#archived-dots | Official Unity Discord | Page 196

scarlet inlet Jan 25, 2021, 2:49 PM

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is it something like this supposed to work:

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            {
                ECB.RemoveComponent<UpdateUECSEntityAfterSubmission>(id);
            }).WithStoreEntityQueryInField( ref _entityQuery).ScheduleParallel();```

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or any variance of this

pliant pike Jan 25, 2021, 2:53 PM

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I have a question is it normal for something to be inordinately quicker singlethreaded than multithreaded or could I be doing something wrong?

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I have a job calculated on 1million entity's takes roughly 315ms across all 14 cores or takes 230ms on 1 the main core

karmic basin Jan 25, 2021, 2:55 PM

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There's a slight overhead of schedulling in multithread. So yeah if it's a single job or on a few entities it might be faster to .Run() right away

pliant pike Jan 25, 2021, 2:55 PM

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yeah I know there a slight overhead but my job is way over a small overhead

karmic basin Jan 25, 2021, 2:56 PM

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yeah I see that haha

scarlet inlet Jan 25, 2021, 2:56 PM

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yep webgl works and frankly it's amazing that it does

📎 unknown.png

pliant pike Jan 25, 2021, 3:01 PM

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how can you be sure a job is using Burst does it show in the profiler, isn't burst automatic now?

deft stump Jan 25, 2021, 3:03 PM

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burst is automatic

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unless specified with WithoutBurst() in Entities.ForEach

pliant pike Jan 25, 2021, 3:04 PM

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ok cool, thanks, that's what I'v been doing, using withoutburst to get things working, then schedule(), and run() and scheduleparralell() for the end result

scarlet inlet Jan 25, 2021, 3:05 PM

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is there a way to know if entities with a specific component exist?

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this is last today question I think 🙂

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😭

pliant pike Jan 25, 2021, 3:08 PM

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I think you can use an Entityquery or HasSingelton if there is only one

scarlet inlet Jan 25, 2021, 3:08 PM

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_entityQuery.IsEmpty apparently not super straightforward operation

pliant pike Jan 25, 2021, 3:10 PM

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I mean that's kind of the whole thing of entityquerys and jobs no need to check if there isn't an entity because they won't do something unless there is

karmic basin Jan 25, 2021, 3:11 PM

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RequireForUpdate if it's to prevent a system from executing if comp is not found

ivory wagon Jan 25, 2021, 3:11 PM

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Someone using 2D Entities? I'm getting erros when importing

zenith wyvern Jan 25, 2021, 3:18 PM

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scarlet inlet yep webgl works and frankly it's amazing that it does

Have you actually gotten past the point of just rendering in webgl with dots? I was able to render stuff but it started breaking in weird ways as my project developed

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Stuff just started silently failing and I would get indecipherable exceptions constantly

scarlet inlet Jan 25, 2021, 3:19 PM

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@zenith wyvern that is this demo: https://twitter.com/sebify/status/1353689203184459778

Sebastiano Mandalà (@sebify)

Moved to entity command buffer plus new hybrid renderer increased performance noticeably especially on entity creation. I had to record with phone because the gpu couldn't cope with it. https://t.co/VvwFcILnsn

▶ Play video

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ofc what you see in that tweet is not webgl, wasm is not so powerful

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but it's the same with a crappy frame rate

zenith wyvern Jan 25, 2021, 3:21 PM

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Good to know, I'll have to revisit it then, thats exciting

pliant pike Jan 25, 2021, 3:21 PM

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does the entitycommandbuffer actually work well to create entity's now?

scarlet inlet Jan 25, 2021, 3:21 PM

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however IL2CPP is bugged! at least on this demo it breaks

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I just finished to profile it, while it works, it's still slower than I thought

zenith wyvern Jan 25, 2021, 3:22 PM

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Oh so you had to disable il2cpp on the build configuration? Maybe that was my problem

scarlet inlet Jan 25, 2021, 3:22 PM

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no I mean, some parts break

pliant pike Jan 25, 2021, 3:22 PM

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when I tested before it was about the same with just a raw for loop to create as it was to use an ecb job

scarlet inlet Jan 25, 2021, 3:22 PM

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I can't spawn more than the first batch of balls

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but it breaks also on windows, it's a bug with IL2CPP I Should report it

scarlet inlet Jan 25, 2021, 3:50 PM

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ok now I am seriously impressed

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https://www.dropbox.com/s/9qxxx2af995v990/2021-01-25 15-43-34.mp4?dl=0

Dropbox

2021-01-25 15-43-34.mp4

Shared with Dropbox

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this is opera GX webgl😱

warped coral Jan 25, 2021, 4:26 PM

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is it better to query empty dynamic buffers, or delete them when empty and readd when using again

north bay Jan 25, 2021, 4:32 PM

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To me it sounds a lot more complex to add/remove the buffers than iterating over the empty ones

warped coral Jan 25, 2021, 4:34 PM

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ok

warped coral Jan 25, 2021, 4:55 PM

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currently whats the proper way to convert scenes to entities? Like if I'm making a mud and I wanna make some room scenes

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am i able to make some kinda prefab that i can spawn at runtime?

fluid kiln Jan 25, 2021, 5:01 PM

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https://docs.unity3d.com/Packages/com.unity.entities@0.16/manual/conversion.html

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You'll probably want to look at subscene conversion

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So guys I thought my way to handle abilities was pretty solid but now I'm seeing a problem.
Say I have a string of systems as I like to call it that goes like this:

SystemA WithNone<Cancelled>
SystemB WithNone<Cancelled>
SystemC WithNone<Cancelled>
SystemD WithNone<Cancelled>
SystemE WithNone<Cancelled>
SystemF WithNone<Cancelled>

Any of these systems can add the component cancelled to the entity to "break" the chain. But now since this requires structural changes of adding the component cancelled, I need to use the entity command buffer and that means the component isn't added before the end of the frame. Is my understanding wrong or is there any way to make this scenario work?

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If I "break" at System C on an entity, I don't want system D, E and F to act on that entity.

warped coral Jan 25, 2021, 5:07 PM

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i think you'd have to have sync points immediately

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instead of adding/removing component, maybe you could use a bool? the adding/removing components.. i think that's good only if there are common sync points between them

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like if the systems occur in order on the same frame then uh... yeah idk.... if you wanna add/remove then i guess a sync point between each of the systems needs to be there but idk if you want that

fluid kiln Jan 25, 2021, 5:14 PM

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Probably gonna have to use a bool but I feel like it's dirty, to have access to query filters like WithNone but instead use if(component.bool == true) return;

warped coral Jan 25, 2021, 5:14 PM

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yeah i know.. i also dont like how we can't skip processing empty dynamic buffers. And uh... i really wanna be able to use a change filter but with dynamic buffers for stat modifiers and stuff and i can't figure it out cuz like.. the stat modifiers always need to be ticking down their durations, and then ideally it would stop processing when they're empty and then i would recalculate the stats but change filter on dynamic buffer that's always recalculating would always be dirty, unless i keep deleting/readding the dynamicbuffer, but then on delete the stats can't just do a changefilter<DynamicBuffer<StatModifier>> cuz it aint there so idk

fluid kiln Jan 25, 2021, 5:15 PM

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Haha yeah I get you

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Instead of having the stats modifiers ticking down, why don,t you have buff / debuff entities that have a duration and that are in charge of adding and removing the modifiers from the stats?

warped coral Jan 25, 2021, 5:19 PM

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i cant figure out how to do stats that only recalculate when dirty in an elegant manner. I'd have to manually mark each stat dirty in a system before i use every stat and that's just so complicated. with monobehaviours it was a simple property that just recalculated if dirty and then returned the value

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oh.. like status effect components in the old monobehaviour

fluid kiln Jan 25, 2021, 5:21 PM

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The way I see it buffs and debuffs should definitely have their own entities since they'll have names, icons, a list of modifiers, etc

warped coral Jan 25, 2021, 5:21 PM

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so.. every character would have a list of entity fields that reference each buff/debuff entity... and then uhh..

fluid kiln Jan 25, 2021, 5:22 PM

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You have event that on apply add the modifiers to the target of the debuff

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And another for when it ends, to remove the modifiers

warped coral Jan 25, 2021, 5:23 PM

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so... on character would just have a DynamicBuffer<StatusEffectRef> or something... and then uh... the statuseffect would be a component that also references the character entity... ok i think i get it

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what if i want stat modifiers that grow or decay over a duration?

fluid kiln Jan 25, 2021, 5:26 PM

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You could have different types of duration components, one like StandardDuration, other one DecayingDuration and they are treated by different systems

warped coral Jan 25, 2021, 5:27 PM

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so.. instead of adding the stat modifier... idk.. somehow when i retrieve a stat, it needs to calculate the correct value from the growth/decay statmodifiers applied to it

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unless i always calculate it every frame but that seems like a terrible idea... and yeah idk i'm always stuck on how to make an elegant system that recalculates only when needed

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i can't just use events with systems cuz they have a definite order to them and stuff... so.. idk

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idk how to do it argh i've been stuck on this and idk

fluid kiln Jan 25, 2021, 5:29 PM

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I'm also trying to figure out events and order atm with the problem I mentioned above

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Maybe someone has more insight :/

karmic basin Jan 25, 2021, 6:09 PM

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I need to use the entity command buffer and that means the component isn't added before the end of the frame. Is my understanding wrong
Not at the end of the frame. When the ECB you targeted will execute

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each systemGroup provides one, and you can add yours

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actaully 2, at beginning and end

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https://docs.unity3d.com/Packages/com.unity.entities@0.17/manual/system_update_order.html#default-system-groups

fluid kiln Jan 25, 2021, 6:10 PM

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Right, but we agree it wouldn't make sense to execute the entity command buffer every system?

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Well technically could I execute it only when I chose to add the cancel component?

karmic basin Jan 25, 2021, 6:11 PM

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Nah. Is it okay if you read all modifiers inputs and compute them on a final value. Then check the Cancelled component only when trying to cast your ability ?

fluid kiln Jan 25, 2021, 6:12 PM

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I guess I could do that. Just feels dumb to calculate if the target is in range if say, the ability is on cooldown, or vice-versa

karmic basin Jan 25, 2021, 6:12 PM

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something like that, depends on what yo have now of course

fluid kiln Jan 25, 2021, 6:12 PM

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But that might actually make more sense

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So I would do all the checks, then add "ReadyToCast" or something, and then in another group, actually cast it

karmic basin Jan 25, 2021, 6:13 PM

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can't you Query abilities WithNone<OnCooldown> ?

fluid kiln Jan 25, 2021, 6:13 PM

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Only if it has ReadyToCast, otherwise dump it

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Yeah but it was just an example as there will be multiple conditions

karmic basin Jan 25, 2021, 6:13 PM

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yeah readyToCast sounds good

fluid kiln Jan 25, 2021, 6:13 PM

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Thanks for making me think outside the box hehe, I appreciate it

karmic basin Jan 25, 2021, 6:14 PM

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👍 happy coding

fluid kiln Jan 25, 2021, 6:36 PM

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karmic basin each systemGroup provides one, and you can add yours

Does any component system group I create come with an entity command buffer or do I have to manually configure it? Also, do I always access it with World.GetExistingSystem<EntityCommandBufferSystem>() or is there a different way to get the buffer from within system groups?

dull copper Jan 25, 2021, 6:43 PM

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just found about this https://twitter.com/_kzr/status/1341302567884623872

Keijiro Takahashi (@_kzr)

From Burst 1.5, you can directly call Burst-compiled functions without manually handling function pointers. It's quite handy when using heavy math functions. https://t.co/XiF22xEcPc

vagrant surge Jan 25, 2021, 6:44 PM

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@dull copper been there for a while, its a great thing

dull copper Jan 25, 2021, 6:45 PM

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function pointers has been there for a while but it's a whole lot more complicated to author them

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this is just static class and function inside it

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I'm still wondering why they need that static class for it

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it's still adding a bit of boilerplate if you only need a single static function to get burst compiled

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but I can totally live with that

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just look at this https://github.com/keijiro/BurstDirectCallTest/blob/main/Assets/NoiseTexture.cs#L39

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for utility things like in that, it's really nice

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do note that Burst 1.5 isn't even released yet, it's still in preview

warped coral Jan 25, 2021, 6:48 PM

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the only way to assign into a dynamic buffer is to do a for loop right? foreach and enumerators dont allow assignment?

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and if i wanna remove stuff, i gotta do for(int i = buffer.Length-1; i >= 0; i--) right?

ocean tundra Jan 25, 2021, 6:53 PM

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you cant use foreach

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but you dont have to use loops with dynamic buffers

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i do buffer.Add and dont need a for loop

warped coral Jan 25, 2021, 6:54 PM

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i cant make different dynamic buffers that use the same struct on the same entity?

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like... if i want to categorize different stats and have a buffer for each one, although they all use the same Stat struct?

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so a Primary stat buffer, Secondary stat buffer, etc. all using the same Stat struct isn't possible?

ocean tundra Jan 25, 2021, 6:55 PM

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No you cant

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have to have different types

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if you try it it will replace the existing buffer

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or you can use different entities

warped coral Jan 25, 2021, 6:56 PM

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dang... that's kinda painful.. and generics with structs isn't useful either i guess.. so i can't use generics methods to do stuff

ocean tundra Jan 25, 2021, 6:56 PM

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eg you have a player entity and a player primary stats, secondary stats... ect all linked

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just dont use generics

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untill unity confirms they work its not worth it

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soooo painful

warped coral Jan 25, 2021, 6:57 PM

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ok

ocean tundra Jan 25, 2021, 6:57 PM

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thats why i use code gen

warped coral Jan 25, 2021, 6:57 PM

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idk what code gen is

ocean tundra Jan 25, 2021, 6:57 PM

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can easily make 100s of stats and their buffers ect

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all the systems are basicly the same, just with different types

warped coral Jan 25, 2021, 7:19 PM

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how do i name the entities in the entity debugger through code? or is that not possible?

fluid kiln Jan 25, 2021, 7:19 PM

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There's a set name emthod on the entity manager I believe

warped coral Jan 25, 2021, 7:20 PM

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oh ok thanks

ocean tundra Jan 25, 2021, 7:24 PM

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@warped coral make sure to wrap each use of it with #IF UNITY_EDITOR

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it only exists/works in the editor

warped coral Jan 25, 2021, 7:24 PM

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oh.. it's an editor only method? ok thanks for the heads up

fluid kiln Jan 25, 2021, 7:24 PM

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That's annoying haha

dull copper Jan 25, 2021, 7:25 PM

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you can also just use asmdefs and put editor only stuff in separate assembly

ocean tundra Jan 25, 2021, 7:25 PM

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Maybe make a extention method and use that instead, then the extention method can have the #IF Editor

dull copper Jan 25, 2021, 7:25 PM

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or use Editor -folder that's treated special for that

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altho I have no idea how this all works with DOTS

ocean tundra Jan 25, 2021, 7:26 PM

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na that method dosnt work like that

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editor folder stuff dosnt really help with dots

warped coral Jan 25, 2021, 7:27 PM

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is it a terrible idea to put a fixedstring32 on every stat so i can change around the stats in future game versions? or should i hardcode stats to an index within an enum and never change them?

ocean tundra Jan 25, 2021, 7:27 PM

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use a enum

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as that is actually a int under the hood

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and you can set the enum to any number

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but also if you r going to add a new stat, you would likly release a update containing code

fluid kiln Jan 25, 2021, 7:28 PM

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I just want to double check with everyone how they get their Entity Command buffer, is it always through the CreateCommandBuffer() from the EntityCOmmandBuffer system?

ocean tundra Jan 25, 2021, 7:28 PM

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@fluid kiln that sounds right, im away from my DOTS code atm. i think i use the EndSimulationBufferSystem

warped coral Jan 25, 2021, 7:29 PM

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yeah i mean idk... if i have 8 stats and access the buffer by the enum index... or... if i just put a name on all of them and then find them by name... i know using a name is slower and takes more memory. just dunno... if i wanna be able to modify stats and stuff in the future

ocean tundra Jan 25, 2021, 7:29 PM

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and you also need to add the dependancy

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usually, new stats = new game features

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that would require a full game update to be released

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a enum/number is a good choice as you can keep adding untill you max out the int

warped coral Jan 25, 2021, 7:30 PM

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then previous saves become incompatible usually? cuz idk.. hardcoding it seems like.. its gotta be set in stone then

ocean tundra Jan 25, 2021, 7:30 PM

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and its FAST

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strings not so much

fluid kiln Jan 25, 2021, 7:30 PM

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Stats should be linked to types or a serializable index

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Not a string

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Therefore your saves are always compatible

ocean tundra Jan 25, 2021, 7:30 PM

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not really, you just need to be carfull

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follow good update rules

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in API develppment when something is release just NEVER remove the old stuff

fluid kiln Jan 25, 2021, 7:31 PM

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The name of the stat would be a field that has no purpose other than to be displayed to the user

ocean tundra Jan 25, 2021, 7:31 PM

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so you can Add and Change stats

warped coral Jan 25, 2021, 7:31 PM

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so i can never just remove and replace older enum indexes

ocean tundra Jan 25, 2021, 7:32 PM

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but deleting them you dont, instead you might disable, but the code/types/ids are still reserved and used by the old stats

fluid kiln Jan 25, 2021, 7:32 PM

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Well you could as long as you save load takes that into account

warped coral Jan 25, 2021, 7:32 PM

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unless maybe i have a system for that? that manually does swaps or something if my enum structure changes?

ocean tundra Jan 25, 2021, 7:32 PM

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yea and eventually you could do a big patch that breaks saves

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or more likly your controlling the save/load process so you can fix/remove/cleaup that dead data on loads

warped coral Jan 25, 2021, 7:33 PM

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ehh.. i guess everything has a tradeoff...

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meh guess ill stick to hardcoded

ocean tundra Jan 25, 2021, 7:33 PM

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yup

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DOTS tradeoff is more code = faster 😛

warped coral Jan 25, 2021, 7:34 PM

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my player creation looks like this. is there any way to turn it into ecs in an elegant way? ```
async Task<Entity> NewPlayer(Session session, string characterName) {
session.Name = characterName;
string password = string.Empty;
session.WriteLine("Do you want to create a password?");
if (await session.ConfirmResponse()) {
session.WriteLine("Password?");
password = await session.ParseResponse();
}
Entity entity = EntityManager.CreateEntity();
EntityManager.AddComponent<Disabled>(entity);
EntityManager.AddComponentData(entity, new Player(characterName, password));
players.Add(characterName, new PlayerInfo(entity, password));
EntityManager.AddBuffer<CommandText>(entity);
EntityManager.AddBuffer<LogText>(entity);
CreateStats(entity);
AssignDefaultStats(entity);
session.WriteLine(string.Format("{0} created.", characterName));
return entity;
}

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im using the entitymanager a lot and that feels bad

fluid kiln Jan 25, 2021, 7:35 PM

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Why isn't your player a prefab?

ocean tundra Jan 25, 2021, 7:35 PM

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yea probably use the conversion flow

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and maybe subscenes

warped coral Jan 25, 2021, 7:36 PM

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im still new to ecs and have no idea how the conversion works

ocean tundra Jan 25, 2021, 7:36 PM

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https://docs.unity3d.com/Packages/com.unity.entities@0.16/manual/conversion.html

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basicly you just build/create with normal gameobjects and prefabs

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while in editor

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and then during build, boom converted

warped coral Jan 25, 2021, 7:38 PM

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it converts it into entities that are fully compatible with the serializeutility so i can save/load just fine?

ocean tundra Jan 25, 2021, 7:38 PM

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yea

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it convertes into subscenes

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which you then load/unload like normal scenes

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i havnt messed with serializeutility in ages, but it was a major pain before

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basicly it would save all your pure dots easy as, but if you had a mesh or any old gameobject stuff, it would just give you a gameobject with everything attached, which you then need to manually figure out how to save

warped coral Jan 25, 2021, 7:41 PM

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i've made a serialization system for uh.. just monobehaviours before.. to save and load gameobjects automatically... but i guess using ecs.. i wanna just never use any object references... i dont wanna deal with that stuff again

ocean tundra Jan 25, 2021, 7:42 PM

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yea but no choice for some things

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eg Meshs

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i do expect that API to get better

warped coral Jan 25, 2021, 7:43 PM

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hmm yeah... i'm currently making a mud so i dont need all that stuff.. but i do plan on adding graphics otherwise nobody will play it... and also without graphics using unity would be a waste so... yeah anyway at that time i'll probably use my serialization thingy to do it somehow

fluid kiln Jan 25, 2021, 7:43 PM

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Where can i find doc on how to create your own sync points?

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nvm lmao

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https://docs.unity3d.com/Packages/com.unity.entities@0.17/manual/sync_points.html

ocean tundra Jan 25, 2021, 7:44 PM

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why do you want to create one?

warped coral Jan 25, 2021, 7:44 PM

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unless maybe i make all the graphics not need saving... like just keep stuff in a resources folder and load them by keeping a name on every entity that needs it

ocean tundra Jan 25, 2021, 7:45 PM

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😛

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thats nasty but works

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i managed to get addressables to work, but it was akward

warped coral Jan 25, 2021, 7:45 PM

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is the conversion workflow hard to learn or use?

ocean tundra Jan 25, 2021, 7:46 PM

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easy

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and getting easier

warped coral Jan 25, 2021, 7:46 PM

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like if i just wanna make rooms and turn them into entities

ocean tundra Jan 25, 2021, 7:46 PM

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last time i couldnt even use subscenes

fluid kiln Jan 25, 2021, 7:46 PM

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Actually the doc doesn't answer my question

ocean tundra Jan 25, 2021, 7:46 PM

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tried just this week was super easy

warped coral Jan 25, 2021, 7:46 PM

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and i still dunno how i wanna place the new player into the newbie start room

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like i assume i'll make a bunch of room prefabs.. convert them when user makes a world.. but idk how i'll like.. find a specific room?

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to place new players in?

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idk i guess ill figure it out

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with monobehaviours it was easy.. cuz everything has coordinates. with rooms in a mud i have no clue

ocean tundra Jan 25, 2021, 7:50 PM

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you can still have cords

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just make a component and attach to your rooms

warped coral Jan 25, 2021, 7:50 PM

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hmm..

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so.. rooms will be entities... uhh.. i'd need something to contain all the room references? so i can loop through to find a room by its coordinates?

gusty comet Jan 25, 2021, 7:52 PM

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What is the point in .Schedule if it just blocks on the main thread till its completed?

warped coral Jan 25, 2021, 7:53 PM

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what if i wanna create or destroy rooms at runtime.. and make sure it's still able to save and load ... idk. i think in old school muds every room was in an array, and every exit was in an array... i guess i gotta use a dynamicbuffer of entityref for rooms too or something idk i gotta figure it all out but im confused atm

ocean tundra Jan 25, 2021, 7:53 PM

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@warped coral look at conversion more, you build your whole map in a normal scene, with gameobjects and components, you can setup spawn/start points, all your rooms and connections and then you get nice entities to work with

warped coral Jan 25, 2021, 7:54 PM

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ok

ocean tundra Jan 25, 2021, 7:54 PM

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@gusty comet schedule will only block in places without threads i think

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eg webassembly

gusty comet Jan 25, 2021, 7:55 PM

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What about jobhandle.complete then?

ocean tundra Jan 25, 2021, 7:55 PM

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yea that will force a block untill the jobs are done

gusty comet Jan 25, 2021, 7:55 PM

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doesn't that block thee main thread till the jobs finished if itsnot a parrallel job?

ocean tundra Jan 25, 2021, 7:55 PM

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you shouldnt .complete stuff

gusty comet Jan 25, 2021, 7:55 PM

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Don't you have to in some cases?

ocean tundra Jan 25, 2021, 7:56 PM

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maybe really weaird cases...

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i do everything i can to NEVER complete

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just not worth the block

gusty comet Jan 25, 2021, 8:03 PM

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Is there a way to get an entity from a component?

warped coral Jan 25, 2021, 8:05 PM

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yeah

karmic basin Jan 25, 2021, 8:07 PM

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fluid kiln Does any component system group I create come with an entity command buffer or d...

system groups are just a fancy name for your usual systems, but nested. And to create your ECB you just inherit EntityCommandBufferSystem and choose a name for your subclass :p then yes you retrieve it like usual

gusty comet Jan 25, 2021, 8:08 PM

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warped coral yeah

How?

warped coral Jan 25, 2021, 8:08 PM

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entitymanager

gusty comet Jan 25, 2021, 8:09 PM

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Whats the method name? There is no GetEntity method

warped coral Jan 25, 2021, 8:09 PM

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oh wait... maybe it was from system

fluid kiln Jan 25, 2021, 8:09 PM

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There's no link from the component to the eneitty

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Since it's just a struct

warped coral Jan 25, 2021, 8:10 PM

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oh i was thinking of singletons

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oh right i asked that same question before

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and found that you couldn't

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my memory is bad

gusty comet Jan 25, 2021, 8:16 PM

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Alright well I figured out a way to do what I need

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but i don't know if its safe.

warped coral Jan 25, 2021, 8:17 PM

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if the compiler doesn't throw an error then it's all good right

gusty comet Jan 25, 2021, 8:17 PM

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I am creating some entities in a job then later back on the main thread I am attaching a gameobject to the entities with AddComponentObject

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        EntityQuery m_Group = GetEntityQuery(typeof(SpawnPoint), typeof(Ped));
        var array = m_Group.ToComponentDataArray<SpawnPoint>(Allocator.Temp).Reinterpret<float3>();

        array.Sort(new DistanceComparer(position));
        m_Group.CopyFromComponentDataArray(array.Reinterpret<SpawnPoint>());
        var entities =  m_Group.ToEntityArray(Allocator.Temp);

        for (int i = 0; i < entities.Length; i++)
        {
            var go = GameObject.CreatePrimitive(PrimitiveType.Cube);
            EntityManager.AddComponentObject(entities[i], go);

#

and even if it is safe, this bit of code is probably going to be slow af.

#

EntityQuery m_Group = GetEntityQuery(typeof(SpawnPoint), typeof(Ped));
        var array = m_Group.ToComponentDataArray<SpawnPoint>(Allocator.Temp).Reinterpret<float3>();

        array.Sort(new DistanceComparer(position));
        m_Group.CopyFromComponentDataArray(array.Reinterpret<SpawnPoint>());

warped coral Jan 25, 2021, 8:19 PM

#

what are you trying to do

gusty comet Jan 25, 2021, 8:19 PM

#

I have a bunch of potential spawn point entities spawned I generate them every frame in a job based on cameras current position.

#

I am trying to order them by distance

#

so when I loop through them the closest spawn points will be used first

warped coral Jan 25, 2021, 8:21 PM

#

why do the spawn points need to be entities? you cant just use uh... vectors?

gusty comet Jan 25, 2021, 8:24 PM

#

There is way more data than just the point on them

warped coral Jan 25, 2021, 8:25 PM

#

oh ok

gusty comet Jan 25, 2021, 8:26 PM

#

I originally tried to

#

make all the data in a single struct then store them in a nativelist

#

but I was getting errors about accessing that array in a parralel job

warped coral Jan 25, 2021, 8:28 PM

#

did u copy the array to an array in localscope for you to use or were you trying to access it as a field on the system?

ocean tundra Jan 25, 2021, 8:28 PM

#

@fluid kiln Dont create new ecbs, instead use the built in ones

#

each ecb nees a sync point to playback

karmic basin Jan 25, 2021, 8:29 PM

#

He wanted more than the default ones 🤷‍♂️

ocean tundra Jan 25, 2021, 8:29 PM

#

oh

karmic basin Jan 25, 2021, 8:29 PM

#

But I agree, should avoid as much as possible

#

well each game is different

gusty comet Jan 25, 2021, 8:31 PM

#

@warped coral Yeah actually iirc the error was related to using the array on the main thread

#

the only way I could get it to run was to use a non parallel job and call complete first

#

so I decided to make them entities instead.

karmic basin Jan 25, 2021, 8:37 PM

#

@gusty comet why don't you just query entities with the SpawnPoint tag with a simple Foreach ?

gusty comet Jan 25, 2021, 8:38 PM

#

@karmic basin Because I want to loop through them in order from closest entity to furthest

karmic basin Jan 25, 2021, 8:41 PM

#

so you tried to have let's say a native list in the system's scope and sort spawns by distance ? Didn't work ?

gusty comet Jan 25, 2021, 8:42 PM

#

It did but when I got back to the main thread and tried to loop through the nativearray it caused errors

#

The only way I could get that to work was to schedule the job as non parralel and call complete on it (at this point I wasn't using a system just jobs)

ocean tundra Jan 25, 2021, 8:45 PM

#

why did you go back to the main thread? you should do it all within the job

#

var spawnpoints = .....

entities.foreach(something here){
var sorted = spawnpoints.sort
do stuff....

}

gusty comet Jan 25, 2021, 8:46 PM

#

Because I needed to call api code that isn't available in jobs yet rofl

#

        EntityQuery m_Group = GetEntityQuery(typeof(SpawnPoint), typeof(Ped));
        var array = m_Group.ToComponentDataArray<SpawnPoint>(Allocator.Temp).Reinterpret<float3>();

        array.Sort(new DistanceComparer(position));
        m_Group.CopyFromComponentDataArray(array.Reinterpret<SpawnPoint>());
        var entities =  m_Group.ToEntityArray(Allocator.Temp);

        for (int i = 0; i < entities.Length; i++)
        {
            var go = GameObject.CreatePrimitive(PrimitiveType.Cube);
            EntityManager.AddComponentObject(entities[i], go);

#

can't do that in a job

ocean tundra Jan 25, 2021, 8:48 PM

#

remove the Gameobject.Create and have a prefab entity?

#

then you can do ecb.Instante(prefab)

gusty comet Jan 25, 2021, 8:48 PM

#

Yes but according to the docs the gameobject mirrors the entity and I need it to do the opposite

karmic basin Jan 25, 2021, 8:48 PM

#

Why ? Because the DistanceComparer ? with dots mathematics it's an easy method call and you can Instantiate your prefab instead of a primitive cube

#

It's not meant to

ocean tundra Jan 25, 2021, 8:49 PM

#

yea mixing GO's and Entities is not great, Entities need to be the 'source of truth'

karmic basin Jan 25, 2021, 8:49 PM

#

The link is supposed to be one-way

fluid kiln Jan 25, 2021, 8:50 PM

#

karmic basin He wanted more than the default ones 🤷‍♂️

Unless I'm missing something I don't understand how 2-3 sync points is enough. Like I can imagine some big system chains. Let's say

Input that creates an event to cast an ability
Ability checks if the player meets conditions to cast
Ability is cast applying modifiers to the player
Something else that requires structural changes...
That means there'll always be a certain amount of frame delays...

ocean tundra Jan 25, 2021, 8:51 PM

#

number 1 dosnt need to create a entity, you could just set a value on a player entity component

gusty comet Jan 25, 2021, 8:51 PM

#

The gameobject I am creating will eventually be moved on a navmesh through navmesh agent and if the entity is constantly mirroring itself onto the gameobject , the gameobject will never move

ocean tundra Jan 25, 2021, 8:52 PM

#

@fluid kiln again 2 can set a value that it can cast

karmic basin Jan 25, 2021, 8:52 PM

#

hum I think that's exactly what you say that's gonna happen, your GO will constantly b set back to the ENtity's position...

ocean tundra Jan 25, 2021, 8:52 PM

#

3 would then create the entity, using a ecb

fluid kiln Jan 25, 2021, 8:52 PM

#

Yeah but then instead of having ForEach that are meaningful, they'll be filled with ifs... Isn't that anti-pattern? idk

gusty comet Jan 25, 2021, 8:52 PM

#

So I guess I have to use navmeshquery instead

karmic basin Jan 25, 2021, 8:52 PM

#

but you have no choice, at least that's how Companion GameObjects work

gusty comet Jan 25, 2021, 8:53 PM

#

was really hoping to just be able to hack my way around it

ocean tundra Jan 25, 2021, 8:53 PM

#

@gusty comet i belive there are job save pathfinding now, but still confusing to use

gusty comet Jan 25, 2021, 8:53 PM

#

its very primitive

#

you basically have to build the path node by node yourself in a system

ocean tundra Jan 25, 2021, 8:53 PM

#

yea

#

you could break it apart more, GO (not companion) that does ONLY nav mesh => read into your entity => your entity to its companion

gusty comet Jan 25, 2021, 8:54 PM

#

thats what I am trying to do now

ocean tundra Jan 25, 2021, 8:54 PM

#

that inital GO/pathfinding bits, can all be seprate systems and components

karmic basin Jan 25, 2021, 8:54 PM

#

@gusty comet it should be clearly stated in this page that the conversion link is one-way https://docs.unity3d.com/Packages/com.unity.entities@0.17/manual/conversion.html

gusty comet Jan 25, 2021, 8:55 PM

#

Yes from Entity>GameObject

#

so I tried to get around this by making some hacky code that "works" but what I am wondering is

#

is this safe

#

EntityQuery m_Group = GetEntityQuery(typeof(SpawnPoint), typeof(Ped));
        var array = m_Group.ToComponentDataArray<SpawnPoint>(Allocator.Temp).Reinterpret<float3>();

        array.Sort(new DistanceComparer(position));
 m_Group.CopyFromComponentDataArray(array.Reinterpret<SpawnPoint>());
        var entities =  m_Group.ToEntityArray(Allocator.Temp);

        for (int i = 0; i < entities.Length; i++)
        {
            var go = GameObject.CreatePrimitive(PrimitiveType.Cube);
            EntityManager.AddComponentObject(entities[i], go);

ocean tundra Jan 25, 2021, 8:56 PM

#

so you have a PathfindingRequest component you add, that triggers your system to either link/create a pathfinding GO, use a SystemState Component to store that link, another system that loops on thatSystemSate component to read (there is some sort of job save read Transform API somewhere)

karmic basin Jan 25, 2021, 8:56 PM

#

oh so you're already trying an alternative, I see. Then you've think about it more than me

ocean tundra Jan 25, 2021, 8:57 PM

#

basicly try to have your main entity as pure ecs as you can, then for inividual old gameobjects you build a system to create/grab them from a pool, use them untill done, and release back to the pool, never directly attaching them to your 'pure' entity

warped coral Jan 25, 2021, 8:57 PM

#

do authoring monobehaviours also need to be in their own file

gusty comet Jan 25, 2021, 8:58 PM

#

yes

ocean tundra Jan 25, 2021, 8:58 PM

#

@warped coral Normal monobehaviour rules so i guess yes

warped coral Jan 25, 2021, 8:58 PM

#

oh ok

ocean tundra Jan 25, 2021, 9:05 PM

#

@warped coral Also you know about [GenerateAuthoringComponent]?

warped coral Jan 25, 2021, 9:06 PM

#

no... im reading the conversion stuff in the manual and im confused

ocean tundra Jan 25, 2021, 9:06 PM

#

put that on yore components

#

and unity will generate a authoring monobehavor for u

warped coral Jan 25, 2021, 9:07 PM

#

authoring component... and then.. a conversion system.. and uhhh.. something about setting up the thingies so they create entities.. before i actually convert over the data or something

karmic basin Jan 25, 2021, 9:07 PM

#

@warped coral maybe focus on making your ability system work before adding more confusion 🙃

gusty comet Jan 25, 2021, 9:07 PM

#

Yea not gonna lie the entire gameobject conversion process could be documented better

karmic basin Jan 25, 2021, 9:08 PM

#

Or maybe that will ventilate your mind :p

warped coral Jan 25, 2021, 9:08 PM

#

idk i wanna figure out the conversion stuff so i can make rooms and then figure out how to create new players in a specific room

gusty comet Jan 25, 2021, 9:08 PM

#

why not just give every player their own world?

warped coral Jan 25, 2021, 9:09 PM

#

i wanna be able to make predefined rooms... I could go with procedural but i'd like to be able to manually make stuff first

karmic basin Jan 25, 2021, 9:09 PM

#

gusty comet Yea not gonna lie the entire gameobject conversion process could be documented b...

I find it more clear now. Had to read blogs and check how Unity does it for Transform to figure it out. But yeah I'm sure I'm still not 100% on some parts ^^

gusty comet Jan 25, 2021, 9:10 PM

#

I also wish it would let us define if the gameobject or entity is in charge when using companions xd

karmic basin Jan 25, 2021, 9:10 PM

#

Then the next day they publish the rlease with docs :p

warped coral Jan 25, 2021, 9:11 PM

#

IConvertGameObjectToEntity is getting uhh deprecated right.. so i skip over that part in the manual?

ocean tundra Jan 25, 2021, 9:12 PM

#

@warped coral whoa what? it is?

karmic basin Jan 25, 2021, 9:12 PM

#

Nope

#

it allows you to plug more during the conversion

#

And that's where yo ucan add for example Hybrid COmponents that don't exist yet in ECS

#

I mean in dots

#

like Particle System

warped coral Jan 25, 2021, 9:13 PM

#

oh i probably mistook it for something else

gusty comet Jan 25, 2021, 9:13 PM

#

I wish we could add value types to entities

karmic basin Jan 25, 2021, 9:13 PM

#

Probs the ConvertTotEntity Mono component. Now yo should use subscenes instead

gusty comet Jan 25, 2021, 9:13 PM

#

I have so many components that just have float3 and int in them

ocean tundra Jan 25, 2021, 9:14 PM

#

@gusty comet but then how would you tell 2 ints apart?

karmic basin Jan 25, 2021, 9:14 PM

#

gusty comet I have so many components that just have float3 and int in them

Nothing wrong here

gusty comet Jan 25, 2021, 9:14 PM

#

order added and order read

#

like in a bitstream

ocean tundra Jan 25, 2021, 9:15 PM

#

you can code a (implicit??) converter to reduce your code a bit

#

so you could do stuff like em.AddComponentData<type>(entity, new float3(x,y,z))

karmic basin Jan 25, 2021, 9:16 PM

#

Yeah like 1 authoring GO that converts to many components 👍

ocean tundra Jan 25, 2021, 9:16 PM

#

its a little bit better

#

yea or for the authoring flow, you can have 1 monobehaviour that adds many components

warped coral Jan 25, 2021, 9:16 PM

#

is it usually better to use authoring game objects instead of generating authoring components from ecs components? it's better cuz gameobjects get broken down into ecs right?

karmic basin Jan 25, 2021, 9:17 PM

#

ocean tundra yea or for the authoring flow, you can have 1 monobehaviour that adds many compo...

yeah that's what I mean, MB, not GO 🙂 🙂 🙂

#

my bad

#

@warped coral start with components and the [GenerateAuthoringComponent] directive

#

Even if it adds way more MBs

#

Don't overthink too much at the beginning 🙂

warped coral Jan 25, 2021, 9:19 PM

#

ok

karmic basin Jan 25, 2021, 9:19 PM

#

Otherwise you get stuck in your head and everything is confused

warped coral Jan 25, 2021, 9:23 PM

#

should i store the coordinates on each room.. or just keep some kinda massive hashmap with the coordinates as the key and the room entities as the values?

karmic basin Jan 25, 2021, 9:23 PM

#

(off topic: the getting started doc of Project Tiny is 94 pages long... help....)

fluid kiln Jan 25, 2021, 9:23 PM

#

fluid kiln Unless I'm missing something I don't understand how 2-3 sync points is enough. L...

I want to reiterate because what I'm realizing right now is kind of shaking my whole understanding of ECS and I'm kind of stumped.

So far I had figured out how to implement functionality using ECS. I would actually do a LOT of structural changes because in my head that allowed me to optimize my ForEach loops and control what entities they are called on.

I would also use a lot of event type components to do some work.

For example: When input of type "destination" (point to move) was detected, I would create an entity with a component "Destination Request" that contains the destination and an enum "Request Priority" that would be an enum with some values like [Input, Crow Control, Cinematic, Forced]. This request would then be picked up by a DestinationSystem that would override the value of the destination component only if the priority was higher. (Crowd control > Input). Now what I'm understanding, is because I create this destination request entity, there is a delay of 1 frame between the input and the actual movement.

This type of structural changes are everywhere in my code and I know it's caused by my flawed understanding of the framework. But I still can't wrap my head around doing otherwise. Without the DestinationSystem, EVERYWHERE in my code where I want to change the player's destination, whether it is from input or crowd control, I would have to REWRITE the code snippet: if (priority higher) set destination.

Using a lot of systems with a lot of triggers seemed very fluid to me on the conceptual level. This is more a rant than anything else so I don't expect much from you guys but maybe someone can help me "click" on how to design systems.

robust scaffold Jan 25, 2021, 9:24 PM

#

Does anyone know how to manually set the update order of ISystemBase? UpdateBefore/UpdateAfter only work with standard SystemBase.

karmic basin Jan 25, 2021, 9:24 PM

#

warped coral should i store the coordinates on each room.. or just keep some kinda massive ha...

That's a whole design question. you could use coords, a grid system, load scenes on the fly, ....

robust scaffold Jan 25, 2021, 9:24 PM

#

karmic basin (off topic: the getting started doc of Project Tiny is 94 pages long... help.......

At least Tiny has documentation and a getting started. Entities just chucks the user into the deep end with autogenerated documentation.

warped coral Jan 25, 2021, 9:25 PM

#

if i use a hashmap.. that's not good for looping is it?

karmic basin Jan 25, 2021, 9:25 PM

#

robust scaffold At least Tiny has documentation and a getting started. Entities just chucks the ...

Haha, true that 😁

robust scaffold Jan 25, 2021, 9:26 PM

#

warped coral if i use a hashmap.. that's not good for looping is it?

You cannnnn but what it does is converts the hashmap into an array using memcopy then uses the array's IEnumerable to iterate.

coarse turtle Jan 25, 2021, 9:26 PM

#

robust scaffold Does anyone know how to manually set the update order of ISystemBase? UpdateBefo...

Maybe try [UpdateInGroup((...), OrderLast = true/OrderFirst = true)]

#

I've only used ISystemBase once w/ UpdateInGroup

robust scaffold Jan 25, 2021, 9:27 PM

#

coarse turtle Maybe try `[UpdateInGroup((...), OrderLast = true/OrderFirst = true)]`

Yea but I need to chain systems one after the other. UpdateInGroup thankfully works. I'm running the main chunk of simulation inside FixedStep since I'm not using it for physics.

ocean tundra Jan 25, 2021, 9:27 PM

#

@fluid kiln yea i have that issue too, some ways ive seen to address it is tag components (unity said ages ago they will optmize these to have less cost on structural changes), unity also said component enabling is comming (when??? so you can have your destinationRequest compoent disabled untill you need it), sub enities, so you have smaller entities in a linked group as its smaller a structural change is less costly
and finally the enabled bool

coarse turtle Jan 25, 2021, 9:28 PM

#

There's still some primitive ordering with OrderFirst/OrderLast though it would still be subjected to how unity determines the order based on its read/write dependencies

fluid kiln Jan 25, 2021, 9:28 PM

#

ocean tundra <@!165566485157249024> yea i have that issue too, some ways ive seen to address...

Enabling or disabling components would be greaaaatt

ocean tundra Jan 25, 2021, 9:28 PM

#

no clue on what the satus of that feature is, i last heard about it like 6 months ago

karmic basin Jan 25, 2021, 9:28 PM

#

fluid kiln I want to reiterate because what I'm realizing right now is kind of shaking my w...

Your Destination Request component is okay. Again many ways to implement based on your game. And again, NOT next frame, if your input reading is before an ECB, you can then have a system acting on it after the ECB but on the same frame

hollow sorrel Jan 25, 2021, 9:29 PM

#

@fluid kiln
you could use streams as events to produce and consume same frame without sync points https://forum.unity.com/threads/event-system.779711/

robust scaffold Jan 25, 2021, 9:29 PM

#

I never liked using the ECB. Every time I tried, I get better performance just running a job with entityManager on the main thread.

ocean tundra Jan 25, 2021, 9:29 PM

#

i also code in expected frame delays for things, 1 or 2 frames at 60 or 120 isnt really noticable

#

in my head it also spreads some processing across frames

#

but not sure if its actually worth it 😛

#

but again i do networked stuff, so there is a network delay i often need to hide anyway

#

of like 200ms at worst

fluid kiln Jan 25, 2021, 9:31 PM

#

karmic basin Your Destination Request component is okay. Again many ways to implement based o...

How many sync points is too much? Because right now I'd like to create 2-3 of my own like "InputEntityCommandBufferSystem" and etc...

hollow sorrel Jan 25, 2021, 9:31 PM

#

yes, most of the time 1 frame delay does not matter
unity by default already has ~2 frames delay due to how the engine rendering works so if you don't notice now you prob won't notice +1 frame

karmic basin Jan 25, 2021, 9:32 PM

#

fluid kiln How many sync points is too much? Because right now I'd like to create 2-3 of my...

Nobody can tell exactly -> Profiler is your friend

warped coral Jan 25, 2021, 9:32 PM

#

the generated authoring component for my room component doesn't have string fields for the name or description

ocean tundra Jan 25, 2021, 9:32 PM

#

@warped coral strings prob arnt converted

fluid kiln Jan 25, 2021, 9:32 PM

#

Alright thanks guys I'll persevere ^^

fluid kiln Jan 25, 2021, 9:33 PM

#

hollow sorrel <@!165566485157249024> you could use streams as events to produce and consume s...

Looks interesting I'll give it a read!

warped coral Jan 25, 2021, 9:33 PM

#

so.. i gotta manually make a gameobject conversion thingies to do it?

karmic basin Jan 25, 2021, 9:33 PM

#

If that works dont overthink it @fluid kiln You'll come back later to refactor eventually, when you get a good grasp on the pattern

robust scaffold Jan 25, 2021, 9:33 PM

#

warped coral the generated authoring component for my room component doesn't have string fiel...

Strings are special in DOTS. You'll either need to use a byte array to represent your string or use one of the FixedString32 variants. I dont believe autogeneration supports either though.

fluid kiln Jan 25, 2021, 9:34 PM

#

warped coral so.. i gotta manually make a gameobject conversion thingies to do it?

The way I understand it is that strings aren't usually data you actually want on your entities

warped coral Jan 25, 2021, 9:34 PM

#

so... i gotta manually do what... uh.. start from gameobject and somehow convert to entity?

fluid kiln Jan 25, 2021, 9:34 PM

#

You could have a resource file that stores your strings and then an index on the entity that points to that string

warped coral Jan 25, 2021, 9:34 PM

#

what if i have lots of rooms with unique uh... descriptions

robust scaffold Jan 25, 2021, 9:34 PM

#

Yep. A component containing either an int for an index to a managed string[] array or a ComponentData containing a FixedString32 variant.

fluid kiln Jan 25, 2021, 9:35 PM

#

karmic basin If that works dont overthink it <@!165566485157249024> You'll come back later t...

Yeah I agree. For some reason I thought that a few frame delays was unacceptable as I was noticing it on screen, but maybe it's due to something else

warped coral Jan 25, 2021, 9:35 PM

#

oh

coarse turtle Jan 25, 2021, 9:35 PM

#

warped coral what if i have lots of rooms with unique uh... descriptions

@fluid kiln's approach still works, you pretty much access the unique description via ID

#

this is how my card flavor text works

#

in my own game

warped coral Jan 25, 2021, 9:36 PM

#

so every room then needs a unique id.. hmm

#

could i use the room's coordinates as its id instead? a float3 or something as the key

fluid kiln Jan 25, 2021, 9:36 PM

#

Not necessarily. Every room would have a DescriptionId that point to a file with this id

warped coral Jan 25, 2021, 9:36 PM

#

and store the strings in a hashmap

#

or is that much slower than using an array

ocean tundra Jan 25, 2021, 9:38 PM

#

you should use a blob asset instead for description

robust scaffold Jan 25, 2021, 9:38 PM

#

warped coral and store the strings in a hashmap

That works. Is there no way you can just use a int id? If you want to fall down the rabbit hole of over optimization, you can encode a unique ID into individual bits and use the resulting int to access a hashmap. But it's better to just assign each room a unique and sequential int index and use that.

ocean tundra Jan 25, 2021, 9:38 PM

#

its not like description data would change

#

and a blob asset can exist within a component

warped coral Jan 25, 2021, 9:39 PM

#

is saving and loading blob assets with serializeutility complicated?

robust scaffold Jan 25, 2021, 9:39 PM

#

The blob asset exists as a reference pointer. You're basically storing a UnsafeArray<byte> that's readonly.

ocean tundra Jan 25, 2021, 9:39 PM

#

@warped coral i think it would give you a list of blob assets, that you need to save and reconstruct on loading

robust scaffold Jan 25, 2021, 9:40 PM

#

And making a blob asset is so painful. The only benefit of using blob assets is that multidimensional arrays are accessed linearly in the memory instead of arrays of references that a UnsafeArray<UnsafeArray<>> would result in.

warped coral Jan 25, 2021, 9:40 PM

#

oh

ocean tundra Jan 25, 2021, 9:41 PM

#

I found blob assets pretty easy to create, just a bit wordy tho 😛

robust scaffold Jan 25, 2021, 9:41 PM

#

Yea, real shame the generic extension methods I had to make them got shafted with the new blob asset verification.

warped coral Jan 25, 2021, 9:41 PM

#

so... is a hashmap with coords to room ok or is it subpar compared to using an array

#

and what about having the coords turned into an array where like.. the x y z get converted to indexes

robust scaffold Jan 25, 2021, 9:42 PM

#

warped coral so... is a hashmap with coords to room ok or is it subpar compared to using an a...

Honestly, it's okay. Comparing the performance hit between a hashmap (Dictionary since you cant store strings inside a NativeHashMap) and array is negligable.

warped coral Jan 25, 2021, 9:42 PM

#

ok

#

im confusing myself still.. dunno how i should structure my room component

ocean tundra Jan 25, 2021, 9:46 PM

#

struct room {titleid, descriptionid, cords}

#

exits: dynamic buffer {entity}

gusty comet Jan 25, 2021, 9:46 PM

#

Getting a werid exception.

ArgumentException: A component with type:GameObject has not been added to the entity.

Happens for this line

var agent = EntityManager.GetComponentObject<GameObject>(entity);

But i am already adding it with this code

 EntityManager.AddComponentObject(entity, go);

#

Anyone know what causes this?

ocean tundra Jan 25, 2021, 9:47 PM

#

@gusty comet I imagine you cant use Gameobjects, instead needing to use components

#

but im not sure

gusty comet Jan 25, 2021, 9:47 PM

#

Ill try

robust scaffold Jan 25, 2021, 9:48 PM

#

gusty comet Getting a werid exception. ``` ArgumentException: A component with type:GameOb...

Is go of type GameObject that you manually made and implements IComponentData?

#

It cant be Unity's GameObject.

gusty comet Jan 25, 2021, 9:49 PM

#

Then whats different between this and AddComponent?

zenith wyvern Jan 25, 2021, 9:49 PM

#

One is for IComponent, one is for Monobehaviours

gusty comet Jan 25, 2021, 9:50 PM

#

Still getting the same error with NavMeshAgent which is a monobehavior

#

ArgumentException: A component with type:NavMeshAgent has not been added to the entity.

zenith wyvern Jan 25, 2021, 9:50 PM

#

It sounds like you're calling GetComponent before it's been added.

gusty comet Jan 25, 2021, 9:51 PM

#

Let me double check

warped coral Jan 25, 2021, 9:51 PM

#

does this look alright ```
//Room entity components.
[GenerateAuthoringComponent]
public struct Room : IComponentData
{
//public FixedString32 Name;
//public FixedString512 Description;
public int3 Coordinates;
}
//Exit entity components.
public struct Exit : IBufferElementData {
//public EDirection EDirection;
//public Entity Destination;
public int3 Destination;
public Entity Door;
}
//Door entity components.
public struct Door : IComponentData {
public bool isClosed;
}
public struct Lock : IBufferElementData {
public bool isLocked;
public float LockStrength;
public int Key;
}

robust scaffold Jan 25, 2021, 9:53 PM

#

warped coral does this look alright ``` //Room entity components. [GenerateAuthoringComponent...

GenerateAuthoringComponent only creates an entity with one component. You'll need a separate authoring system or monobehavior to connect the rest to that entity.

#

But yea, seems about right.

warped coral Jan 25, 2021, 9:57 PM

#

oh yeah i haven't split the stuff into their own files yet

gusty comet Jan 25, 2021, 9:57 PM

#

@zenith wyvern Nah its only being called after its been added

//in onupdate

        Entities.WithAll<Coord, Ped>().ForEach((Entity entity, int entityInQueryIndex, ref Coord point) =>
        {
            if (spawnedPeds == null)
                 spawnedPeds = new List<GameObject>();
            if (spawnedPeds.Count < 300)
            {

                var go = GameObject.CreatePrimitive(PrimitiveType.Cube);
                go.transform.position = point.position;
                var test = go.AddComponent<NavMeshAgent>();
                spawnedPeds.Add(go);


                EntityManager.AddComponentObject(entity, test);
            }
         }).WithoutBurst().WithStructuralChanges().Run();
        barrier.AddJobHandleForProducer(Dependency);

        Entities.WithAll<Ped, Coord>().ForEach((Entity entity, int entityInQueryIndex, ref Ped ped, ref Coord pos) =>
        {
            if (math.distance(pos.position, Camera.main.transform.position) >= 125)
            {

                var agent = EntityManager.GetComponentObject<NavMeshAgent>(entity);
                spawnedPeds.Remove(agent.gameObject);
                GameObject.Destroy(agent.gameObject);
                EntityManager.DestroyEntity(entity);
            }
        }).WithoutBurst().WithStructuralChanges().Run();
        barrier.AddJobHandleForProducer(Dependency);

ocean tundra Jan 25, 2021, 9:58 PM

#

@gusty comet Cant have Coord in WithAll and as a parameter in the Foreach ref...

#

just remove it from WithAll

gusty comet Jan 25, 2021, 9:58 PM

#

@ocean tundra in which foreach? both?

ocean tundra Jan 25, 2021, 9:58 PM

#

yea

robust scaffold Jan 25, 2021, 9:58 PM

#

gusty comet <@!155490373123178497> Nah its only being called after its been added ``` //in...

You dont really need the WithAll on the second Entities.ForEach. The lambda parameters already contain the references.

ocean tundra Jan 25, 2021, 9:58 PM

#

in the 2nd you have with all ped and cord, and you also ref those

gusty comet Jan 25, 2021, 9:59 PM

#

so take the withall out?

ocean tundra Jan 25, 2021, 9:59 PM

#

of the 2nd

#

and first reduce it to only ped

warped coral Jan 25, 2021, 10:12 PM

#

i cant generate authoring components for buffers?

#

if i store exits in a buffer how do i add them to rooms during authoring

ocean tundra Jan 25, 2021, 10:13 PM

#

if generateauthoingcompoent dosnt work you can write one yourself

#

but i did read that it works

warped coral Jan 25, 2021, 10:15 PM

#

it doesn't show up in the component list for adding components. this is what my exit bufferelement looks like ```
//Exit entity components.
[GenerateAuthoringComponent]
public struct Exit : IBufferElementData {
//public EDirection EDirection;
//public Entity Destination;
public int3 Destination;
public Entity Door;
}

robust scaffold Jan 25, 2021, 10:16 PM

#

I dont believe buffer components are supported by authoring.

ocean tundra Jan 25, 2021, 10:17 PM

#

maybe there only supported with a single field?

warped coral Jan 25, 2021, 10:17 PM

#

ok so... i gotta somehow uhh.. do the things to convert gameobject over?

ocean tundra Jan 25, 2021, 10:18 PM

#

https://docs.unity3d.com/Packages/com.unity.entities@0.16/manual/conversion.html#the-iconvertgameobjecttoentity-interface

gusty comet Jan 25, 2021, 10:41 PM

#

does return break out of a parrallel entities.foreach like it break would in a foreach loop?

#

or does it just return one iteration?

hollow sorrel Jan 25, 2021, 10:43 PM

#

1 iter

#

afaik

gusty comet Jan 25, 2021, 10:43 PM

#

is there a way to break out of the foreach?

ocean tundra Jan 25, 2021, 10:46 PM

#

not that i know of

#

dont worry about it too much atm

#

when you need extra performance you can look at writing manual chunk jobs, and you would be able to break out of the chunk loop easy then

warped coral Jan 25, 2021, 11:02 PM

#

can i use some kinda hashmap or dictionary inside component data?

#

like is there some kinda fixedhashmap or something

#

or can i make a fixedlist<mystruct> and cap the capacity to 12 for each direction?

ocean tundra Jan 25, 2021, 11:05 PM

#

dynamic buffer is all you can use

#

i wish too that other collections can be inside components

safe lintel Jan 25, 2021, 11:07 PM

#

I think you could use a class component and stuff a native collection inside it

ocean tundra Jan 25, 2021, 11:07 PM

#

but then no burst or threads

warped coral Jan 25, 2021, 11:07 PM

#

eww class components

north bay Jan 25, 2021, 11:08 PM

#

You can use unsafe collections on components but they do not have leak detection and some of them behave differently from their native counter part

ocean tundra Jan 25, 2021, 11:19 PM

#

unsafe collections sound so ... unsafe 😛

warped coral Jan 25, 2021, 11:22 PM

#

im conflicted.. should i use a dynamic buffer for room exits...or just keep a fixedlist on the room component and populate for all directions even if it doesn't have an exit for that direction

#

cuz the generate authoring thingy is telling me that when i do the thing on an IBufferElementData, it expects only 1 field... and if i use a struct, the entity field doesn't get converted to a gameobject so... idk.... anyway idk how i should structure the rooms on the entity side

#

hmm.. i probably wanna index by direction so it's easy to move around

ocean tundra Jan 25, 2021, 11:30 PM

#

again https://docs.unity3d.com/Packages/com.unity.entities@0.16/manual/conversion.html#the-iconvertgameobjecttoentity-interface

#

implement IConvertGameObjectToEntity

#

and use that instead of autogenerateauthoring

warped coral Jan 25, 2021, 11:32 PM

#

ok

gusty comet Jan 25, 2021, 11:51 PM

#

[NativeDisableUnsafePtrRestriction]
    private NavMeshWorld world;
    protected override void OnCreate()
    {
        world = NavMeshWorld.GetDefaultWorld();
    }


    protected override void OnUpdate()
    {
        
        var w = world;
        Entities.WithNone<SpawnPoint>().ForEach((Entity entity, int entityInQueryIndex, ref Coord pos, ref Ped ped) =>
        {
            var q = new NavMeshQuery(w, Allocator.Temp);
         }).ScheduleParallel();


InvalidOperationException: OnUpdate_LambdaJob0.JobData.w.world uses unsafe Pointers which is not allowed. Unsafe Pointers can lead to crashes and no safety against race conditions can be provided.
If you really need to use unsafe pointers, you can disable this check using [NativeDisableUnsafePtrRestriction].

Why am I getting this error even though I have used to correct attribute?

ocean tundra Jan 25, 2021, 11:52 PM

#

probably needs to be on the type NavMeshWorld

zenith wyvern Jan 25, 2021, 11:53 PM

#

You need to use .WithNativeDiableUnsafePtrRestriction in the entities ForEach and pass the navmesn world that function I think

gusty comet Jan 25, 2021, 11:56 PM

#

@zenith wyvern I think you're right but can't figure out how to use it do you have an example by any chance?

#

@ocean tundra it is or am I missing something?

safe lintel Jan 25, 2021, 11:57 PM

#

something like Entities.WithNativeDiableUnsafePtrRestriction(NavMeshWorld.GetDefaultWorld())

gusty comet Jan 25, 2021, 11:58 PM

#

@safe lintel

.WithNativeDisableUnsafePtrRestriction(NavMeshWorld.GetDefaultWorld).ScheduleParallel();

Assets\code\PedestrianAndTrafficSystem\Peds\PedMoveSystem.cs(43,12): error CS0411: The type arguments for method 'LambdaJobDescriptionConstructionMethods.WithNativeDisableUnsafePtrRestriction<TDescription, TCapturedVariableType>(TDescription, TCapturedVariableType*)' cannot be inferred from the usage. Try specifying the type arguments explicitly.

#

Adding the type like it says with <NavMeshWorld> results in this error

Assets\code\PedestrianAndTrafficSystem\Peds\PedMoveSystem.cs(43,12): error CS1061: 'ForEachLambdaJobDescription' does not contain a definition for 'WithNativeDisableUnsafePtrRestriction' and no accessible extension method 'WithNativeDisableUnsafePtrRestriction' accepting a first argument of type 'ForEachLambdaJobDescription' could be found (are you missing a using directive or an assembly reference?)

warped coral Jan 26, 2021, 12:03 AM

#

do i gotta mark structs with system.serializable for serializeutility to work on them

safe lintel Jan 26, 2021, 12:03 AM

#

ive not actually used any of the navmesh world stuff but thats how you use WithNativeDisableUnsafePtrRestriction in the foreach lambda.

gusty comet Jan 26, 2021, 12:04 AM

#

So does that mean navmeshquery isn't compatible with parralel jobs in component systems?

warped coral Jan 26, 2021, 12:05 AM

#

why do i get this error on my roomauthoring component and what does it mean? ArgumentException: RoomAuthoring and RoomAuthoring have a conflict in the stable type hash. Use the [TypeVersion(...)] attribute to force a different stable type hash for one of them.

safe lintel Jan 26, 2021, 12:07 AM

#

@gusty comet in https://github.com/zulfajuniadi/unity-ecs-navmesh/blob/bb4fe6ed2f847d6f2acd3547c3d3207214ec7a2c/Assets/NavJob/Systems/NavAgentAvoidanceSystem.cs hes getting that stuff in oncreate() and using a persistent query and just passing that into the job rather than getting it inside the job(note the api is older here)

warped coral Jan 26, 2021, 12:07 AM

#

oh crap wait.. its cuz i have a RoomAuthoring class and a Room with [GenerateAuthoringComponent] on it i think

karmic basin Jan 26, 2021, 12:10 AM

#

@warped coral do you even think a minute when you're stuck before calling for help ? 😛
Calm down, take a breath, let your brain compute the problem and give yourself some time to try things 😉

gusty comet Jan 26, 2021, 12:15 AM

#

@safe lintel just gives the same error as before but this time on the query variable instead of the world variable.

warped coral Jan 26, 2021, 12:15 AM

#

yes sensei

low tangle Jan 26, 2021, 12:33 AM

#

your changing your lambdas in the wrong order too

#

everything up front, then foreach, then run|schedule

gusty comet Jan 26, 2021, 12:45 AM

#

Wow its actually not possible to use NavmeshQuery in an entities.foreach even tho its usable in jobs

low tangle Jan 26, 2021, 12:46 AM

#

nah it should be doable

#

its just a regular job

gusty comet Jan 26, 2021, 12:46 AM

#

I've tried everything

low tangle Jan 26, 2021, 12:46 AM

#

you just dont start it from inside a foreach

#

dont start the jobs from within a foreach, and chain any other jobs with them

gusty comet Jan 26, 2021, 12:47 AM

#

I treid creating it in oncreate and using it in foreach

#

didn't work

#

I tried creating it in onupdate and using it in foreach

#

also didn't work

#

well

#

let me specify

#

not possible in parallel job

#

idk about regular one

ocean tundra Jan 26, 2021, 12:55 AM

#

Personally i always use https://arongranberg.com/astar/ for pathfinding

#

but i did have to do the raw movement myself

#

but it was probably faster that way as i could scheduleparallel

#

the slowest part is the start, where it has to cacualte a path, then take that path and turn it into a dynamicbuffer of points

#

pretty sure i had to so some without burst or run or something slow

gusty comet Jan 26, 2021, 12:58 AM

#

does a* work with default unity navmesh?

low tangle Jan 26, 2021, 1:08 AM

#

📎 unknown.png

#

single job query

#

[AlwaysUpdateSystem]
    class NavMeshSystem : SystemBase
    {
        const int humanoidType = 0;

        protected override void OnUpdate()
        {
            var s = new NavMeshQuery(NavMeshWorld.GetDefaultWorld(), Unity.Collections.Allocator.TempJob, 10);
            Job
                .WithoutBurst()
                .WithDeallocateOnJobCompletion(s)
                .WithCode(() =>
                {
                    var start = s.MapLocation(Vector3.zero, Vector3.one, humanoidType);
                    var end = s.MapLocation(new Vector3(10, 0, 10), Vector3.one, humanoidType);

                    s.BeginFindPath(start, end);

                    while (s.UpdateFindPath(1, out int itterationPerformed) == PathQueryStatus.InProgress) { }

                    var status = s.EndFindPath(out int pathSize);

                    Debug.LogFormat("status:{0}", status);

                }).Schedule(Dependency);

        }
    }

#

I've never used this api before so sorry for it not really being 'real' code

#

@gusty comet

#

to turn this into a ecs api, you would run a async collect all requested agents into a native array, and access them from a foreach job, that does roughly that ^ for each

safe lintel Jan 26, 2021, 1:14 AM

#

i wish unity was further along with whatever the dots navigation package is, im surprised of all things its taking the longest to materialize, I wouldve thought it lend itself to dod much easier than something like animation?

gusty comet Jan 26, 2021, 1:22 AM

#

what version of ecs are you using @low tangle? My job.Schedule() doesn't exist for me

#

neither does WithDeallocateOnJobCompletion

low tangle Jan 26, 2021, 1:23 AM

#

📎 unknown.png

gusty comet Jan 26, 2021, 1:24 AM

#

Yeah it works fine in regular jobs but once you scheduleparralel not so much.

ocean tundra Jan 26, 2021, 1:25 AM

#

@gusty comet no it has its own way of making navmeshs (grids)

#

or can create its on fancy navmesh

#

all dynamic at runtime too

warped coral Jan 26, 2021, 1:26 AM

#

is it not good to have fixedstrings inside of structs

ocean tundra Jan 26, 2021, 1:26 AM

#

not really

#

DOTS is all about DATA, and strings isnt actually data

#

strings are usually human representation (readable) data

warped coral Jan 26, 2021, 1:27 AM

#

where would i put them if i want them to save as part of serializeutility?

#

the room names and descriptions

ocean tundra Jan 26, 2021, 1:28 AM

#

i wouldnt

#

instead ill have IDs for them

#

and save/store that list somewhere

#

eg a scriptableobject

gusty comet Jan 26, 2021, 1:28 AM

#

you can use scriptables

warped coral Jan 26, 2021, 1:28 AM

#

but what if the names and descriptions change at runtime and i wanna save those on the server

ocean tundra Jan 26, 2021, 1:28 AM

#

then on game start or load take that object and use it to look up the readable values

gusty comet Jan 26, 2021, 1:29 AM

#

@warped coral send the name as a byte array when the player joins it

ocean tundra Jan 26, 2021, 1:29 AM

#

dont "what if' otherwise you can spend forever on things

#

decide if the will or wont

#

if they do then yea you can sync the values on start or something

warped coral Jan 26, 2021, 1:29 AM

#

ok.. i mean i want to be able to uh... have everything modifiable and persistent

gusty comet Jan 26, 2021, 1:29 AM

#

What is everything?

#

but regardless what you're trying to do is pretty straighhtforward

warped coral Jan 26, 2021, 1:30 AM

#

i wanna use the room coordinates as the key for accessing the room infos... how do i do that with entities

ocean tundra Jan 26, 2021, 1:30 AM

#

well if you want everything modifiable then your basicly building a engine not a game

gusty comet Jan 26, 2021, 1:31 AM

#

why are you making your rooms entities?

ocean tundra Jan 26, 2021, 1:31 AM

#

but i get where your coming from, my goal in all games is to allow mods

low tangle Jan 26, 2021, 1:31 AM

#

version that writes out to entites at the end

📎 unknown.png

#

📎 NavMeshSystem.cs

#

lets see if I cant convert it to a parallel for now

warped coral Jan 26, 2021, 1:31 AM

#

i want my rooms to be able to have components for different behaviours and stuff

ocean tundra Jan 26, 2021, 1:32 AM

#

@warped coral so really sit down and thing what a mod can do
eg ive been working on a RTS, so units make a good mod
so i structure the unit with JSON and on game load i take a existing general unit prefab, and make a new prefab from it, with all the new mod values set

gusty comet Jan 26, 2021, 1:32 AM

#

@low tangle oh wow thanks bud this is exactly what I was trying to make

#

thanks for the reference I was sure it was impossible, I wish the errors for ecs were a little more obvious I see what I was doing wrong now at least

low tangle Jan 26, 2021, 1:33 AM

#

yeah no worries, almost done converting it to parrellfor if that navmeshquery supports it (maybe)

gusty comet Jan 26, 2021, 1:34 AM

#

ocean tundra but i get where your coming from, my goal in all games is to allow mods

Have you tried binding any scripting languages to ecs yet then?

low tangle Jan 26, 2021, 1:34 AM

#

I've bound lua to ecs

#

it starts to each into perf pretty bad

ocean tundra Jan 26, 2021, 1:34 AM

#

no i havnt, i've considered it but decided it wouldnt be worth just yet

#

so far just data

low tangle Jan 26, 2021, 1:35 AM

#

might have been how I did it, but the system to query interface was messy (reflection)

#

still working on better codegen to pull it off

ocean tundra Jan 26, 2021, 1:35 AM

#

i wouldnt use a scripting language anyway, with things like roslyn its possiable to just compile and run c# code

low tangle Jan 26, 2021, 1:35 AM

#

but theres some burried nuggets in there if you can get lua components as featureful as c# ones

#

yes, but its also sketchy even with sandboxing

ocean tundra Jan 26, 2021, 1:36 AM

#

yup

#

but thats the risk people take with mods

low tangle Jan 26, 2021, 1:36 AM

#

people love to waste time attempting to excape sandboxes

ocean tundra Jan 26, 2021, 1:36 AM

#

haha yea

low tangle Jan 26, 2021, 1:36 AM

#

not everything is that kind of mod though

#

I only make multi player games

#

so cheating/being a dick to others is a thing that happens pretty often

ocean tundra Jan 26, 2021, 1:36 AM

#

again tho roslyn can really restrict c# code during compile

#

yea mp + modding = even harder

#

😛

#

i would file hash the game directory + mod directorys and make sure they match

#

which kinda helps

#

then im all server => client and very strict about not sending info to clients who dont need it

#

and client isnt a simulation its basicly a 'view' into part of the simulation

#

cant change anything

zenith wyvern Jan 26, 2021, 1:38 AM

#

I saw they added "support" for modding by letting us load dlls that work with burst? How would I even learn how to do that

warped coral Jan 26, 2021, 1:39 AM

#

so.. i should just leave all the strings out of ecs? And just keep them in some dictionary?

ocean tundra Jan 26, 2021, 1:39 AM

#

@zenith wyvern Oooo when? where?

#

I last heard about it as a early idea, use unity to compile some c# code into a burst dll and then load it

#

but that was AGES ago

#

@warped coral I would do a dictionary per string type

#

eg titles, description, ui labels ect

warped coral Jan 26, 2021, 1:40 AM

#

if i access the room name and description together often, should i make one struct for those

ocean tundra Jan 26, 2021, 1:41 AM

#

i would still make 2

#

also

#

your systems should NOT be accessing them often

low tangle Jan 26, 2021, 1:41 AM

#

ocean tundra i would file hash the game directory + mod directorys and make sure they match

doesn't help at all, if its on the client you can't trust it

#

file tampering is the first thing people spoof

ocean tundra Jan 26, 2021, 1:41 AM

#

you will have maybe 1 or 2 systems to read that data and send it to UI

#

@low tangle yea i know its not secure

#

was more for normal people to make sure they are on same versions (mods + game)

#

and had some mod packs active

low tangle Jan 26, 2021, 1:42 AM

#

yeah

warped coral Jan 26, 2021, 1:42 AM

#

whats the benefit of multiple dictionaries

ocean tundra Jan 26, 2021, 1:42 AM

#

more for you

low tangle Jan 26, 2021, 1:42 AM

#

read from one, write to another

ocean tundra Jan 26, 2021, 1:42 AM

#

easier to tell what something is

warped coral Jan 26, 2021, 1:42 AM

#

would this be ok as a dictionary value public struct RoomInfo { public FixedString32 Name; public FixedString512 Description; }

ocean tundra Jan 26, 2021, 1:43 AM

#

honestly I would just have it as normal strings

#

and never acesss within dots

warped coral Jan 26, 2021, 1:43 AM

#

oh yeah.. and store it within a normal dictionary?

ocean tundra Jan 26, 2021, 1:43 AM

#

when you update the UI you send the ids of things

#

and the ui controller thing can just look up the values

low tangle Jan 26, 2021, 1:44 AM

#

thats fine, that kind of non changing data is meant for blobs

#

you'd really just access it like a scriptable object, check and toss into a UI field

#

UI and ecs dont mix

warped coral Jan 26, 2021, 1:44 AM

#

i don't understand blobs... is that different than authoring the rooms using subscenes

ocean tundra Jan 26, 2021, 1:45 AM

#

blobs = for static readonly data

#

yea ECS and UI dont exist yet

deft stump Jan 26, 2021, 1:45 AM

#

think of blobs as scriptable objects

low tangle Jan 26, 2021, 1:45 AM

#

there like a blob of components and dynamic buffer like data you can get a handle to and read from even within jobs

#

docs probably got a page on them

#

let me find it

ocean tundra Jan 26, 2021, 1:46 AM

#

what i did is have a UI controller and would get a reference to that somehow in create (it was a monobehaviour)
then in a entities.foreach without burst run i would send it what things it needs (eg selected units)

low tangle Jan 26, 2021, 1:47 AM

#

yeah, thats totally fine

#

you can also inject the monobehaviour with a entity, and addcomponentobject the mono

#

and then query it up within the system, keeping no direct references and the ecs pattern intact

#

you just have to without burst, run only

warped coral Jan 26, 2021, 1:48 AM

#

uhh... soo.. how are blobs made. what makes them different than like... subscenes.... Sooo... a blob can be its own file like a scriptable object?

low tangle Jan 26, 2021, 1:48 AM

#

working on a page one sec

#

https://docs.unity3d.com/Packages/com.unity.entities@0.17/api/Unity.Entities.BlobBuilder.html

ocean tundra Jan 26, 2021, 1:50 AM

#

@warped coral I normally have a method on my scriptable object .ToBlob or something that does that blob builder stuff

low tangle Jan 26, 2021, 1:50 AM

#

intresting, theres a blob cache built into conversion system now
https://docs.unity3d.com/Packages/com.unity.entities@0.17/api/Unity.Entities.BlobAssetStore.html

warped coral Jan 26, 2021, 1:51 AM

#

oh... that sounds neat... i wanted to use scriptable objects for making rooms and stuff but didn't know how to tie it into ecs

gusty comet Jan 26, 2021, 1:51 AM

#

@low tangle Did the navmeshquery support parrellfor? About to give it another try now just diidn't see a point wasting time if not

low tangle Jan 26, 2021, 1:51 AM

#

if you want to do it all data friendly your gonna want to convert all your static data like room descriptions, with unique ids for each (name or otherwise)
then hash them all into a hashmap<key, blobassetref>

low tangle Jan 26, 2021, 1:52 AM

#

gusty comet <@!105600936646316032> Did the navmeshquery support parrellfor? About to give i...

its meant to, I just havent finished yet. people barged into the office and wanted attention

#

your gonna want to write one of these, but I'm sure you havent done the syntax yet, so I'll finish it up in a second

📎 unknown.png

warped coral Jan 26, 2021, 1:53 AM

#

so.. if i do that.. i can access blob asset stuff from within ecs?

#

can they be used with burst and stuff

low tangle Jan 26, 2021, 1:54 AM

#

yes thats exactly what they are for

warped coral Jan 26, 2021, 1:55 AM

#

oh

zenith wyvern Jan 26, 2021, 1:56 AM

#

From burst changelogs

Added support for PlayMode / Desktop Standalone Players to load additional burst compiled libraries for use in Modding.

ocean tundra Jan 26, 2021, 1:56 AM

#

tyvm

#

now... to just figure out how

#

i bet it wont also trigger ecs code gen tho...

#

but i guess for modding i shouldnt let users make any old System, instead provide hooks....

warped coral Jan 26, 2021, 2:03 AM

#

how do you turn scriptableobjects into blob asset references? do i reference them (the scriptable object) on an authoring component and uhh.. do it when i convert?

fluid kiln Jan 26, 2021, 2:03 AM

#

How can I include a native collection within a job as readonly so I don't get these exceptions: InvalidOperationException: The previously scheduled job AggroSystem:OnUpdate_LambdaJob0 writes to the Unity.Collections.NativeHashMap`2[Unity.Entities.Entity,Distance] OnUpdate_LambdaJob0.JobData.closestEnemyMap. You are trying to schedule a new job DistanceSystem:OnUpdate_LambdaJob0, which writes to the same Unity.Collections.NativeHashMap`2[Unity.Entities.Entity,Distance] (via OnUpdate_LambdaJob0.closestEnemyMap). To guarantee safety, you must include AggroSystem:OnUpdate_LambdaJob0 as a dependency of the newly scheduled job.

ocean tundra Jan 26, 2021, 2:03 AM

#

@fluid kiln you need to dependancy track

#

so you have a job that writes

#

and another that reads

#

the read job needs to combide dependancies with the write job

#

and be ordered after the write

fluid kiln Jan 26, 2021, 2:04 AM

#

It says aggro system writes to the collection but it doesn't it just reads

ocean tundra Jan 26, 2021, 2:04 AM

#

then mark it as read only

#

entities.withreadonly

#

its cause unity cant tell if your only reading so assumes writing too

fluid kiln Jan 26, 2021, 2:05 AM

#

Ha I thnik that's what I wanted

#

Thanks!

ocean tundra Jan 26, 2021, 2:05 AM

#

either way you should still combine dependancies

fluid kiln Jan 26, 2021, 2:05 AM

#

I haven't really had to deal with dependencies

#

yet

ocean tundra Jan 26, 2021, 2:05 AM

#

even if it works now

#

evenutally you will add more systems and the scheduler becomes more aggressive and it dosnt know theres a link between the 2 jobs

#

so will schedule them at the same time

#

boom explosion

fluid kiln Jan 26, 2021, 2:06 AM

#

oooh

#

so how do I add a dependency from a job to another?

ocean tundra Jan 26, 2021, 2:06 AM

#

in the write job

#

make a public method GetDependancy () {returns Dependancy}

#

and in the read BEFORE you schedule/Entities.foreach

#

get the write job system, and go Dependancy = CombineDependances(this.Dependnacy, wirteJobSystem.GetDependancy)

#

ps sorry for no real code 😛

#

it might be JobHandle.Combine or something

fluid kiln Jan 26, 2021, 2:08 AM

#

No worries I got it. Thanks!

low tangle Jan 26, 2021, 2:14 AM

#

@gusty comet yeah no dice on the parallel for version, you will have to stick with that part being on one thread

#

the NavMeshQuery is holding onto a native container inside, and preventing you from writing to it from more than one thread

#

attempted to create one query struct per each entity, but those cant store into a nativearray due to having a native container inside

#

if they were marked as unsafe, you could. but theres also some missing api versions, like a dispose(jobhandle)

#

I'd just stick with a single thread version

warped coral Jan 26, 2021, 3:00 AM

#

i can store blobassetreferences within blobassets right?

#

to ref other stuff from within? like i can do with scriptable objects?

gusty comet Jan 26, 2021, 4:18 AM

#

@low tangle Yeah I figured there wasn't really a way to make it happen. Kinda sucks tbh. but hopefully navmesh will be built into dots by default

#

Is there something like https://docs.unity3d.com/ScriptReference/Physics.OverlapCapsule.html in dots rn?

fluid kiln Jan 26, 2021, 4:19 AM

#

You can do a sphere cast?

#

https://docs.unity3d.com/Packages/com.unity.physics@0.0/manual/collision_queries.html

gusty comet Jan 26, 2021, 4:57 AM

#

huh i just found a weird bug i think

#


 var r = Unity.Mathematics.Random.CreateFromIndex((uint)entityInQueryIndex);
                var x = (r.NextInt(0, 1) == 0) ? pos.position.x + r.NextFloat(0, 40) : pos.position.x - r.NextFloat(0, 40);
                var z = (r.NextInt(0, 1) == 0) ? pos.position.z + r.NextFloat(0, 40) : pos.position.z - r.NextFloat(0, 40);

x and z are always very similar when i run it for example they will always be between a range of 190 to 260 every iteration.

warped coral Jan 26, 2021, 4:58 AM

#

if i wanna use a nativehashmap... i need to initialize it with a capacity and allocator, and manually dispose it?

gusty comet Jan 26, 2021, 4:59 AM

#

Iirc it autoresizes

warped coral Jan 26, 2021, 4:59 AM

#

oh... ok thats good

gusty comet Jan 26, 2021, 4:59 AM

#

Its basically what nativelist is to list but for dictionaries

warped coral Jan 26, 2021, 5:00 AM

#

do i need to dispose it manually

#

i remember using a native thingy sometime ago and i had some memory leak warning

zenith wyvern Jan 26, 2021, 5:02 AM

#

https://docs.unity3d.com/Manual/JobSystemNativeContainer.html

gusty comet Jan 26, 2021, 5:03 AM

#

So whats up with gerenating random numbers in ecs

#

THey always generate to be similar to the last one if done inside of a job

warped coral Jan 26, 2021, 5:03 AM

#

thx

zenith wyvern Jan 26, 2021, 5:04 AM

#

Not sure, I've never even seen that CreateFromIndex method. I think you would have to give it different indices to get different numbers

gusty comet Jan 26, 2021, 5:04 AM

#

I am

zenith wyvern Jan 26, 2021, 5:04 AM

#

Oh like within the same loop they are similar?

gusty comet Jan 26, 2021, 5:04 AM

#

Yeah

#

Entities.WithNone<SpawnPoint>().ForEach((Entity entity, int entityInQueryIndex, ref Coord pos, ref Ped ped) =>
        {
           
            if (math.distance(ped.destination, pos.position) <= 10 || ped.needsNewDestination == 1)
            {
                var r = Unity.Mathematics.Random.CreateFromIndex((uint)entityInQueryIndex);
                var x = (r.NextInt(0, 1) == 0) ? pos.position.x + r.NextFloat(0, 40) : pos.position.x - r.NextFloat(0, 40);
                var z = (r.NextInt(0, 1) == 0) ? pos.position.z + r.NextFloat(0, 40) : pos.position.z - r.NextFloat(0, 40);
                var targetPos = new float3(x, pos.position.y, z);
                Debug.Log(targetPos.ToString());
                var startLocation = s.MapLocation(targetPos, Vector3.one, 1 << 3);
                ped.destination = startLocation.position;
                ped.needsNewDestination = 0;
            }

#

this makes all the peds converge toward the same area about

zenith wyvern Jan 26, 2021, 5:06 AM

#

Not sure, I don't know enough about RNG to know if that's expected or a bug

#

        ///     // Random numbers drawn from loop iteration j will be very different
        ///     // from every other loop iteration k.

Seems like a bug based on the docs

gusty comet Jan 26, 2021, 5:07 AM

#

maybe its cause I am calling Next so often

#

cause i am not seeing any reason for my code to be producing very similar targetpositions for every entity

zenith wyvern Jan 26, 2021, 5:15 AM

#

Maybe the RandomTests in the mathematics package could give you some insight. I just tried looking and it's a lot of big words I've never seen before so I got scared and ran away

gilded bay Jan 26, 2021, 5:19 AM

#

I'm looking to implement the job system in my game. I have my networking stuff (UDP and TCP) running on different threads, but I'd rather not pass it back to the main thread, rather pass it to a job thread instead (so I can use the unity API without sucking the main thread dry)

#

Anyone have any info on that for me?

#

Would I just be able to keep a separate job or two open for my entire game?

zenith wyvern Jan 26, 2021, 5:19 AM

#

You can't use any Unity API in a job

gilded bay Jan 26, 2021, 5:19 AM

#

w a t

#

I thought that was it's purpose

gusty comet Jan 26, 2021, 5:20 AM

#

You can only use some of it rn in a job

#

most of it hasn't been exposed

gilded bay Jan 26, 2021, 5:20 AM

#

So back to my problem

#

any solutions?

#

I was certain jobs would fix it

gusty comet Jan 26, 2021, 5:21 AM

#

you haven't really described your problem that well

#

what are you trying to do?

gilded bay Jan 26, 2021, 5:21 AM

#

So I have UDP and TCP networking in my game

#

we're only talking about the server for now

#

each TCP connection runs in a different thread

#

and UDP runs in it's own separate thread

#

Is my only solution here to just pass the info back to the main thread?

#

to use the unity API

gusty comet Jan 26, 2021, 5:21 AM

#

what info

gilded bay Jan 26, 2021, 5:22 AM

#

messages received by UDP and TCP

#

I'd like to multithread that part somehow

#

but it needs to be able to use the unity API

gusty comet Jan 26, 2021, 5:22 AM

#

Ok this is pretty easy to do

#

spin up a new io thread(no reason to use a job for this since you're not going to be using any unity api at all any how

gilded bay Jan 26, 2021, 5:23 AM

#

yep already done that

gusty comet Jan 26, 2021, 5:23 AM

#

use that thread to serialize data

#

and

#

pass it to and from your network thread

#

https://github.com/dave-hillier/disruptor-unity3d

GitHub

dave-hillier/disruptor-unity3d

Basic implementation of Disruptor for Unity3d. Contribute to dave-hillier/disruptor-unity3d development by creating an account on GitHub.

#

in form of a ring buffer

#

so basically

#

Serialization Thread > RingBuffer > Net Thread

#

keep in mind its single producer single consumer only though

#

so only one thread can write to this

#

anda only one thread can read

#

you can't write to it from 5 diff threads

#

this will give you a way to communicate between threads without locks

gilded bay Jan 26, 2021, 5:25 AM

#

I've already got thread communication done with concurrentqueues

gusty comet Jan 26, 2021, 5:25 AM

#

instead you can send pointers of data to other thread by using structuretoptr

gilded bay Jan 26, 2021, 5:25 AM

#

is this different?

gusty comet Jan 26, 2021, 5:25 AM

#

Yes

#

Concurrent queues just use lock behind the scenees

#

so its going to be much slower than ringbuffer

#

but

gilded bay Jan 26, 2021, 5:26 AM

#

So then how do I multithread the part where unity's API handles all of the data

#

like updates positions, etc

gusty comet Jan 26, 2021, 5:26 AM

#

why not just do the same you've done with netmessages?

gilded bay Jan 26, 2021, 5:26 AM

#

thats what I'm interested in

#

wym

gusty comet Jan 26, 2021, 5:27 AM

#

oh

#

i didn't see that part

#

You really can't for the most part

gilded bay Jan 26, 2021, 5:27 AM

#

damn that sucks

gusty comet Jan 26, 2021, 5:27 AM

#

also

#

i don't think 1 thread per connection is going to scale well btw

gilded bay Jan 26, 2021, 5:28 AM

#

I don't think you can use TCP without spinning up a new thread for every client

#

otherwise it kicks the other client off

gusty comet Jan 26, 2021, 5:28 AM

#

Yeah I don't really know much about tcp I don't use it

#

may I ask why you're not using a reliableudp library instead?

gilded bay Jan 26, 2021, 5:28 AM

#

I hate using libraries

#

not sure why, just feels better to use what's built into C#

#

works fine too

gusty comet Jan 26, 2021, 5:30 AM

#

I really don't think that is correct for networking

zenith wyvern Jan 26, 2021, 5:30 AM

#

If you want to be able to multithread your game logic ECS and jobs can do that for you, they even have their own networking library in dots. But at that point you might as well just throw whatever you've already done in the garbage and get ready to screw around for months while you figure everything out

gilded bay Jan 26, 2021, 5:31 AM

#

yeah I heard dots is extremely complicated

#

definitely not looking to start over

gusty comet Jan 26, 2021, 5:31 AM

#

Networking isn't something you should roll your own solution for unless you're knowledgable in networking or are trying to learn. Lots of ways players can exploit your game and cause downtime if you aren't careful

gilded bay Jan 26, 2021, 5:32 AM

#

meh I enjoy it

#

Can't really talk sense into me

gusty comet Jan 26, 2021, 5:32 AM

#

Haha alright, good luck!

#

https://forum.unity.com/proxy.php?image=https%3A%2F%2Fi.imgur.com%2F19gLolB.png&hash=4343145dd600d0eca45968636d5c2b34

#

this image might help you though

#

from this thread

gilded bay Jan 26, 2021, 5:33 AM

#

So what exactly is the point of jobs if you can't multithread API code

#

like why not just use a thread

gusty comet Jan 26, 2021, 5:34 AM

#

I use jobs to perform heavy calculations over a large number of entities

zenith wyvern Jan 26, 2021, 5:34 AM

#

Dots has it's own API for game logic integrated with ECS

#

You can build a game with it but it's still early and not in any way comaptible with most of the existing API

gusty comet Jan 26, 2021, 5:35 AM

#

rendering/physics can be done and very sparse amounts of animations and navigation can be done in jobs with ecs

#

might be missing a few things

zenith wyvern Jan 26, 2021, 5:36 AM

#

Physics is entirely dots, has nothing to do with existing unity physics

gilded bay Jan 26, 2021, 5:37 AM

#

How big is the performance increase when using dots properly?

zenith wyvern Jan 26, 2021, 5:37 AM

#

Very very very big

#

Compared to monobehaviours

gilded bay Jan 26, 2021, 5:37 AM

#

How complicated?

gusty comet Jan 26, 2021, 5:37 AM

#

Once you wrap your head around it its pretty simple, but it has a lot of gotchas alaong the way

zenith wyvern Jan 26, 2021, 5:37 AM

#

Up to each individual - for me it took a very long time to wrap my head around everything

#

And at the end of the day it's still so early you can't expect to actually finish a game with it.

#

It's possible certainly but yeah

gilded bay Jan 26, 2021, 5:39 AM

#

Is unity's regular physics system multithreaded though? I see that on my PC, unity likes to evenly use all 8 threads

zenith wyvern Jan 26, 2021, 5:40 AM

#

Yes, but the real performance boost in dots comes from Burst

#

It's truly insane how fast it can crunch through complicated math

untold night Jan 26, 2021, 5:40 AM

#

@gilded bay - This book is extremely useful for understanding the DOTS mentality: https://www.amazon.com/Data-oriented-design-engineering-resources-schedules/dp/1916478700/ref=asc_df_1916478700/?tag=hyprod-20&linkCode=df0&hvadid=266029226349&hvpos=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=11695572038639340120&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9033320&hvtargid=pla-569068014630&psc=1

zenith wyvern Jan 26, 2021, 5:40 AM

#

And every package integrated with dots uses burst, including physics, so you can expect it to go real fast

#

I own that book and personally did not find it very helpful. Your milage may very

gilded bay Jan 26, 2021, 5:42 AM

#

yeah I learn better by reading online articles

#

So does the whole ECS thing have it's own physics? Like rigidbodies and shit?

#

Or would you have to create your own physics

gusty comet Jan 26, 2021, 5:43 AM

#

Yeah

#

Its havok physics engine

zenith wyvern Jan 26, 2021, 5:43 AM

#

Yeah, physics is coming along pretty well

#

There's a unity version and havok version

#

Both with pros and cons, but both will outperform built in by miles and mils

gilded bay Jan 26, 2021, 5:43 AM

#

What about standard components, such as wheel colliders and everything like that

gusty comet Jan 26, 2021, 5:43 AM

#

I don't think they're in yet

#

But not everything has to be an entity

zenith wyvern Jan 26, 2021, 5:44 AM

#

You can check it out for yourself https://github.com/Unity-Technologies/EntityComponentSystemSamples/tree/master/UnityPhysicsSamples

GitHub

Unity-Technologies/EntityComponentSystemSamples

Contribute to Unity-Technologies/EntityComponentSystemSamples development by creating an account on GitHub.

gusty comet Jan 26, 2021, 5:44 AM

#

you can leave things like vehicles as regular gameobjects still

gilded bay Jan 26, 2021, 5:45 AM

#

So say you wanted to do something to an ECS rigidbody. Is it the same as regular unity? rigidbody.velocity

#

or are there more steps

zenith wyvern Jan 26, 2021, 5:46 AM

#

If you just went to affect velocity, not really. If you want to manually respond to collisions, then it gets pretty complicated compared to built in

gilded bay Jan 26, 2021, 5:46 AM

#

yikes

zenith wyvern Jan 26, 2021, 5:47 AM

#

If you want something simple, it's not the way to go. If you want something scalable, then it is

#

Scalable in terms of performance and the code you're writing. It forces you to think about your data in terms of how your CPU uses it

untold night Jan 26, 2021, 5:48 AM

#

they do plan to have some apis that are simpler/closer to monobehaviour way down the line but still backed by dots

zenith wyvern Jan 26, 2021, 5:49 AM

#

Yeah they did say that a long time ago. I wouldn't count on it any time soon

untold night Jan 26, 2021, 5:49 AM

#

I wouldn't expect it until at least next year. This year they're focusing on improving the code gen for systems, which I think will be the foundation for the simplified facade APIs

gusty comet Jan 26, 2021, 5:53 AM

#

I think they need to add more general functionality before they worry about a simplified api

deft stump Jan 26, 2021, 6:10 AM

#

@gilded bay the best way for me to wrap around dots properly was to think in sql databases.
recursive linked you the book but the long and short of it is.
entities = index / primary key.
components = coloumns.
systems = sql statements.

gilded bay Jan 26, 2021, 6:17 AM

#

Yeah that makes a little more sense

gusty comet Jan 26, 2021, 6:58 AM

#

is it just one system per file?

gilded bay Jan 26, 2021, 7:32 AM

#

https://forum.unity.com/threads/unity-job-system-is-not-working-as-expected.809706/
Someone said you cant use unity api in jobs but this guy calls transform position?

Unity Forum

Unity job system is not working as expected

I'm learning unity DOTS technology and tried to create a small project which instantiates some prefab and moves it to the final target. project is...

gusty comet Jan 26, 2021, 7:42 AM

#

the transform position he is callling is a member of TransformAccess which is not the same as transform

#

So basically

#

they recreated parts of the unity api that can be used

#

so far they have a rendering api, physics api, very early animation api and a very limited way to deal with navmesh

gilded bay Jan 26, 2021, 7:46 AM

#

alright

gusty comet Jan 26, 2021, 7:52 AM

#

is it safe to reference a component on another component?

ocean tundra Jan 26, 2021, 7:52 AM

#

no

#

Components are Sturcts, if you store a component in another component it will create a copy

gusty comet Jan 26, 2021, 7:53 AM

#

same for entities?

ocean tundra Jan 26, 2021, 7:53 AM

#

thats why foreach uses ref, so when we set a value its to the same instance

#

umm less of a issue storeing entities

#

entities = id

#

so you can safely save that

#

BUT when using it you need to be sure that entitiy exists

#

you can use EntityManager.Exists for that

gusty comet Jan 26, 2021, 7:55 AM

#

awesome thank you roy

#

any suggestion how i can make something like this work in ecs then since I can't refrence components though?

#

public class node
{
    public node previous;
    public float3 position;
    public node next;
}

#

basically i have an editor script i can use to create "nodes" each node has a previous and next set so Ic an do like node.next.position

#

and so that the ai doesn't go off the navmesh

ocean tundra Jan 26, 2021, 7:58 AM

#

so its for a navmesh path?

#

super high level you can change node to Entity

#

but if its for a navmesh path theres a better way

gusty comet Jan 26, 2021, 7:59 AM

#

can an entity refeerence another entity

#

its for a waypoint system

#

not a navmesh path

#

but its basically the same

ocean tundra Jan 26, 2021, 7:59 AM

#

yea

#

ok

#

so you can remove next and previous

#

and then change node to a Buffer component

#

so waypoint path, the 'unit' moved down it then back?

gusty comet Jan 26, 2021, 8:00 AM

#

it loops

#

the unit moves from one point to the next, then back to the first point created when finished

ocean tundra Jan 26, 2021, 8:01 AM

#

a entity will have a buffer of path points (nodes) and a 'pathingwaypoints' component,
that component store next path INDEX

gusty comet Jan 26, 2021, 8:01 AM

#

will the index of the buffer be the same order I add them in?

ocean tundra Jan 26, 2021, 8:02 AM

#

yes

gusty comet Jan 26, 2021, 8:02 AM

#

awesome this sounds like a great idea!

ocean tundra Jan 26, 2021, 8:02 AM

#

and then in your pathing system you do something like:
entities.foreach(ref pathingWaypoints, in translation position, in dynamicbuffer nodes)
var nextNode = nodes[pathingWaypoints.NextIndex]
do some check to tell if needs to go to next index...
another check to see if at end of path

#

probs need to store path direction too

gusty comet Jan 26, 2021, 8:04 AM

#

I think its so weird you have to use a buffer if you need an array on an entity

ocean tundra Jan 26, 2021, 8:04 AM

#

sorry that system should have translation as ref, and maybe a speed component/stat too, and you update translation as the unit moves

#

buffer,, array, all just names they are the same thing under the hood

#

could probably have called them dynamicarrays and everything will be fine

gusty comet Jan 26, 2021, 8:05 AM

#

yes but the fact they attach to the entity

#

instead of being in a field on a component

#

is odd to me

ocean tundra Jan 26, 2021, 8:05 AM

#

oh yea that is odd

#

but makes sense

#

when you read more about memory layouts it all clicks and makes sense why they did it this way

#

for SPEEED!!!!

zenith wyvern Jan 26, 2021, 8:07 AM

#

gusty comet can an entity refeerence another entity

Yeah you can store an entity reference in a component

dense wren Jan 26, 2021, 11:54 AM

#

How does Graphics.DrawProcedural differ from commandBuffer.DrawProcedural

Is it a case Graphics is immediate while the latter depends on when the buffer is run?

stiff skiff Jan 26, 2021, 12:21 PM

#

Ran into a funky problem. Hoping someone has some ideas.

#

if (thingy) {
Entities
  .WithoutBurst()
  .WithChangeFilter<SomeComponent>()
  .ForEach(() => {...}
} else {
Entities
  .WithoutBurst()
  .ForEach(() => {...}
}```

#

Copy paste took more effort then expected xD

#

This is some code I have in a system based on SystemBase

#

And it seems to not actually be running properly due to them being the same query, but the changefilter being applied based on the condition

#

if (thingy)
{
  myQuery.ResetFilter();
}
else if (!myQuery.HasFilter())
{
  myQuery.AddChangedVersionFilter(ComponentType.ReadOnly<SomeComponent>());
}```

#

If I do this instead, and use an old Entities.With(myQuery) using the ComponentSystem instead. Everything works fine

#

Basically I want to run my ForEach with an optional change filter. And it's not liking this 😦

stiff skiff Jan 26, 2021, 12:42 PM

#

The issue is that internally, it will generate 2 functions to generate the 2 queries

#

however since they are the same beyond the filter, the 2nd generation attempt will grab the cached first query :/

#

And then set the filter on "both" due to it

pulsar jay Jan 26, 2021, 12:46 PM

#

maybe you could alter your second query as a workaround?

#

like querying for an additional component etc.?

stiff skiff Jan 26, 2021, 12:47 PM

#

Sadly there is nothing else to query for

#

So back to ComponentSystem it is

pulsar jay Jan 26, 2021, 12:49 PM

#

Wasnt there a way to reuse queries and set/remove filters with entities.foreach too?

stiff skiff Jan 26, 2021, 12:50 PM

#

I can technically leave out the filter, have it store the query and do the filter there manually

#

But at that point I'm working around additional Unity ECS bugs, and I don't want to

pulsar jay Jan 26, 2021, 12:52 PM

#

Isnt that essentially what you are doing with ComponentSystem now?

rancid geode Jan 26, 2021, 12:54 PM

#

stiff skiff So back to `ComponentSystem` it is

If you need so bad to use ForEach instead of IJobChunk, you can just create 2 systems and make "thingy" be a condition that both knows (so you will have only one of the two system actually executing)

rancid geode Jan 26, 2021, 12:57 PM

#

stiff skiff ```csharp if (thingy) { myQuery.ResetFilter(); } else if (!myQuery.HasFilter()...

oh, just remembered about the WithStoreEntityQueryInField, you could try use to do the same logic as here and have only one ForEach

#

not sure if it will work

deft stump Jan 26, 2021, 12:58 PM

#

hey bruno, sorry for calling your attention, but is there a way to cache subscene entities onto an NHM without using a System to do it?

rancid geode Jan 26, 2021, 12:58 PM

#

not sure what you mean by that @deft stump

deft stump Jan 26, 2021, 1:01 PM

#

so for context:
I have 6 x 3 panels in a grid.
this grid is a subscene.
now, I want to store these panel entities onto an NHM.
but, when I try to do it in a custom Authoring -> Play -> NHM is empty. (maybe because it's in a subscene that's why it won't store? I dunno why)

so the only jank solution i made is to make a System that checks / adds all the Panel entities onto the NHM.
And enable the critical Systems that needs to do the actual work once I validated it's all in there.

stiff skiff Jan 26, 2021, 1:04 PM

#

pulsar jay Isnt that essentially what you are doing with ComponentSystem now?

The manual filter? Yes.

pulsar jay Jan 26, 2021, 1:06 PM

#

Just saying that you could do the same with SystemBase which should be more future proof. But @rancid geode 's idea to use WithStoreEntityQueryInField might be the better solution

stiff skiff Jan 26, 2021, 1:16 PM

#

Yeah using WithStoreEntityQueryInField was the plan, it's the only way to do this with SystemBase

#

The reason I wanted to switch to SystemBase was to get rid of the "hack" we already used. I could switch and change the hack to a different hack to work around a bug, or I can keep things the way they are and know that I won't get any new unknowns due to switching to SystemBase

honest plinth Jan 26, 2021, 1:51 PM

#

dense wren How does Graphics.DrawProcedural differ from commandBuffer.DrawProcedural Is it...

Yeah, Graphics.<something> will have immediate results. Putting commands into a command buffer will make the commands run at a later point when the command buffer is executing. You can run the command buffer immediately by calling Graphics.ExecuteCommandBuffer of course, and can reuse the same built command buffer over multiple frames

dense wren Jan 26, 2021, 3:47 PM

#

Why might I want to defer execution over just running it immediately?

deft stump Jan 26, 2021, 3:49 PM

#

dense wren Why might I want to defer execution over just running it immediately?

can you elaborate?
asking about .Schedule() vs .Run()?

amber flicker Jan 26, 2021, 3:55 PM

#

dense wren Why might I want to defer execution over just running it immediately?

It's rarely "I want to do this later" and more usually "I want to use other threads/workers/cores" - as soon as you do that, you have to schedule the job (ie not run it immediately on the main thread) - and in the context of Unity, the order and scheduling is related to the safety system and what components you're reading/writing. apologies, looks like I was missing context

north bay Jan 26, 2021, 3:56 PM

#

Isn't he talking about the graphics command buffer?

deft stump Jan 26, 2021, 3:57 PM

#

@amber flicker srry for ping, but I have a quetion.
I have 6 x 3 panels in a grid.
this grid is in a subscene.
now, I want to store these panel entities onto an NHM.
but, when I try to do it in a custom Authoring -> Play -> NHM is empty. (maybe because it's in a subscene that's why it won't store? I dunno why)

so the only jank solution i made is to make a System that checks / adds all the Panel entities onto the NHM.
And enable the critical Systems that needs to do the actual work once I validated it's all in there.
Whats the alternative?

amber flicker Jan 26, 2021, 3:57 PM

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oh.. haha.. I suppose I should scroll up huh 😅

amber flicker Jan 26, 2021, 3:59 PM

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deft stump <@!190954630623002624> srry for ping, but I have a quetion. I have 6 x 3 panels...

I would probably store this data in a blob on conversion. It's not actually that tricky and works well with conversion workflows. Otherwise, a runtime system that populates a NHM is fine.

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Though if, like me, you later need that NHM accessible via a SB (SystemBase) as well an ISB, that will be painful.. so blob I think? Not sure if you can store a NHM directly in a blob though - not tried. Anyone else know?

deft stump Jan 26, 2021, 4:01 PM

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hrmmm will ISB replace SB?

amber flicker Jan 26, 2021, 4:02 PM

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deft stump hrmmm will ISB replace SB?

in the long term, it'll be preferable.. but not anytime soon in general

zenith wyvern Jan 26, 2021, 4:02 PM

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dense wren Why might I want to defer execution over just running it immediately?

As I understand it if you use "DrawNow" functions then Unity can't integrate it with lighting and shadows correctly

amber flicker Jan 26, 2021, 4:02 PM

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helps squeeze out performance where you need to - it makes a system fully bursted

gusty comet Jan 26, 2021, 6:27 PM

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What is isb?

pulsar jay Jan 26, 2021, 6:28 PM

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ISystemBase in contrast to SystemBase I guess

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didnt even knew about it

amber flicker Jan 26, 2021, 6:30 PM

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yea, like Peaj says. ISystemBase - it's like SystemBase but a struct, burstable and a tonne of limitations right now. For example you can't use ECBs in them.

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Very early days

pulsar jay Jan 26, 2021, 6:31 PM

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interesting. how do you keep track of the changes? just reading the source?

amber flicker Jan 26, 2021, 6:32 PM

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the release notes but also follow the forum quite closely and there were a couple of posts about it

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e.g. https://forum.unity.com/threads/entities-0-17-changelog.1020202/

acoustic spire Jan 26, 2021, 6:35 PM

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What's the best practice to develop with DOTS atm: creating entities at runtime or use "Convert To Entity" components? Isn't the last one a temporary thing?

pulsar jay Jan 26, 2021, 6:37 PM

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acoustic spire What's the best practice to develop with DOTS atm: creating entities at runtime ...

Conversion workflow is the recommended way atm. Probably best using subscenes

warped fog Jan 26, 2021, 6:41 PM

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Why is creating entities at runtime not recommended? It makes more sense in my head to create the archetype and manually creating the entity rather than converting... Is there a reason for this?

coarse turtle Jan 26, 2021, 6:42 PM

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you can still create entities at runtime, but for certain things like with rendering or physics, there's a lot you may need to set up manually which can be confusing I imagine

pulsar jay Jan 26, 2021, 6:42 PM

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@warped fog you can absolutely do that. Its pretty tough for more complicated objects because the consist of a lot of components (a lot more than monobehaviours) and you loose support of nearly all editor tools

warped fog Jan 26, 2021, 6:43 PM

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Aaaaaah.

acoustic spire Jan 26, 2021, 6:43 PM

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pulsar jay Conversion workflow is the recommended way atm. Probably best using subscenes

Happily, I'm on right way with subscenes. Speaking about conversions, you can convert from "generator component" (it takes object count and their common properties as input) or can just manipulate bunches of GameObjects in editor when at runtime they will be converted with built-in converter (1 object to 1 entity). What's better?

pulsar jay Jan 26, 2021, 6:43 PM

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Even just parenting entities in code is quite cumbersome

warped fog Jan 26, 2021, 6:44 PM

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Thanks @pulsar jay that explains it. Good to know.

pulsar jay Jan 26, 2021, 6:47 PM

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acoustic spire Happily, I'm on right way with subscenes. Speaking about conversions, you can co...

Hard to say. I guess both would work but in both cases the GameObjects you create should preferably be prefabs

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I suppose ECS would only convert it once and "reuse" it then

acoustic spire Jan 26, 2021, 6:48 PM

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you mean instead of separate scene nodes?

pulsar jay Jan 26, 2021, 6:48 PM

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no I just meant if you are scattering tree prefabs for example the tree should be a prefab

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but either way creating the gameobjects at edit time and putting them in a subscene should be fastest because subscenes store them in entity format which can just be copied to memory

acoustic spire Jan 26, 2021, 6:50 PM

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it makes sense, thanks

scarlet inlet Jan 26, 2021, 6:52 PM

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I wrote some code assuming that GameObjectConversionSystem.GetEntities would return the children of the primary entity. Apparently I was totally wrong and I still can't figure out what GetEntities actually is

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but my question is now: how am I supposed to get the children of a gameobject I am converting to entities? Shall I just traverse the hiearchy?

ocean tundra Jan 26, 2021, 6:53 PM

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Yea i had that issue

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theres something like, GetPrimaryEntity

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and then off that you can get the LinkedEntityGroup

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not sure if theres a better way but it worked

scarlet inlet Jan 26, 2021, 6:54 PM

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hmm using the EntityManager somehow I presume

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physicsWorldEntityManager.GetBuffer<LinkedEntityGroup>(primaryEntity); ?

ocean tundra Jan 26, 2021, 6:55 PM

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yup the LinkedEntityGroup is a buffer

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yea

scarlet inlet Jan 26, 2021, 6:55 PM

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thanks

ocean tundra Jan 26, 2021, 6:55 PM

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if you find a better way let me know 😛

scarlet inlet Jan 26, 2021, 6:56 PM

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I read an article about GetEntities, I didn't understand it...it seems that a lot of options are thrown there just to solve very specific cases, but add confusions when the specific cases are unknown. Thoughts?

ocean tundra Jan 26, 2021, 6:56 PM

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i think GetEntities is cause a gameobject can have more then 1 entity

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using something like CreateAdditionalEntity

scarlet inlet Jan 26, 2021, 6:59 PM

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yes that's what I read from the article, didn't understand the use case at all

ocean tundra Jan 26, 2021, 6:59 PM

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ummm

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so for me

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im building a networking system

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each networked entity has a 'shadow' entity

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the idea being is your gamplay entity needs pretty much 0 changes in order to be networked

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all my network data for that entity is on the shadow, then synced over to the client shadow as well

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So i can use CreateAdditionalENtity during conversion so i dont have to make those entities at runtime

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saves me a very small amount of cpu for startup 😛

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probably not worth

scarlet inlet Jan 26, 2021, 7:02 PM

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two entities in the same world?

ocean tundra Jan 26, 2021, 7:02 PM

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kinda

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every networked entity becomes 2

scarlet inlet Jan 26, 2021, 7:03 PM

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in the same world

ocean tundra Jan 26, 2021, 7:03 PM

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yea

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but i have a server and a client world

scarlet inlet Jan 26, 2021, 7:03 PM

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and both have two entities per gameobject

ocean tundra Jan 26, 2021, 7:03 PM

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so your Gameplay entity => server shadow ===MAGIC===> client shadow ==> client gameplayEntity

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yup

gusty comet Jan 26, 2021, 7:06 PM

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So uh

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whats the equivilant of EntityManager.GetBuffer for command buffers?

ocean tundra Jan 26, 2021, 7:07 PM

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cant read a buffer from command buffers

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command buffers is write only

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you can add a buffer

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and setup its values

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and if you need random read to a buffer

gusty comet Jan 26, 2021, 7:08 PM

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oh wait

ocean tundra Jan 26, 2021, 7:08 PM

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theres something like BufferFromEntity or something

gusty comet Jan 26, 2021, 7:08 PM

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there is GetBuffer<T>(Entity