but it has a few times now gone like this ^

#

one of the hardest to understand is how much performance you can net by not doing any work at all

#

which you get by structuring the data so you only process stuff that you want said logic to happen

#

you can really kill most dirt bits and IsDone checking and what not

#

but not always, as you still need to touch other code which might depend on that kind of polling

pliant pike Feb 5, 2020, 4:28 PM

#

yeah and that leaves much more space to do other stuff

zenith wyvern Feb 5, 2020, 4:36 PM

#

@pliant pike There this blog post where they claim a "2250x" speedup from switching to burst for their enemy movement system https://blogs.unity3d.com/2019/11/27/creating-a-third-person-zombie-shooter-with-dots/

Unity Technologies Blog

Creating a third-person zombie shooter with DOTS - Unity Technolog...

We’re rebuilding the core of Unity with our Data-Oriented Tech Stack, and many game studios are already seeing massive performance wins when using the Enti...

coarse turtle Feb 5, 2020, 4:37 PM

#

hmm - interesting - I think I might've missed that blog post

mint iron Feb 5, 2020, 4:38 PM

#

i guess it depends on how bad your code was before also 😄

low tangle Feb 5, 2020, 4:39 PM

#

Well it is oop 😏

trail burrow Feb 5, 2020, 4:39 PM

#

@zenith wyvern That post is just so bullshit lol

zenith wyvern Feb 5, 2020, 4:39 PM

#

The numbers did seem a bit fishy to me

trail burrow Feb 5, 2020, 4:39 PM

#

Is it possible to make something that is 2250x slower than what DOTS would be? yes.

zenith wyvern Feb 5, 2020, 4:39 PM

#

Like @mint iron they must have been doing something pretty insane to see that kind of boost

trail burrow Feb 5, 2020, 4:39 PM

#

But you gotta be a proper fucking idiot to achieve something that performs so badly lol

low tangle Feb 5, 2020, 4:39 PM

#

Lol

zenith wyvern Feb 5, 2020, 4:40 PM

#

But it's not like it's an atypical case. Horrible OOP code is unfortunately an industry standard. ECS forces you to write better code, so.

tawdry tree Feb 5, 2020, 4:40 PM

#

To be fair, DOTS have 'performance by default', whereas a naive solution in OOP can be really bad for some tasks

trail burrow Feb 5, 2020, 4:40 PM

#

Yes, threading + simd makes things faster, nobody that has any idea what they are doing is surprised.

low tangle Feb 5, 2020, 4:41 PM

#

All the marketing wank really gets on your nerves eh?

trail burrow Feb 5, 2020, 4:41 PM

#

They are just doing themselves a disservice pushing this "oh god we had 1000x perf improvement" and then it's some... fairly shitty looking game that's being demo:ed?

pliant pike Feb 5, 2020, 4:41 PM

#

well I guess DOTS is a double bonus its teaching them how to code properly as well

coarse turtle Feb 5, 2020, 4:41 PM

#

Hmmmm - I am curious as to what it looked like before - would be nice to see a before and after case study 🤔

low tangle Feb 5, 2020, 4:41 PM

#

Yeah, but they don't even know why

zenith wyvern Feb 5, 2020, 4:41 PM

#

@trail burrow No need to be rude, there's a good chance those developers hang out in here.

crystal helm Feb 5, 2020, 4:43 PM

#

from my testings it seems dots improvement correlates directly with the cores of the system while the oop code is relative consistent in its performance (the bad and the good)

low tangle Feb 5, 2020, 4:43 PM

#

Eh

trail burrow Feb 5, 2020, 4:44 PM

#

Eh... well, all I'm saying is that them pushing this 'several thousand times' improvement, then demoing something that looks 'subpar', is just doing unity a disservice?

Most things will not see that much improvement unless it was written very very badly to begin with
The game being demoed looks at best like a 3 month indie project

It makes Unity look bad tbh. Because anybody that knows anything knows the 2250x number is bullshit.

low tangle Feb 5, 2020, 4:44 PM

#

People never really seem to notice how much cache optimising helps

trail burrow Feb 5, 2020, 4:44 PM

#

If that is the 'best' they could find so they have to push it on their blog... I mean... it doesn't look good

zenith wyvern Feb 5, 2020, 4:44 PM

#

That's a lot more reasonable than saying their game "looks shitty".

low tangle Feb 5, 2020, 4:44 PM

#

I think that game was just free labor wasn't it?

trail burrow Feb 5, 2020, 4:44 PM

#

sure @zenith wyvern ¯_(ツ)_/¯

low tangle Feb 5, 2020, 4:45 PM

#

Or at least the dots port of it

trail burrow Feb 5, 2020, 4:45 PM

#

The devs of that game are from my city i just realized

low tangle Feb 5, 2020, 4:47 PM

#

One of these days ||never|| I'll get around to writing up that damn post and profiling of dots

trail burrow Feb 5, 2020, 4:47 PM

#

And obviously the ECS+DOD approach is good for massive amounts of identical things

low tangle Feb 5, 2020, 4:47 PM

#

Well, a game is made up of a shit ton of little things

#

Separate them well and you get good systems

#

Good systems then can get job'd usually

#

If their jobs you can likely as is flick on clang, I mean burst

#

Lots of easy paths to performance and simple programming

#

Wait shit

#

Meant llvm

#

Close enough

opaque ledge Feb 5, 2020, 5:09 PM

#

@low tangle what is cache optimizing ?

coarse turtle Feb 5, 2020, 5:10 PM

#

There exists small temp memory that lies near the CPU - typically called L1 $, L2 $, L3 $ (depends on the processor). CPU can prefetch data and store them in the caches for quick easy access compared to fetching from system RAM

#

optimizing for the caches - means you want to take advantage of that aspect of CPUs 🙂

low tangle Feb 5, 2020, 5:11 PM

#

It's basically the primary goal of ecs in how unity set it up

#

It all comes down to those unity memory managed byte chunks

#

We interpret then as a structure of array in a foreach loop over said data

#

The foreach is the kernel

#

If you have a small kernel running over a linear array of bytes, the CPU basically can't fuck up

zenith wyvern Feb 5, 2020, 5:13 PM

#

I still don't understand how the cache works personally. Is it only relevant for "for loops"?

low tangle Feb 5, 2020, 5:14 PM

#

So it will hopefully be in cache and won't miss

sharp nacelle Feb 5, 2020, 5:14 PM

#

Honestly, depending on what kind of system you are working on a x2000 increase in performance isn't out of the question. Was working on a project that had a pretty straight-forward dynamic navmesh solution from a previous project that was designed for around 100 agents at the same time. Now the new project needed 50k+ agents and of course it didn't scale well.

Code got moved to a more data-oriented structure, got the proper SIMD-treatment, cache-line optimizing and some threading on top. This was on a custom C++ engine quite a few years back. I think in the end they got the navmesh generation to be around 50x faster, but the new pathfinder handled the 50k agents nearly twice as fast as the old approach handled the 100 agents. So depending on how you calculate it, you could say they got an improvement of around 1000 times. And I think the engineers working on it considered some more approaches to make it even faster.

Unfortunately I didn't work on that system myself at all, was only a hired freelancer for one specific other feature, but it got me interested in optimization techniques and data-oriented design overall 🙂

coarse turtle Feb 5, 2020, 5:14 PM

#

yeah - effectively by storing memory linearly and in chunks - you can store those slices of memory into the cache (if the slice is too big to fit into the L1 $, then it can likely be stored in L2 $ / L3 $ as those are bigger in capacity but has slower access compared to the L1 $)

low tangle Feb 5, 2020, 5:15 PM

#

The cache is constantly in use always in a cpu

sharp nacelle Feb 5, 2020, 5:15 PM

#

@zenith wyvern Every instruction will pre-load memory it needs. If the next instruction can run on the same cache then nothing needs to be pre-loaded and that's where the speedup comes from. It works for anything, but you will see the biggest gain in loops.

low tangle Feb 5, 2020, 5:16 PM

#

CPUs load strips of memory from ram instead of the but you asked for

#

The CPU will also escalate from l1 to l4 (ram) looking for the data at each stage

#

In multi core, l3 requires a some sort of sync that I don't really get. But the layman explanation is you want to get your shit into l2

coarse turtle Feb 5, 2020, 5:18 PM

#

yeah

low tangle Feb 5, 2020, 5:18 PM

#

Which are always way smaller than the fat l3 processor companies like to advertise

#

Thankfully like mentioned before, that's exactly what chunks (soa in a friendly form) and ecs helps you make

#

You can still make systems that jump around and do random access which is a cache miss

#

But sometimes it isn't

left oak Feb 5, 2020, 5:20 PM

#

dod also talks about the problem of loading instructions based on not-yet-loaded data, which really fucks up a cpus ability to work out of order

zenith wyvern Feb 5, 2020, 5:20 PM

#

So any time I access a new piece of data it's potentially bumping something out of the cache? Is that right?

low tangle Feb 5, 2020, 5:20 PM

#

No

#

While the processor runs

#

Anything can screw the cache up

left oak Feb 5, 2020, 5:20 PM

#

including instructions

low tangle Feb 5, 2020, 5:21 PM

#

The os could decide to freeze that thread to jump somewhere and do some driver code

#

Totally flushing your data

#

We have to help suggest for it to be in cache and your code to be fast to process as much as it can

#

This is why sometimes it's just faster to always do the work instead of checking if you should

zenith wyvern Feb 5, 2020, 5:23 PM

#

So basically we should try not to think literally about what's going on in the cache, but try to structure how we process our data so that, if we're lucky, it will fit?

low tangle Feb 5, 2020, 5:24 PM

#

Well you have a framework helping you make smart choices

#

And giving you the option in the first place

tight badge Feb 5, 2020, 5:24 PM

#

Anyone know how to make unity use more of my system resources?

#

Like cpu and gpu

sharp nacelle Feb 5, 2020, 5:24 PM

#

Most of the time you will be lucky though. You have design your code to be able to cope with the few random cache misses and stuff like SIMD also helps a lot in it. Basically the more you can do in a few simple instructions, the higher the chance not to run in a cache miss.

tight badge Feb 5, 2020, 5:25 PM

#

because rn unity won't use more than 10% of my cpu and 16% of gpu whilst running a stress test

coarse turtle Feb 5, 2020, 5:25 PM

#

@tight badge spam more meshes to render? 👀

low tangle Feb 5, 2020, 5:25 PM

#

Focus on entity processing that does one thing in that system. For getting better cache usage you want to have all the data there on that entity to do work, and the entity should be as simple of a archetype as it can be

sharp nacelle Feb 5, 2020, 5:25 PM

#

@tight badge battery safe mode on?

tight badge Feb 5, 2020, 5:26 PM

#

I did I'm trying ECS for the first time and I spawned 100000 entities

left oak Feb 5, 2020, 5:26 PM

#

if you can make branch prediction more... predictable, you're also saving on cpu work that you just throw away

tight badge Feb 5, 2020, 5:26 PM

#

I'm running on a desktop I overclocked

zenith wyvern Feb 5, 2020, 5:26 PM

#

Does that mean if I have data on two separate entities ( so we know it's in two different chunks that might not be close to eachother ) then I'm automatically getting cache misses if I access data on either entity?

low tangle Feb 5, 2020, 5:26 PM

#

The classic ecs example of a move forward component tied to a position

left oak Feb 5, 2020, 5:27 PM

#

not if you're processing all entities in both chunks

sharp nacelle Feb 5, 2020, 5:27 PM

#

Depends on how you access the data and in which order

#

and how big your components are

low tangle Feb 5, 2020, 5:27 PM

#

Yes but there's a chance the other chunk might get accessed in order so after a lump loads in you might run though a few 'random' accesses without a miss

left oak Feb 5, 2020, 5:28 PM

#

stream processing is the default way to mitigate cache miss

low tangle Feb 5, 2020, 5:28 PM

#

But if this is the case you might be able to just keep that data in the entity

tight badge Feb 5, 2020, 5:28 PM

#

I'm following this tutorial rn and everything's the same https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ILfUuBLfzGI

YouTube

Code Monkey

Getting Started with ECS in Unity 2019

Learn how to get started using Unity ECS.
✅ Get the Project files and Utilities at https://unitycodemonkey.com/video.php?v=ILfUuBLfzGI

Unity DOTS Explained
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z9-WkwdDoNY

If you have any questions post them in the comments and I'll do my best ...

▶ Play video

zenith wyvern Feb 5, 2020, 5:28 PM

#

By stream processing you mean loading the separate data into a single array for processing, is that right?

low tangle Feb 5, 2020, 5:29 PM

#

Yes but the chunk full of entities is just a array of data that is 16k long

#

If your job only needs simple arrays then you should totally keep it that way

left oak Feb 5, 2020, 5:30 PM

#

ideally, you're applying the same transform to every element in the stream

low tangle Feb 5, 2020, 5:30 PM

#

Yeah

zenith wyvern Feb 5, 2020, 5:30 PM

#

Right, so that's only something I consider for very performance intensive code basically

low tangle Feb 5, 2020, 5:31 PM

#

This is all for getting even more performance

coarse turtle Feb 5, 2020, 5:31 PM

#

On a general sense - yes

low tangle Feb 5, 2020, 5:31 PM

#

I've shaved jobs that were taking like .02ms with burst down to 0.001

#

It's pointless but I get curious

#

I did about 12 systems like this one day to shave .5ms

zenith wyvern Feb 5, 2020, 5:32 PM

#

Basically the more you can do in a few simple instructions, the higher the chance not to run in a cache miss.
@sharp nacelle
It sounds like at my level of knowledge this is pretty much what I should keep in mind for maximizing performance

#

I appreciate all the insight everyone, thanks so much. I have no formal training or education as a programmer (obviously) so this is really valuable

low tangle Feb 5, 2020, 5:33 PM

#

Awhile back with a earlier version of burst I noticed it didn't do local hoisting out of loops

#

So I was able to get better stack usage by moving the local variable out of the loop

#

Was able to measure it at 10k+ iterations

#

For{
Int I = 0
Do something
}

Vrs
Int I = 0
For {
Do something
}

left oak Feb 5, 2020, 5:36 PM

#

That's the trick, making sure the compiler can tell what's dependent on yet-to-be-loaded data, and what's consistent across the transform

#

cause if you have to wait to load an element before you know how to process it...

opaque ledge Feb 5, 2020, 5:36 PM

#

So how do you optimize for a cache exactly ?

low tangle Feb 5, 2020, 5:36 PM

#

There is a ton of performance you can squeeze

#

Single responsibility systems

#

Transform data
Emit data
Remove data

#

That's how the dod book describes it

#

Replace data with entity and you have your primary tools in ecs

zenith wyvern Feb 5, 2020, 5:39 PM

#

All the talk of databases in that book keeps confusing me. I guess the chunks are the database equivalent?

low tangle Feb 5, 2020, 5:39 PM

#

You focus on keeping your system doing the single action it should do to achieve the logic you want and you will have about as good as cache usage as you will get

#

The chunk lookup system is the database

#

And entity archetype

zenith wyvern Feb 5, 2020, 5:40 PM

#

So basically ignore the concept of the database and only think about how I access the entities via queries

low tangle Feb 5, 2020, 5:40 PM

#

Yes

#

We have +- type and for joins you have to do it manually by creating the new array of data, then looping to query by your keys

opaque ledge Feb 5, 2020, 5:41 PM

#

So.. i should make systems that their query is lower than cache limit ?

low tangle Feb 5, 2020, 5:41 PM

#

Basicly just try not to do joins

coarse turtle Feb 5, 2020, 5:42 PM

#

I think wikipedia describes it generally well in a few sentences - if you want to optimize for caches -

Naive implementations of ECS where you iterate through all entities regardless of whether you need it may not be inherently good

But if you can do a 'smart' implementation where the entities are what you exactly need (e.g. the chunks) - you can then start optimizing for caches

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entity_component_system

low tangle Feb 5, 2020, 5:42 PM

#

Or do the simple pattern of hash all potential targets then query that in a simple loop over your primary

#

Exactly what we have with unity's version @coarse turtle

coarse turtle Feb 5, 2020, 5:43 PM

#

yep

low tangle Feb 5, 2020, 5:43 PM

#

@opaque ledge no

zenith wyvern Feb 5, 2020, 5:43 PM

#

@opaque ledge At our level of knowledge the best thing we can do is minimize what each system does as much possible. Also has the benefit of making the code more readable

low tangle Feb 5, 2020, 5:43 PM

#

Yes

opaque ledge Feb 5, 2020, 5:44 PM

#

each system or each job ?

low tangle Feb 5, 2020, 5:44 PM

#

It's worth doing for multiple reasons not just performant

#

But you have got to remember

#

You can still do it 'wrong'

zenith wyvern Feb 5, 2020, 5:44 PM

#

Both I suppose. If you have a system that's running a ton of different jobs, that sounds like your system is doing too much

low tangle Feb 5, 2020, 5:44 PM

#

There is nothing wrong with that

#

You might have a few job chain to prep some nice linear data for your final job, or maybe a lookup table

#

It's systems that have too much in them

#

You really can build an entire complicated bit of logic with discrete simple systems

#

I got a recent example

#

Give me a bit to type it out

opaque ledge Feb 5, 2020, 5:49 PM

#

okay so, in order to understand more, i have this system called CooperationCreateTradeShipSystem which does the following:

FirstJob = Get Owned Markets with IJobForEachWithEntity_EB

SecondJob = Find Comparisions between these markets(which is written to a Buffer from another job) with IJobForEachWithEntity_EB

ThirdJob = Process these comparisions find the best route and create the ship with IJob

#

So this is my most complex system so far, should try to improve it somehow ?

#

it takes 0.6 ms on entity debugger

low tangle Feb 5, 2020, 5:49 PM

#

Nah that's fine

#

Imagine your game has this entity for the player that is created at some point
[] For a component
It might be something like [create player] [resource Id] and while it does its thing it gets a few new types added as it goes like, [downloading] and [is spawned] [has body]

#

So you can query at any point and have that system do whenever type of thing to the player it needs at that stage

frosty siren Feb 5, 2020, 5:53 PM

#

Have we a way to get union EntityArchetype/EntityQuery/IComponentData collection based on 2 entities?

low tangle Feb 5, 2020, 5:53 PM

#

But your only doing one kind of thing to this entity, which is mutation

#

Not yet @frosty siren

#

Each system in this first example is also loading in the entire 'fat' entity for each stage when it really doesn't need it

#

So a better approach would be to not have one player entity, instead there isn't one, there is just a collection that produce the player you expect

vagrant surge Feb 5, 2020, 5:56 PM

#

lots of smaller systems are slower than monolythic ones

#

but the exact inflection point is not so easy to find

low tangle Feb 5, 2020, 5:56 PM

#

Yeah not too small

vagrant surge Feb 5, 2020, 5:56 PM

#

the best you can really do is good use of chunk-level logic

low tangle Feb 5, 2020, 5:56 PM

#

But it's not slower

vagrant surge Feb 5, 2020, 5:56 PM

#

like, a Transform system will access a bunch of stuff at once, so better look at what the chunk has, and do the proper thing, instead of doing 99 different queries

stable fog Feb 5, 2020, 5:56 PM

#

a lot of the examples imply you should be doing addition of 2 variables in a job

low tangle Feb 5, 2020, 5:56 PM

#

Did you get that from profiling?

stable fog Feb 5, 2020, 5:56 PM

#

and that really bothers me

vagrant surge Feb 5, 2020, 5:57 PM

#

@low tangle i have my own ecs implementation in cpp. same style as unity

#

in fact i think faster for some things

low tangle Feb 5, 2020, 5:57 PM

#

Oh right I used it

vagrant surge Feb 5, 2020, 5:57 PM

#

and ive done a lot of experimentation on that

#

wait what

low tangle Feb 5, 2020, 5:57 PM

#

You posted it awhile back in here when I asked

vagrant surge Feb 5, 2020, 5:57 PM

#

ah, yeah

frosty siren Feb 5, 2020, 5:57 PM

#

I'm in situation when i need to build entity at runtime based on some groups of IComponentData. So i need to store collection of IComponentDatas somewhere or i need to have prefab entities with it.

We can't today assign IComponentData with values in editor through one collection. Only just have collection of types. And can't get types that entity have. And also can't get union of archetype. Looks like impossible task.

low tangle Feb 5, 2020, 5:57 PM

#

At least I think that was you

vagrant surge Feb 5, 2020, 5:57 PM

#

i made a newer version not long ago, much thinner and faster

low tangle Feb 5, 2020, 5:57 PM

#

Sweet

vagrant surge Feb 5, 2020, 5:57 PM

#

but its only like the "absolute basics"

low tangle Feb 5, 2020, 5:57 PM

#

I used this c one for Bit in that style

vagrant surge Feb 5, 2020, 5:58 PM

#

anyway, ive done a bunch of random experiments with it, on full stuff with graphics and simulation and stuff

low tangle Feb 5, 2020, 5:58 PM

#

Helped me clear up some ideas

#

Flecs

vagrant surge Feb 5, 2020, 5:58 PM

#

Flecs is really well made

#

it has some truly galaxy brain level stuff that is way ahead of what unity ecs does

low tangle Feb 5, 2020, 5:59 PM

#

I want able to get it's jobs working though which was dad

#

Sad

vagrant surge Feb 5, 2020, 5:59 PM

#

but i dont really like how you have to register systems, i prefer the way mine works, where its like a very fancy data structure

low tangle Feb 5, 2020, 5:59 PM

#

Yeah

#

I like unity's bit of magic

#

Anyways

#

In pratice in my game increasing the system count has helped drop the number of wasted cycles spent on fat systems

vagrant surge Feb 5, 2020, 6:01 PM

#

There is a sweet spot of many-jobs vs few-jobs. This depends on what you are doing. For tryhard level stuff, using things like manual chunk iteration is the way to fastest speed. There is a bit of overhead every time you run a system

low tangle Feb 5, 2020, 6:01 PM

#

I'm pretty much only paying for what's being done that frame

vagrant surge Feb 5, 2020, 6:01 PM

#

but as a general rule of thumb, smaller systems = better

low tangle Feb 5, 2020, 6:01 PM

#

Yeah

vagrant surge Feb 5, 2020, 6:01 PM

#

specially if they generally work on different sets of components

#

if you have 5 systems that run stuff on components A,B,C, then its pointless to have 5 systems. Merge them into 1

low tangle Feb 5, 2020, 6:01 PM

#

I've got a few job chunks for something that needed t tryhard performance

#

I disagree

vagrant surge Feb 5, 2020, 6:01 PM

#

but if system 1 is A,B, system 2 is B-D, and system 3 is A-C, then of course separate them

low tangle Feb 5, 2020, 6:02 PM

#

Oh wait

#

No I agree

vagrant surge Feb 5, 2020, 6:02 PM

#

it depends on how many of the components overlap

low tangle Feb 5, 2020, 6:02 PM

#

Yeah

#

You want to make sure your shit had minimal overlap

zenith wyvern Feb 5, 2020, 6:02 PM

#

Even if the systems were doing completely different things you would merge them so long as they were processing the same component types?

low tangle Feb 5, 2020, 6:02 PM

#

Think thin archetypes so you get Max count per chunk

vagrant surge Feb 5, 2020, 6:03 PM

#

@zenith wyvern keep in mind you can just put your logic as a function

low tangle Feb 5, 2020, 6:03 PM

#

5 actions on the same archetype

vagrant surge Feb 5, 2020, 6:03 PM

#

and then your system is just something like ```
for-each(A, B , C){
stuff1(A,B)
stuff2(B,C)
stuff3(A,B,C)
}

coarse turtle Feb 5, 2020, 6:04 PM

#

o wow hadn't heard of flecs till you both mentioned it - thanks for that lol 🙂

low tangle Feb 5, 2020, 6:04 PM

#

Np

vagrant surge Feb 5, 2020, 6:04 PM

#

flecs is a bit on the over-engineered part, but its extremelly solid

low tangle Feb 5, 2020, 6:04 PM

#

Yeah

vagrant surge Feb 5, 2020, 6:04 PM

#

the guy also added a cpp api

zenith wyvern Feb 5, 2020, 6:04 PM

#

I suppose so, I realize I may be getting a little too caught up in SRP lately

vagrant surge Feb 5, 2020, 6:04 PM

#

which is easier to use

low tangle Feb 5, 2020, 6:04 PM

#

It was fun to bolt together a little game with it

vagrant surge Feb 5, 2020, 6:05 PM

#

on rust, you have Legion

#

which is like my own Decs, or unity ecs

low tangle Feb 5, 2020, 6:05 PM

#

I really want to attempt to make one in dlang at some point

vagrant surge Feb 5, 2020, 6:05 PM

#

also seems to be super solid

coarse turtle Feb 5, 2020, 6:05 PM

#

yes - that's the one i used legion 🙂

vagrant surge Feb 5, 2020, 6:05 PM

#

i used Specs from rust

#

its nifty with the way it auto-parallelizes your systems

low tangle Feb 5, 2020, 6:06 PM

#

Yeah

#

That's the hip thing to do with ecs

#

Did you update the repo for yours? @vagrant surge

vagrant surge Feb 5, 2020, 6:07 PM

#

yeah you can see the newer one

opaque ledge Feb 5, 2020, 6:07 PM

#

i should wrap to native array if i want to send Component Data or Buffer to a job right ?

vagrant surge Feb 5, 2020, 6:07 PM

#

the code of the new one is much more simple

low tangle Feb 5, 2020, 6:07 PM

#

Chunk management and archetype scanning is what I need to figure out so I can start learning how to make mine

#

Awesome

#

Thank you

vagrant surge Feb 5, 2020, 6:08 PM

#

it has the downside that adding/removing components while iterating is not supported, and its feature set is fairly basic (no chunk-level comps or similar stuff)

#

https://github.com/vblanco20-1/decs/blob/master/src/decs.h

GitHub

vblanco20-1/decs

High performance Entity/Component/System library. Contribute to vblanco20-1/decs development by creating an account on GitHub.

low tangle Feb 5, 2020, 6:08 PM

#

That's fine

vagrant surge Feb 5, 2020, 6:08 PM

#

the coolest part is the fact that this actually works:

zenith wyvern Feb 5, 2020, 6:08 PM

#

Man you guys are doing all these games in different languages and frameworks, what a wild bunch

low tangle Feb 5, 2020, 6:08 PM

#

I prefer delayed structure changes like unity's anyways

coarse turtle Feb 5, 2020, 6:09 PM

#

haha - i've been wanting to make my own personal toy engine

vagrant surge Feb 5, 2020, 6:09 PM

#


    world.registry_decs.for_each([&](EntityID entity, PositionComponent& campos, CameraComponent& cam) {
        XMVECTOR eyePosition = XMVectorSet(campos.Position.x, campos.Position.y, campos.Position.z, 1);; 
        XMVECTOR focusPoint = cam.focusPoint;
        XMVECTOR upDirection = XMVectorSet(0, 1, 0, 0);

        Globals->g_ViewMatrix = XMMatrixLookAtLH(eyePosition, focusPoint, upDirection);
        Globals->g_d3dDeviceContext->UpdateSubresource(Globals->g_d3dConstantBuffers[CB_Frame], 0, nullptr, &Globals->g_ViewMatrix, 0, 0);
    });

#

fully automatic for-each

#

has the option to also run parallelized

#

@low tangle i dont like it. Adding/removing components while iterating is a very common usage, specially in gameplay code

low tangle Feb 5, 2020, 6:10 PM

#

That's fantastic

vagrant surge Feb 5, 2020, 6:10 PM

#

of course, im talking about add/remove on the current entity you are iterating

low tangle Feb 5, 2020, 6:10 PM

#

Oh

#

That's kind of different

vagrant surge Feb 5, 2020, 6:10 PM

#

stuff like ```
if(health < 0){ add_component<DEAD>()}

#

crazy common

low tangle Feb 5, 2020, 6:11 PM

#

I mean basicly interrupting a hot loop

#

Yeah

#

I do it a lot too

vagrant surge Feb 5, 2020, 6:11 PM

#

making that work on an archetype ecs is hard

#

very hard

low tangle Feb 5, 2020, 6:11 PM

#

It just bothers me because performance

vagrant surge Feb 5, 2020, 6:11 PM

#

i think unity cant do it

#

@low tangle its faster than delaying the change for later

#

no memory to hold the change command

low tangle Feb 5, 2020, 6:11 PM

#

Yeah

lusty otter Feb 5, 2020, 6:12 PM

#

Sorry for cutting in the conversation, for 2D projects I'm seeing some rather than using RenderMesh, instead they write their own rendering system with Graphics.DrawMeshInstancedIndirect or similar methods.
Is there a reason for doing so?

vagrant surge Feb 5, 2020, 6:12 PM

#

in older version of decs, adding/removing while iterating did work, but it was a bit buggy. It was significantly faster

low tangle Feb 5, 2020, 6:12 PM

#

Assuming there isn't something else contenting with that chunk/entity

zenith wyvern Feb 5, 2020, 6:12 PM

#

@lusty otter RenderMesh is horribly slow in almost all use cases right now.

coarse turtle Feb 5, 2020, 6:12 PM

#

@lusty otter I do the same - for me it's due to using my own srp

zenith wyvern Feb 5, 2020, 6:12 PM

#

There are improvements coming though.

vagrant surge Feb 5, 2020, 6:12 PM

#

@lusty otter RenderMesh is a hack

#

it only works for megacity

lusty otter Feb 5, 2020, 6:13 PM

#

Ahh..

low tangle Feb 5, 2020, 6:13 PM

#

Can't do work on a job if your wanting to work on the latest version of that chunks data. Which means you can't modify the contents

zenith wyvern Feb 5, 2020, 6:13 PM

#

Imo if you're starting now there's a good case for using RenderMesh. Unity has been saying that massive performance improvements should be incoming within a month or two

low tangle Feb 5, 2020, 6:13 PM

#

So only one access at that time if you do structure changes

vagrant surge Feb 5, 2020, 6:14 PM

#

@low tangle btw, Flecs CAN add/remove while iterating, while parallel

coarse turtle Feb 5, 2020, 6:14 PM

#

oo good to know @zenith wyvern - now i wonder if they have a 2d pipeline that 👀

low tangle Feb 5, 2020, 6:14 PM

#

I'd be wary about those @zenith wyvern

vagrant surge Feb 5, 2020, 6:14 PM

#

absolute madlad

zenith wyvern Feb 5, 2020, 6:14 PM

#

Only do it if you're a hobbyist though

low tangle Feb 5, 2020, 6:14 PM

#

Yeah it's mental

#

Stages I think

zenith wyvern Feb 5, 2020, 6:14 PM

#

As usual don't depend on Unity's release timing if you're a professional

vagrant surge Feb 5, 2020, 6:14 PM

#

he does it by creating a clone of the entity in a new chunk, and then at the end of the update, those newly created staging chunks get added to the main sim

low tangle Feb 5, 2020, 6:15 PM

#

Yeah

vagrant surge Feb 5, 2020, 6:15 PM

#

done in parallel by having multiple of those staging areas, one per thread

low tangle Feb 5, 2020, 6:15 PM

#

There thread local too from what I understand

#

Lol

zenith wyvern Feb 5, 2020, 6:15 PM

#

@low tangle Jaochim sounded pretty confident, he did literally say "massive perf improvements". As usual we can always be skeptical of their hype but it sounds promising at least

low tangle Feb 5, 2020, 6:15 PM

#

No I mean the timeline part

zenith wyvern Feb 5, 2020, 6:16 PM

#

Oh, hahah. Fair

vagrant surge Feb 5, 2020, 6:16 PM

#

still better than godot where they dont even batch 2d sprites

low tangle Feb 5, 2020, 6:16 PM

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I'm sure it will be fast

lusty otter Feb 5, 2020, 6:16 PM

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I guess I'll do the same and write my own rendering as well.

low tangle Feb 5, 2020, 6:16 PM

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Oh God what the fuck

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@vagrant surge

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They really don't?

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Or is it just hard?

vagrant surge Feb 5, 2020, 6:17 PM

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they dont

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and they dont want to do it

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they say its just unnecesary

low tangle Feb 5, 2020, 6:17 PM

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Boggles the mind

dull copper Feb 5, 2020, 6:18 PM

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posted about new Unity code formatting tool here: https://discordapp.com/channels/489222168727519232/497872424281440267/674679661145358362
wonder if dots needs additional considerations for that

zenith wyvern Feb 5, 2020, 6:19 PM

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m_Variable names for all

low tangle Feb 5, 2020, 6:19 PM

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Eww

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Style guides like we're a cpp shop from the 90s

coarse turtle Feb 5, 2020, 6:19 PM

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ah interesting - some more static analysis tools

low tangle Feb 5, 2020, 6:19 PM

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Maybe

safe lintel Feb 5, 2020, 6:24 PM

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@dull copper neat, lets see what it does to my project

dull copper Feb 5, 2020, 6:24 PM

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In the future this package will also configure compilers to emit warnings about code that violates our code conventions

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well, you could always just...not to install that package

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unless they put it as dependency

coarse turtle Feb 5, 2020, 6:25 PM

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i wonder if we can turn that off 👀

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or if you just do like #pragma warning disable some_code_#

safe lintel Feb 5, 2020, 6:26 PM

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For more infor refer to https://github.com/Unity-Technologies/com.unity.coding
heh 404 why am I surprised about this

lusty otter Feb 5, 2020, 6:31 PM

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I'm planning a user scriptable (and highly customizable with user textures and what not) 2D game targeting mobile platforms. Due to that nature ECS is the only solution that can be performant enough to run on low end devices.
I have never touched Unity before (though with an okay amount of experience in programming) and I won't be able to get started until a few more weeks due to other projects, so for now I'm just reading documentations and watching tutorials to get prepared.
For now though I really do feel like jumping straight into ECS, so much of the stuffs in tutorials and what not are completely irrelevant. I would appreciate some general pointers and advice, thanks!

coarse turtle Feb 5, 2020, 6:32 PM

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Hmm - I'd play around with it ecs and a bit of Unity to get the feel of things

vagrant surge Feb 5, 2020, 6:32 PM

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maybe tinkering with the current Tiny could be a good way to get started

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after all it has a working renderer

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and a very good demo on the tiny racer thing

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thats probably the best current ecs example unity has

coarse turtle Feb 5, 2020, 6:33 PM

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yea

zenith wyvern Feb 5, 2020, 6:33 PM

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I probably wouldn't use tiny if I was a professional personally

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It's way too rough right now and they still haven't released a proper timeline

vagrant surge Feb 5, 2020, 6:33 PM

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too bad unity is handling tiny horribly badly

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restarting it 3 times

coarse turtle Feb 5, 2020, 6:33 PM

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for basic stuff - I'd say the entity component system samples on Github might be a good start too

vagrant surge Feb 5, 2020, 6:33 PM

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thats too basic

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doesnt show how to actually do a project

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the tiny racer demo does show it

coarse turtle Feb 5, 2020, 6:34 PM

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check out the pinned messages on the channel here for a list of starters

lusty otter Feb 5, 2020, 6:35 PM

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Okay

dull copper Feb 5, 2020, 6:36 PM

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that tiny racing will be super annoying to start with because it doesn't even render properly in the editor due to subpar hybrid support

vagrant surge Feb 5, 2020, 6:36 PM

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didnt they kinda fix that in the latest update?

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or is still broken af in the editor

dull copper Feb 5, 2020, 6:36 PM

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ah, I haven't tried on latest

vagrant surge Feb 5, 2020, 6:37 PM

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complete and utter embarrasment btw

coarse turtle Feb 5, 2020, 6:37 PM

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but yeah @lusty otter if you happen to have a decent way for 2d stuff i'd be happy to look into it 🙂 I'm currently still using the sprite renderer + animator cause the workflow is too nice to give up

dull copper Feb 5, 2020, 6:37 PM

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I do know there's some URP fixes on upcoming SRPs tho

vagrant surge Feb 5, 2020, 6:37 PM

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like seriously tho

dull copper Feb 5, 2020, 6:37 PM

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for hybrid that is

vagrant surge Feb 5, 2020, 6:37 PM

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releasing a demo that is hopelessly broken in-editor...

lusty otter Feb 5, 2020, 6:37 PM

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Gotcha

dull copper Feb 5, 2020, 6:37 PM

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I guess they did have it working on their end, just not on the version that was published

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the URP hybrid fixes that are coming up were done during the hackweek already

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so a long time ago

zenith wyvern Feb 5, 2020, 6:38 PM

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I'm not going to be too hard on Tiny, they responded well to user feedback. No one wanted their javascript only version, remaking it as a proper C# version that utilizes the normal editor seems like a good idea given their pivot away from working entities in the editor

dull copper Feb 5, 2020, 6:38 PM

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all in all, most of the dots samples we get are quite hacked to work

lusty otter Feb 5, 2020, 6:39 PM

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That's a bit worrying to hear.

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Honestly when I saw 2019.3 release note and DOTS was in there I thought it's matured to a good level already.

vagrant surge Feb 5, 2020, 6:39 PM

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lmao

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not by a long shot

opaque ledge Feb 5, 2020, 6:40 PM

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are IJobForEach parallel ?

vagrant surge Feb 5, 2020, 6:40 PM

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the stuff that is usable is to use DOTS tol speed up some stuff

zenith wyvern Feb 5, 2020, 6:40 PM

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Yeeaah...unfortunately they are being kinda misleading with their marketing imo

mint iron Feb 5, 2020, 6:40 PM

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i'd much rather they focus on URP than anything else; because can't use HDRP on mobile.

vagrant surge Feb 5, 2020, 6:40 PM

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but editor support and rendering/nonlogic support are atrociously bad

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if you want to tinker with ECS models, i still keep recomending Entitas

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at least its not a disaster in-editor

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even if its much slower

lusty otter Feb 5, 2020, 6:40 PM

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Oh can we use URP with ECS too?

zenith wyvern Feb 5, 2020, 6:41 PM

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You can but people have had a lot of issues with the hybrid renderer in particular

dull copper Feb 5, 2020, 6:41 PM

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@lusty otter expect Entities pacakge to be released this year... anything other.. not, this includes hybrid, audio, rendering, anything DOTS related

zenith wyvern Feb 5, 2020, 6:41 PM

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If you use a custom rendering solution it's fine

mint iron Feb 5, 2020, 6:41 PM

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you can.... but last time i tried it had many issues and gaping holes, no property block support, troublesome upgrades, lighting issues when building to device.

dull copper Feb 5, 2020, 6:41 PM

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whole DOTS framework is still years away from ready

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officially the target is 2022

lusty otter Feb 5, 2020, 6:41 PM

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😰

dull copper Feb 5, 2020, 6:41 PM

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but it's not going to happen for all systems (just my opinion based on how things have evolved)

stable fog Feb 5, 2020, 6:42 PM

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man, thats such a long time line

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I wonder how the GameCraft fellas feel about that

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that game is being developed on the bleeding edge

warped trail Feb 5, 2020, 6:43 PM

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i think Tiny is not using engine at all in builds, thats why it is broken in editor🤔

coarse turtle Feb 5, 2020, 6:43 PM

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hmm aren't they using Svelto.ECS? I haven't been following their updates lately

dull copper Feb 5, 2020, 6:43 PM

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of course things can evolve a lot faster now that Unity has put more resources on whole dots thing

lusty otter Feb 5, 2020, 6:43 PM

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Well I guess for my simple game the current DOTS stuffs are enough but man

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They really got me with that marketing LOL

dull copper Feb 5, 2020, 6:43 PM

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so who knows, maybe they do get it done by 2022

zenith wyvern Feb 5, 2020, 6:43 PM

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There are some people who are utilizing dots to make really great looking full fledged games. Look at Ezienhorn's game on the forums for example. Definitely the minority though.

stable fog Feb 5, 2020, 6:43 PM

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You can do a lot with what is already there, you're just still limited by other systems

dull copper Feb 5, 2020, 6:44 PM

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people using current DOTS in production are more like exceptions right now

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there's like 5 commercial products using it

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also many of them don't use most of the DOTS packages, just entities

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or entities + hybrid but even that's iffy

vagrant surge Feb 5, 2020, 6:45 PM

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@coarse turtle they do use svelto ecs

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but i think they integrated it with some of DOTS stuff, like jobs or burst

stable fog Feb 5, 2020, 6:45 PM

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Gamecraft is using ECS, Jobs and the new Havoc Physics package

coarse turtle Feb 5, 2020, 6:45 PM

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ah

vagrant surge Feb 5, 2020, 6:45 PM

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nah its not really using the ecs itself, they have their own. Unless you know more 🤔

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i just follow the guy on twitter

dull copper Feb 5, 2020, 6:46 PM

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@stable fog I thought they used Unity Physics

stable fog Feb 5, 2020, 6:46 PM

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They did

dull copper Feb 5, 2020, 6:46 PM

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did they swap it to havok?

stable fog Feb 5, 2020, 6:46 PM

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They migrated in december

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Mentioned that it was a pretty easy transition

coarse turtle Feb 5, 2020, 6:46 PM

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same - I remember seeing a few tweets abt URP support being lackluster w/ PP - also I'm pretty sure the guy is also on this discord? 🤔

dull copper Feb 5, 2020, 6:46 PM

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well, I mean if they move from DOTS physics package to another, it's not going to break many things

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ultimately it's a dropdown option

stable fog Feb 5, 2020, 6:47 PM

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I think they said they had to tweak some values

dull copper Feb 5, 2020, 6:47 PM

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yeah I was just typing that they probably need to tweak all hacked stuff too

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as there's always small finetuning on things to not glitch

stable fog Feb 5, 2020, 6:58 PM

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So wait, Gamecraft doesn't use Unity ECS?

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just this custom ECS?

vagrant surge Feb 5, 2020, 7:03 PM

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@stable fog pretty sure

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tho they do kind of interface beetween the 2 ecs

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http://www.sebaslab.com/svelto-tasks-million-points-multiple-cpu-cores-threads-unity-jobs-system/

Seba's Lab

Learning Svelto Tasks by example: The million points on multiple C...

Transform 1 million points at 30+ fps on multiple CPU cores with multi-threading c#, unity and svelto.tasks

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he doesnt need unity ecs

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his own is pretty fast

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However I can confirm that, once compiled, Unity Jobs runs at the same speed of Svelto.Tasks with very similar results.

stable fog Feb 5, 2020, 7:18 PM

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thats good to know

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so Unity is on the right path, its a matter of time

vagrant surge Feb 5, 2020, 7:18 PM

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you know whats funny?

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watching this robocraft guy, which is a small team, have way more productivity and a much more stable ECS stuff compared to unity themselves

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and stuff like Entitas having decent editor support, and ECS being unable to

stable fog Feb 5, 2020, 7:19 PM

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wait is Svelto developed by the guys at Freejam?

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so it is!

opaque ledge Feb 5, 2020, 7:24 PM

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http://prntscr.com/qy2z4w

Lightshot

Screenshot

Captured with Lightshot

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i am getting this when i am instantiating from command buffer

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is this normal ? or am making some mistake somewhere

autumn sleet Feb 5, 2020, 7:29 PM

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@vagrant surge agreed, I moved to Entitas because of rich features and Editor support

vagrant surge Feb 5, 2020, 7:38 PM

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📎 unknown.png

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from the entitas github

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at least the left part is getting work

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but generally being able to easily add/remove components even on hybrid mode from stuff

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that view actually works at runtime

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you can see the components on stuff while the game is live quite easily