archived-dots

[karmic basin]

for the view

[gusty comet]

what do you mean

converting entity to transform ?

or youre copying doubles from

entity

and setting them in MB transform?

that would still result in floating point precision error i think?

[karmic basin]

I mean more like the latter yeah. You work with position as doubles, but instead of being global world coords, they are position in your current grid cell. Your client view (Unity scene) matches the grid, thus MB transform is relative to the origin of the scene

[spark musk]

Hi, I am very new to DOTS so this may seems really easy 😄
I have a struct called PushboxData which is a Data Component.
How could I find every pushboxdata from every entities containing one ?

I tried to use GetEntityQuery(typeof(PushboxData)).ToComponentDataArray<PushboxData>()
But PushBoxData need to be a class, but its a struct

[crude sierra]

Entities
    .WithAll<PushboxData>()
    .ForEach(() =>
    {  
      // your logic here
    }

[spark musk]

Good starting point, but that's used to iterate through every PushboxData and execute logic on them. I want to read them

Well I can show you my code

[crude sierra]

Entities
    .WithAll<PushboxData>()
    .ForEach((ref PushboxData data) =>
    {  
      // manipulate data here
    }

[spark musk]

I will try that

I actually need to convert that to an usable array

[karmic basin]

You won't be able to WithAll and use the lambda param at the same time

[spark musk]

            {
                foreach (PushboxData other in otherPusboxes)
                {
                    // Do something
                }
            }
        ).Run();```

where otherPushboxes (in the foreach) is actually every PushboxData

[karmic basin]

You should read this page and the sub-pages too https://docs.unity3d.com/Packages/com.unity.entities@0.17/manual/ecs_creating_systems.html

[crude sierra]

are you sure? I have classes that work that way

[crude sierra]

CodeMonkey has a really good DOTS series on youtube, if you're getting started.

[spark musk]

Maybe something like that could work ?

        Entities.ForEach((PushboxData pushbox) =>
        {
            pushboxes.Add(pushbox);
        }).Run();```

[crude sierra]

it should work, but im pretty sure theres a direct API call to get all components of type.. can't recall the exact function right now tho

[spark musk]

Yeah that what I am looking for

I found GetEntityQuery(typeof(PushboxData)).ToComponentDataArray<PushboxData>()
But has I said, T from ToComponentDataArray need to be a class

[robust scaffold]

Class? It should be a struct extending IComponentData. Class implies managed component data and that should not work with managed data.

[bright sentinel]

Why does it need to be a class?

[naive ice]

What is the fastest way to overwrite the entirety of a DynamicBuffer's contents? I'm loading some patches of terrain from a map and creating or replacing existing procgen terrain patches with them:

{
    DynamicBuffer<HeightDataBufferElement> buffer = GetOrCreateTerrainPatchBuffer(terrainPatch.Position); //already crazyfast
    //todo: unsafe memcpy? buffer magic? this is my 5 second implementation that is tragically slow :D
    var r = buffer.Reinterpret<float>().AsNativeArray();
    for (int x = 0; x < kvp.Value.Length; x++)
    {
        r[x] = loadedTerrain.HeightData[x];
    }
}```

[solid rock]

what is loadedTerrain?

or rather

what is HeightData

[naive ice]

Just a data structure returned from the map loader - contains the coordinates of the patch and the height data. HeightData is currently a NativeArray<float>, but I can shove the loaded floats into whatever structure is most efficient 😉

[solid rock]

Ok because there are functions like this: https://docs.unity3d.com/Packages/com.unity.entities@0.17/api/Unity.Entities.DynamicBuffer-1.CopyFrom.html#Unity_Entities_DynamicBuffer_1_CopyFrom_Unity_Collections_NativeSlice__0__

Or https://docs.unity3d.com/2020.2/Documentation/ScriptReference/Unity.Collections.NativeSlice_1.CopyFrom.html

if you can get them both as slices

not sure if it's any faster..

¯_(ツ)_/¯

[naive ice]

Ooh, I missed those - thanks, I'll try them out! 😄

No dice, seeing about the same performance on all of them - ~11ms per patch copied. Most maps are broken up into > 1000 patches. 😂

Only 1024 elements per patch, though, so it's not an outrageous amount of data I'm asking it to copy - but unfortunately there's no obvious way to streamline it further, as the terrain has to be broken up into many separate patches of this size for efficiency in the rest of the game (grid registration, pathfinding, etc etc)

I'm sure there's a bit of unsafe pointer copy magic I've forgotten about that will solve this, but I'm ashamed to admit that it's been far too many years since regularly working with good old fashioned C++ manual memory wizardry

Disregard that, my bottleneck was indeed GetOrCreateTerrainPatchBuffer, caused by some leftover debug code I was Totally Sure Was Turned Off™️. I thought to measure just the copy operation. 3ms total for all >1k patches. Hahaha. 😄

Problem solved, thanks @solid rock 👍

[solid rock]

Nice!

[frosty siren]

What is NativeSlice for?

[warped trail]

Sometimes you want to work with just a part of nativearray, nativeslice is a convenient tool to do this type of thing, it is just a window to another array🤔

[dapper vine]

You need to pass an allocator type as a parameter to the ToComponentData function. It will work then. The error message is confusing.

[spark musk]

I found an other way

Don't remember it but I loop through every entities and get their data using a var with myVar[entities]

[gusty comet]

how would you guys do this sort of thing?
https://i.imgur.com/GPq8fYw.png
right now all of these planet entities (central and surrounding ones) are using same mesh and material so its just 1 chunk i guess
but it doesnt look good at all, its too obvious that its all the same mesh
so the other choice is to give different mesh and mat to each entity but then it will be like 15 chunks

(and i have lot of objects like above in my game so that could result in hundreds of chunks or thousands)

[bright sentinel]

@gusty comet It's probably not too bad to have different chunks. Let's say you have 1000 of these each with a different mesh, that's only 16 MB, as each chunk is 16KB. That's not too much tbh

[gusty comet]

oh ok

[small cloak]

I'm trying to change the material of an entity using the new Entity Component System
In the entity debugger it looks like it is working and changing the materials, but it does not update in the game view

They are all blue/yellow, but in the entity debugger, some of them are linked to a red/black material

Why does this happen?

[warped trail]

maybe instead of changing material you can change just colour?

[bright sentinel]

@small cloak What version of Entities and Hybrid Renderer are you on?

It looks like you're using some old API with the ComponentSystem, instead of the newer SystemBase

Also, if the only thing you're changing is the color, consider using a materialoverride instead, it's more efficient

[warped trail]

I have a question related to material override, why colours differs when i use it?

[small cloak]

I read a few posts online saying it's less efficient, I want to spawn a lot of objects (100,000-250,000), and I only need 4 colors

[warped trail]

you can link your component to variable in shader

[warped trail]

it is way more efficient to do it that way, than changing material🤔

https://docs.unity3d.com/Packages/com.unity.rendering.hybrid@0.11/manual/material-overrides-code.html

[small cloak]

Okay, but why it does not change the colors in the game view?

[bright sentinel]

@small cloak Then you should definitely use SystemBase instead of ComponentSystem

[small cloak]

But why in the entity debugger the materials are different but not in the game view

[bright sentinel]

Why it doesn't change color, I'm not sure tbh

[warped trail]

I have this problem with material override in URP, left is regular material, right is material override

[bright sentinel]

@warped trail Are they both converted?

[warped trail]

yes

[bright sentinel]

You also have to make sure your color space is correct

I think linear is the only supported one

Or gamma

Either one 😂

It's linear

[bright sentinel]

Try using MaterialOverrides instead and see if it works

[small cloak]

Oh, I fixed it

I'm simulating a pandemic

[warped trail]

@bright sentinel is there some property to make hybrid renderer use linear color space?

[small cloak]

Instead of setting the material in the ForEach, I used entityManager.SetSharedComponentData on the entity

[small cloak]

Why?

What's the difference?

[warped trail]

entitymanager's methods and componentsystem's foreach are main-thread only

[bright sentinel]

No those are just in the project settings I think, maybe HDRP/URP settings

[warped trail]

with systembase and materialoverride you will use multithreaded foreach

@bright sentinel then color space is not the culprit for sure😅

just default urp template project and the only difference between those entities is that one has URPMaterialPropertyColor and other doesn't

this feature works, it easy to use, but i can't understand why colors are not same😅

[small cloak]

I changed it to SystemBased

And this error appeared

Does this mean I cannot use RenderMesh with the burst compiler?

[bright sentinel]

@small cloak RenderMesh is a managed class, so no you cannot

ComponentSystem isn't using burst in the first place

@small cloak You might want to look at the documentation to learn how to use SystemBase

There are only some small changes

[small cloak]

So I can't change the color of a mesh using multiple threads?

[bright sentinel]

Well if you use MaterialOverrides like I told you to you can 😄

[small cloak]

How can I do that?

[warped trail]

https://docs.unity3d.com/Packages/com.unity.rendering.hybrid@0.11/manual/material-overrides.html

[bright sentinel]

Hah you beat me to it

[warped trail]

and don't forget to enable hybrid renderer V2

[bright sentinel]

You have to use the build configurations to build

Can't build through normal builds

[gusty comet]

i know

well nvm

[naive ice]

I'm getting a bunch of Burst compile errors the first time I run my game - they disappear the second time I run it. They appear to be due to reading static fields from within a Job. Suggestions on how to make them static and readonly to satisfy the Burst compiler while maintaining convenience and readability? They're constants for a fixed point math library:

const long ONE = 1L << FRACTIONAL_PLACES;
public static fp one => new fp(ONE);```

[coarse turtle]

You can try doing a static readonly field

[naive ice]

'Constants' like this won't compile with the readonly tag, though, since it uses the initializer - even though it's just setting a long. One of those syntatical edge case gotchas since it's obvious that it's effectively readonly in practice, but not to the compiler. 😄 public static readonly fp one => new fp(ONE);

[coarse turtle]

Hmm is there a reason you need to return versus just assigning one the fp struct?

public static readonly fp one = new fp(ONE);

One way I can think of is to treat the property as a function signature instead 🤔

public static fp one() => new fp(ONE); 

[tight blade]

has anyone done a lot of work with understanding the way
Unity.Physics has been updated to work with fixed timestep?

I want to find a write up on the basic strategy they used to make things like gravity, which presumably would previously have just added to velocity each frame, work with a fixed timestep with catchup

same for joints

[bright sentinel]

I'm not sure as I haven't dug into it, but I'd assume they're just running off of a fixed time step

Like not changing functionality, just making sure physics are updated every X seconds

Where X could be like 0.02 seconds or something

Just like PhysX works

[tight blade]

huh. yeah maybe im overcomplicating this in my head. I'm trying to work out how things work if you have multiple simulation steps per display step. but if you just do everything in the simulation step, I guess it all just stays consistent

oh yeah I was way overcomplicating it.

[safe lintel]

Yeah it uses the fixed time step now @tight blade

[tight blade]

yeah lol, my situation is actually way less complicated. I dont even use a time delta for what I'm doing, its all on a per frame basis. Similar to gravity. Like when doing gravity, you don't do velocity.y += -9.8 * time.deltaTime, you just do velocity.y += -9.8

I just got myself all confused

[gusty comet]

There's an exception that whenever it occurs the next time I press Play, all the scripts in the scene will lose their references. ```Unexpected exception Mono.Cecil.AssemblyResolutionException: Failed to resolve assembly: 'Assets, Version=0.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=null'
at Mono.Cecil.BaseAssemblyResolver.Resolve (Mono.Cecil.AssemblyNameReference name, Mono.Cecil.ReaderParameters parameters) [0x00105] in <28cdca1704d2491781795499c297b78b>:0
at Burst.Compiler.IL.AssemblyLoader.Resolve (Mono.Cecil.AssemblyNameReference name) [0x0007c] in <3e87bd30b339441eaceba44e8d9c979f>:0
at Burst.Compiler.IL.AssemblyLoader.Resolve (Burst.Compiler.IL.Helpers.SimpleTypeReferenceString simpleTypeReferenceString) [0x00015] in <3e87bd30b339441eaceba44e8d9c979f>:0
at Burst.Compiler.IL.AssemblyLoader.Resolve (Burst.Compiler.IL.Helpers.SimpleTypeReferenceString simpleTypeReferenceString) [0x00120] in <3e87bd30b339441eaceba44e8d9c979f>:0
at Burst.Compiler.IL.AssemblyLoader.Resolve (Burst.Compiler.IL.Helpers.MethodReferenceString methodReferenceString) [0x0000e] in <3e87bd30b339441eaceba44e8d9c979f>:0
at Burst.Compiler.IL.Jit.JitCompilerService+CompilerThreadContext.Compile (Burst.Compiler.IL.Jit.JitCompilerService+CompileJob job) [0x0031a] in <3e87bd30b339441eaceba44e8d9c979f>:0

It's caused by this While compiling job: Unity.Jobs.IJobExtensions+JobStruct`1[[ItemOwnershipMessageSystem+<>c__DisplayClass_OnUpdate_LambdaJob1, Assets, Version=0.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=null]], UnityEngine.CoreModule, Version=0.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=null::Execute(ItemOwnershipMessageSystem+<>c__DisplayClass_OnUpdate_LambdaJob1&, Assets, Version=0.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=null|System.IntPtr, mscorlib, Version=4.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b77a5c561934e089|System.IntPtr, mscorlib, Version=4.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b77a5c561934e089|Unity.Jobs.LowLevel.Unsafe.JobRanges&, UnityEngine.CoreModule, Version=0.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=null|System.Int32, mscorlib, Version=4.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b77a5c561934e089) at <empty>:line 0

One of these for every job in my codebase

[safe lintel]

hmm package doc format rework? https://docs.unity3d.com/Packages/com.unity.tiny@0.13/rt/tiny_runtime/classes/_runtimefull_.ut.core2d.transformobjecttoworld.html tried to use /rt/ on the entities docs but didnt work

[opal lynx]

Currently I am studying Unity ECS

and I have a curiosity that..
'Is it possible to regulate every game logic to 60fps or 30fps but rendering unlimited fps?'
including animation and other things

[ocean tundra]

@opal lynx Yea theres a few ways

You can use the built in Fixed update group for your logic and do some manual code in Update Group to interpolate

Another way is to use 2 custom worlds, One for the logic (simulation) and the other for rendering

thats what I'm doing

[opal lynx]

Thanks a lot!!
And.. can you tell me a little more in specific, please?

[ocean tundra]

I dont know too much about the first

but the built in Physics system does it

you should be able to find the code for that somewhere

[opal lynx]

I see..
Thank you for your reply
I'll find the way that you told me

😁

[ocean tundra]

good luck

the 2 worlds is pretty good too

but much more complex to setup

[opal lynx]

how did you learn the second one way?

[ocean tundra]

😛 i just did it

theres not like theres tutorials for 90% of DOTS

ill be releasing it one day, its the backbone of my netcode

actually unitys Netcode must do similar too

[opal lynx]

okay I'll figure it out
I appreciate for you, again

[frosty siren]

How you connect entities between world?

[ocean tundra]

@frosty siren So i do this in 2 ways

When the player is a 'host' (running the server and is a client) I sync my network messages using ECBs from the other world

I have systems with [DisableAutoCreation] that i manually create and link to the target worlds

(but im looking to build a better subworld/linked world system soon)

All my synced entitys also have a ID, I'm still working on the exact data layout of this and its sizes (currently its just a Int) so thats what i use to 'match' entities in different worlds

Finally i use Unity.Transport and its low level stuff to sync between completely separate client/server

[frosty siren]

Does id shared?

[ocean tundra]

kinda

Im using subscenes and have a ID creation/assignment as part of a conversion system

still needs work as its not unique if you load many subscenes at once

but otherwise works great

and if you create something (you can only create in server world) it will be given a new ID and the create event will be synced

oh and everything you want to create must have my custom authoring component, which will assign the ID during conversion OR when creating (eg if your instantiating a prefab) by triggering some systems

[frosty siren]

If player isn't a host (only client) does it have simulation world? Or your sim world is a server logic but itself?

[bright sentinel]

If that happens consistently, make sure you report a bug about it, because that shouldn't happen!

[frosty siren]

Guys, if i want to construct entity prefab from scratch is it enough to add Prefab component to whole hierarchy?

[pulsar jay]

Should work. If it should have sub objects you will also need a linked entity group so you can instantiate it all at once

[frosty siren]

lol what
System.IndexOutOfRangeException: Index {0} is out of range in DynamicBuffer of '{1}' Length.

when burst compilation is off this error looks this
IndexOutOfRangeException: Index 75 is out of range in DynamicBuffer of '0' Length.

[solid rock]

looks like burst can't string.Format right

[small cloak]

I've just enabled HybridRendererV2, downloaded URP and it shows me warnings and errors

I'm creating the entities

And then updating info about them in a loop

It worked before I enabled HybridV2 and installed URP

Now it does not even spawn the sprites

[safe lintel]

the hybrid docs has info on the api you should use to initialize your rendermesh entities

[crude sierra]

hey guys, remind me the name of the component that disables rendering of an entity? do I add it or remove it?

[undone delta]

how can i use the cinemachineCollider script with an ECS wall?

i dont want to duplicate the wall

[safe lintel]

from first glance, the "easiest" way imo would be to duplicate the CinemachineCollider script and modify it to use ecs physics @undone delta

@crude sierra add DisableRendering to disable any entity from being rendered

[undone delta]

im not that advanced in ecs

[crude sierra]

yeah, for some reason that didn't work.. ended up removing the RenderMesh component altogether

[undone delta]

whats the difference between .schedule and .run?

[safe lintel]

run is immediate on the mainthread, schedule is a single thread, and scheduleparallel is multithread

[undone delta]

ok

[small cloak]

Where?

I could not find it

[safe lintel]

@small cloak

[dusky wind]

It's been ~1 year since I've checked in on this

but has anyone here experimented with DOTS animation?

I just want to sample an animation and get bone positions at a given frame

[safe lintel]

i think its the animatedlocaltoroot/world buffer? cant remember exactly, had some tests with rigidbodies going but then shelved them and am waiting for the next release before I start testing again

[dusky wind]

Time to wait yet another year before anything actually moves

[static dune]

Is there a way to convert game objects into entities in code? I have this monobehavior script called "Arrow" that I'm essentially trying to integrate into a System (ECS). I know how to do it in the editor. Simply have the Arrow impelement IConvertGameObjectToEntity and then drag the ConvertToEntity script onto the entity with the prior Arrow script. Not sure how to do that programmatically though. I.e. A player shoots an arrow and that arrow is spawned as a monobehavior object but then is converted.

Maybe I'll have to rewrite the Arrow class as a component.

[ocean tundra]

Theres a conversion class you can call to convert a given game object

its not really recommended tho

and to actually gain any DOTS performance you still need to rewrite to a IComponet+system

[static dune]

I get it, I'm just falling back to old SWE techniques like "Write wrappers around library code and write your new code in the standard you demand."

[ocean tundra]

also you will generate a ton of garbage by doing it that way, spawing a GO and then converting it is not quick

thats why they want you using subscenes so they can pay that performance cost in editor

[static dune]

Yeah how about I just rewrite the Arrow as some kind of Component and just write the relevant systems that aren't provided in Unity.

[ocean tundra]

or you convert it once at game start and use it as a prefab

[static dune]

Oh that's a thing I saw just now.

[ocean tundra]

yea 😛

[static dune]

Reusing a prefab so it's instantiated.

[ocean tundra]

the prefab thing is probably a better way

as even if you can create the whole entity via code, to add mesh/materials to it you will have to fall back to the main thread

but if its a prefab entity you can just instanite it

[static dune]

What exactly does prefabbing do in Unity? In other engines, a prefab or instanced entity is usually only in reference to the mesh. It's like a graphics thing.

All the other data associated with it obviously can't be instanced.

[ocean tundra]

the only difference between a prefab entity and a normal entity is the Prefab tag component

any entity with it will be ignored by systems (including renderering)

and when you create it the prefab tag is removed

so you can build the entity up however you like (i recommend sub scenes) attach your components, set meshs/materials/sounds then add the prefab tag and your good to go

[static dune]

I've seen subscenes as well. I still don't understand the poitn of the subscenes.

At least in context of ECS.

[ocean tundra]

basicly its just prepackaged data

so subscenes get converted in editor/build, then saved in a VERY quick format for ECS to load later

[static dune]

Ah, so less delay between the transition of game object to ECS?

Lots of interesting "tricks" to get ECS to play nice with the existing ecosystem.

[ocean tundra]

yea no delay really

[static dune]

Every time I come back to Unity, the ECS approach changes (for the better)

[ocean tundra]

its really great for seperating data from entities

or adding it

eg in my netcode i need to give anything im syncing over the network a unique ID + a 'shadow' entity

[static dune]

Isn't an entity just a opaque ID?

[ocean tundra]

so i can create that shadow entity in the subscene, during conversion. and link them to each other and setup a ton of components depending on whats being synced

yea kinda

One of my early prototypes used entity id/version as its network id

but its almost always more data then actually needed

[static dune]

Lol isn't reality funny like that?

We live by the bloat, we die by the bloat.

[ocean tundra]

i could probably get away with 16 bits, maybe 24

maybe even make network ID size dynamic

[static dune]

Man dealing with anything dynamic with the burst compiler is super annoying.

But it's appropriate because the engine needs to know the memory layout to do anything efficiently.

Lots of goodies gets thrown out of the door with Burst. Can't use LINQ for example.

[ocean tundra]

i dont really miss linq with DOTS

[static dune]

I wouldn't miss it either if I could write F# but that's bound to lead to nowhere in Unity.

[ocean tundra]

yea cant see f# happening any time soon

[static dune]

GameObject arrow = Instantiate( arrowPrefab, arrowNockTransform.position, arrowNockTransform.rotation ) as GameObject;

It's already a prefab lol!

[ocean tundra]

no thats a gameobject prefab

look at the ECS samples repo

pretty sure theres a spawner one that shows this in ECS form

[static dune]

Know of a good keyword I can git grep on?

[ocean tundra]

they still called it Instantiate

[static dune]

Oh is the cast what makes it different in my example then?

[ocean tundra]

definitly not

it would be setup via either subscenes or converttoentity

[static dune]

You say either or, you can replace converttoentity operations directly to subscenes? Sounds like something I really need to read up more.

I was imaginging subscenes as like a primitive namespace.

Ah yes my ignorance, I now see: https://unitycodemonkey.com/video.php?v=91kJtsDLTyE#:~:text=Subscenes use Unity DOTS %2F ECS,you can edit as usual.

I guess you were talking about this https://github.com/Unity-Technologies/EntityComponentSystemSamples/blob/master/ECSSamples/Assets/StressTests/HybridComponent/SpawnerSystem_HybridComponent.cs

[ocean tundra]

yea probably

looks super old

[static dune]

Yup, that's why I don't even use the samples these days.

[ocean tundra]

but the core bit is still the same

[static dune]

Or I always ref with the actual documentation and forums to see if it's what I should be doing.

or I bug people like you.

😛

[minor sapphire]

How would I narrow this down?
A Hybrid Renderer V2 batch is using a pass from the shader "HDRP/Lit", which is not SRP batcher compatible. Only SRP batcher compatible passes are supported with the Hybrid Renderer.
It gives no further information 😦

[safe lintel]

i dont think there is a way currently. was wondering if theres a way to just log the shaders name in that error code but then i more or less stopped using shader graph so never got around to checking

[static dune]

Ah lovely, when I try to add a hybrid component I get random NREs.

[minor sapphire]

it's really annoying as f***. it was all working fine until today and I can't figure out what changed

[robust scaffold]

SRP Batcher check is fairly simple to see. Just check your shader inspector when you click on it. https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/497874081329184799/830576296349270116/unknown.png

[robust scaffold]

If there's something wrong with it, it'll say so: https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/497874081329184799/830576441011601458/unknown.png

I believe for something like material property being declared outside CBuffer, all you need to do is just relocate the declaration (within the shader pass and not the properties list) into the #define cbuffer section or something like that.

[robust scaffold]

I personally dont use Hybrid Renderer (I stand by my opinion that it was a mistake and the reason why all this entities drama is going on, it's the only reason why we're stuck on 2020 LTS) so I dont know the specifics of making it SRP Batch compatible but it's something along those lines. Fairly simple.

[minor sapphire]

The three shader graphs I have all say Disable batching; no

hmm

also SRP Batcher: compatible

[safe lintel]

id just go through, override every property and make it hybrid per instance

[minor sapphire]

deleting library fixed it

[safe lintel]

ah cool

[minor sapphire]

So many crashes, isn't LTS meant to be decently stable lol

[ocean tundra]

Wow this new build config thing

kinda nice

how many of the build components actually work?

and also anyone know how to run it via command line/script?

[ocean tundra]

and of course the build dosnt work

Anyone seen this?

(0,0): error Mono.Cecil.ResolutionException: Failed to resolve UnityEngine.RuntimeInitializeLoadType

My build config

[frosty siren]

If i use static function inside bursted job then will function be bursted or i should add [BurstCompiled] for it?

[karmic basin]

Looks like they didnt bother to update the stress tests, though the examples themselves are kept up-to-date. Start with the HelloCube samples, all of the folders circled on the screenshot cover many workflows for converting GO to entities, and they have a readme explaining what/how they do it. Digging through all of them is worth it. I find it's the most reliable up-to-date resource for syntax, alongside the official manual

[karmic basin]

I only tried a few basic ones. Last time I checked LiveLink it kinda worked but seemed capricious. I still need to play with the headless build for servers.

aaaand nothing much otherwise :p

[karmic basin]

looks like a standard unity build error

not dots related 🤔

[ocean tundra]

What does the headless build do? Can't we just run the final exe with -headless or something?

Hmm weird if it's just normal unity

[karmic basin]

which versions of com.unity.platforms and .platforms.windows ?

[ocean tundra]

Umm latest

[karmic basin]

maybe it does just that xD

[ocean tundra]

I'm away from pc right now

[karmic basin]

did you click apply after adding that classic build override ? looks like it's not greyed out

[ocean tundra]

Yup

That's probably from me changing the names

Maybe I'll try a normal build and see if it throws the same build error

Are there any additional components we need to install?

I'll probably review those too

[karmic basin]

maybe log file will be more verbose

[ocean tundra]

Where's that these days?

Still in the unity exe directory?

[karmic basin]

Be it packages or overrides I think you have enough

[ocean tundra]

I was thinking like editor components

@karmic basin thanks, I'll try more tomorrow and hopefully have good news

[undone delta]

im having a weird issue with DOTS physics

so im applying a linear impulse to my player to make it move

but when you move the player goes in a weird back and forth way

there is no gameplay impact

but it looks funky

(gif is still uploading)

            var dt = Time.DeltaTime;
            Entities.ForEach((ref PhysicsVelocity velocity, ref Rotation rot, in MoveDirection moveDir, in PhysicsMass mass) =>
            {
                // get the direction from the component, and times it by the speed and make it framerate independent
                var dir = moveDir.Direction * dt * moveDir.Speed;
                velocity.ApplyLinearImpulse(mass, dir);
                
                // look in direction
                var lookRot = quaternion.LookRotation(dir, Vector3.up);
                // if it isn't moving it changes it to NaNF for some reason 
                if (float.IsNaN(lookRot.value.w)) return;
               // transition to new rotation 
                rot.Value = Quaternion.Slerp(rot.Value, lookRot, dt);
            }).Schedule();

generic movement system

this is the player movement system

also the camera is following a mirrored version of the player but that doesnt matter as it happens even if i dont do that

(also using URP if that matters)

still uploading...

ok im just gonna rerecord this

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l5LLjnQYKtQ

you can see the glitch pretty easilt

[hollow sorrel]

@undone delta seems like your physics is running at fixed rate and camera is updating every frame (which is good)
to fix the stuttering you can use interpolation

which is built in to newest unity.physics version, but i'm not sure how you enable it, is there a setting on the authoring gameobject?

or maybe it's a separate authoring component, not sure

[karmic basin]

Talking about that one ? PhysicsGraphicalSmoothing

[undone delta]

thanks

this should be the only line right?

[karmic basin]

there's a ApplySmoothing prop to set between 0 and 1

And in the character controller they used it with PhysicsGraphicalInterpolationBuffer, which stores prev/current positions IIRC

But maybe Scor was talking about Graphical​Smoothing​Utility.Interpolate https://docs.unity3d.com/Packages/com.unity.physics@0.6/api/Unity.Physics.GraphicsIntegration.GraphicalSmoothingUtility.html#Unity_Physics_GraphicsIntegration_GraphicalSmoothingUtility_InterpolateUsingVelocity_Unity_Mathematics_RigidTransform__Unity_Physics_PhysicsVelocity__Unity_Physics_PhysicsVelocity__Unity_Physics_PhysicsMass__System_Single_System_Single_

[undone delta]

ok so i set it to 1 and it didnt work

[karmic basin]

All of these are worth a look to study I guess https://docs.unity3d.com/Packages/com.unity.physics@0.6/api/Unity.Physics.GraphicsIntegration.html

[karmic basin]

try to add the interpolationbuffer too, maybe it needs it ? I didn't study teh character controller, it's messy :p

[karmic basin]

Use SetComponentData to add and set at once, not sure it will like to add twice the same component

[karmic basin]

(To answer to myself, using Add another time is okay)

AddComponentData<T>(Entity, T)
Adds a component to an entity and set the value of that component. Returns true if the component was added, false if the entity already had the component. (The component's data is set either way.)

[warped trail]

@undone delta How are you moving your camera?

[warped trail]

i think the way you are copying position from entity to gameobject that camera follows🤔

[undone delta]

That is correct

My dad is using my PCs monitor so I can't share any code rn and on mobile

[undone delta]

Yeah it's hacky but it works well

[crude sierra]

is there a more performant shader than Unlit I can get somewhere?

(a general one, if I can't write my own shader)

[robust scaffold]

The next step down from Unlit is no shader at all. Unlit is the most basic shader there is.

[robust scaffold]

Well, dont use the default unlit which has a lot of "features". Writing your own unlit shader is as simple as making an empty shader moving it onto a material.

[crude sierra]

gotcha, thanks

[undone delta]

back on pc after forever

wait i did not know this existed lemme see if it works

nope didnt

[jaunty herald]

Is it intentional that systems without any Entities.ForEach, but with EntityQuery are not automatically updated?

[undone delta]

it didnt

[robust scaffold]

Systems should automatically update regardless of the existance of EntityQuery or not so long as you do not tag the system as [DisableAutoCreation].

[jaunty herald]

Shouldn't [DisableAutoCreation], you know, only disable their automatic creation?

[robust scaffold]

Yes. That means it will not be automatically included in the update loop. Otherwise, all SystemBase classes or ISystemBase structs OnUpdate will be called automatically.

Well, assuming you're using the default world. Beyond that like NetCode, uh. No clue. I'm still trying to figure that out myself.

[jaunty herald]

I have other systems tagged with [DisableAutoCreation] which contain Entities.ForEach, these are listed as containing queries and being updated

[robust scaffold]

What? That should not be possible. Did you add those systems manually?

[jaunty herald]

Yes, they are being added manually

They are also being updated, which is why I am confused

[robust scaffold]

Oh then yes. DisableAutoCreation does not prevent updating. Use Enabled = false inside the OnUpdate method to stop auto-updates.

[jaunty herald]

But I don't want to prevent updating :)

Basically, here is what is happening:

The system is tagged with [DisableAutoCreation], and contains no Entities.ForEach. It does contain an EntityManager.CreateEntityQuery.

It appears in the list of systems, but says it contains no queries, and is not finding entities (even though a matching entity exists).

If I replace EntityManager.CreateEntityQuery with SystemBase.GetEntityQuery(), the system stop appearing in the list of systems altogether. I can see OnCreate using logging, but not OnDestroy, so I have no idea what is going on.

[robust scaffold]

Hrm, I'll try doing some of my own tests. So what is preventing you from removing the tag?

[jaunty herald]

It has to do with a networking library I use. Basically the system gets auto-created by the networking library once the server / client has started / connected.

[robust scaffold]

Oh, networking. Nevermind then. I have no clue.

[jaunty herald]

(The issue shouldn't have anything to do with networking though)

[robust scaffold]

Make sure the world in which the CreateEntityQuery contains the entity you are trying to look for and not the Default or another world.

EntityQueries cant cross world boundaries.

[jaunty herald]

I misnamed an component in my query @_@

Sorry for wasting your time :(

[robust scaffold]

Heh

[jaunty herald]

Ah, it even shows the targeted chunk if I use [AlwaysUpdate] to stop it from being autodeleted.

So everything works as expected and I am just careless

Interestingly, it works whether or not I use EntityManager.CreateEntityQuery or SystemBase.GetEntityQuery, but only the latter shows the targeted chunk in the system view

Not sure what the actual difference is, but I think SystemBase.GetEntityQuery should be preferred

Maybe this? Systems cache any queries that your implementation creates and return the cached instance rather than creating a new one when possible.

[robust scaffold]

Huh, I was looking for that implementation. Yea, the entity debugger and the system manager hooks onto SystemBase and everything happening in it. Not EntityManager. Use the GetEntityQuery found inside the SystemBase implementation and not EntityManager's version.

[jaunty herald]

Yeah it makes sense. I usually cache queries in OnCreate anyways but I guess it's not really needed

iirc GetEntityQuery didn't exist in earlier versions

[robust scaffold]

Same here. I guess I can just clear a bunch of OnCreate functions.

[jaunty herald]

\o/

[jaunty herald]

Does Job.WithCode().WithoutBurst().Run() do anything? Since it would only run some code immediately and without burst...

[stiff skiff]

Yes.. it would run code in a very very convoluted way

[stable siren]

Having issues with float3, do I need the new? float3 tempForce = new float3 (0f, 0f, 0f);

[robust scaffold]

Inside C#? Definitely. Float3 is just a struct. Inside a shader you dont need to because that's a completely different language.

[ocean tundra]

@jaunty herald There is a minor advantage to using Run..
Calling Run() completes the system Dependency JobHandle before running, blocking the main thread, if necessary, while it waits for those jobs to finish.

it handles the Dependency for you

[robust scaffold]

Or you can just use Dependency.Complete() before running anything on the main thread.

[ocean tundra]

But without entities.foreach Dependancy wouldnt be setup right

I guess it would complete everything then

[robust scaffold]

If you're doing it manually with structs (like a true Scotsman programmer), the SystemBase Dependency wouldn't do anything. So yes, Dependency.Complete() will do nothing without Entities.ForEach

Basically, you just need to set the eventual jobHandler's dependency to Dependency or just merge the dependencies. I dont remember the exact syntax off the top of my head.

On a different topic, if I remember correctly Allocator.Temp does not need to be disposed. However, is it recommended to do so?

I remember reading somewhere that Temp does a caching mechanic with NativeContainers to speed up creation.

but I dont recall if that is enabled if you manually call dispose or not

[ocean tundra]

that i dont know 😛

never read anything about a caching mechanic

[robust scaffold]

Ah, right. Here we go: https://www.jacksondunstan.com/articles/5406

Temp is just really fast until a special temp allocated memory of 16kb is used up. Then it's just TempJob.

So yea, dispose as soon as possible to reduce temp cache usage.

[ocean tundra]

nice

i really like reading his stuff

[robust scaffold]

I really wish he continued on DOTS stuff. I mean sure, C++ for C# developers is incredibly useful but I wont be coding with Unreal any day soon.

[bright sentinel]

This is a bit outdated. Today, disposing a temp allocator is just a no-op

I remember I saw a Unity employee say that on the forums

[robust scaffold]

No op?

[bright sentinel]

No operation

Doing nothing

[robust scaffold]

Oh, hrm

[bright sentinel]

So either way it doesn't hurt to do it, but it's not required either

[robust scaffold]

Yea. Every time there's a leak I just control-f all allocations. Having the disposal even if it doesnt do anything keeps me happy at least.

[bright sentinel]

😄

[robust scaffold]

I really feel like I'm abusing C# when I overload identical generic methods with optional parameters. The difference between them all is the generic type extending different interfaces.

The compiler works, but i'm pretty sure the original C# programmers did not intend for it to work that way.

[gusty comet]

@robust scaffold Who cares. If it works - it works 😁

i wonder how can i further

optimize my game

i am kinda fixated on it

to the point where i do not care if i waste lot of time on recreating already created thing if its going to be a bit faster

also i have this weird theory that you should always use ScheduleParallel because this way youre using all threads, so even if Schedule was faster for some reason (and it probably shouldnt), you should still go for scheduleparallel because then main thread is doing less work = more space for monobehaviour/single threaded code

can be wrong though

[hollow sorrel]

@gusty comet no because scheduling has overhead, moreso for scheduleparallel

you might save a bit of main thread time but if the cost is 10x more total thread time then it's not really worth

[gusty comet]

so you do .Run?

[hollow sorrel]

depends on the case

if it's a small job with little/no dependencies then .Run is faster

[gusty comet]

what about setting movement and rotation for 500 entities (that may have children)

[hollow sorrel]

sure that would prob be .schedule, not sure if it's worth going parallel tho

should profile and see

like if one thread using .schedule can do it in 0.1ms, or with parallel it takes 0.05ms but is x8 threads all taking 0.05ms, then your total time is 0.4ms instead of 0.1ms

[gusty comet]

isnt parralel == in same time ?

[hollow sorrel]

no due to overhead

doesn't mean never use it, just gotta profile and see if it makes sense in your case

[gusty comet]

i would have to spam way more entities to see any noticeable difference in fps

between schedule and scheduleparralel

[hollow sorrel]

don't need to rely on fps, profiling window is your biggest friend

set it to timeline mode and you can see how much time every job worker thread is using

[amber flicker]

@hollow sorrel is spot on. Some additional factors to consider:

• Cost of ScheduleParallel() goes up with the number of cores - a cpu with more cores can become slower overall
• Schedule runs off main thread but on a single thread. This is often a reasonable compromise - it doesn't block the main thread but also doesn't have the scaling problem of above
• The main problem with Run is creating a sync point. With this stuff, generally you want to avoid sync points where possible
• Currently dependencies between jobs can take much longer than the work the jobs do themselves. Thus it makes a huge difference if you're trying to optimise for 100 entities or 1mil entities.
• In order to think about 'best performance' you not only have to constantly profile but you absolutely can't look at one system in isolation. On the scale of a full game, schedule can be better for this reason.

[hollow sorrel]

just to add, .Run doesn't create a sync point in the sense that unity docs call sync points (completing all current jobs)
it does call .Complete on all current jobs that use the same components, so preferably you wanna use it if no dependencies/no other jobs relying on those components

[gusty comet]

It's as you said and right now, overhead for acquiring data is so slow that Run is in most cases, depending on entity count, faster than Schedule. Scheduling has quite the cost and if your code isn't heavy in computation or entity amount, the actual code will be only a fraction of overall cost.

if the code isnt heavy in computation then how many entities do you need to make ScheduleParallel worth it

[amber flicker]

it depends(tm) but in my experience, certainly >1000 entities. That said, IJEB improved this situation a bit.

[gusty comet]

oh ok thats fine i guess

aiming for huge world lol

[shell berry]

Anybody can explain the second parameter of IJobEntityBatch? It says batchesPerChunk but I don't know what it actually means. 1 means the whole chunk. So what does 2 mean? Does it mean that there would be 2 batches per chunk and they could run in separate threads?

[gusty comet]

what is IJEB even doing?

[amber flicker]

Correct - the idea is that for small sized entities you could have thousands of entities in a single chunk. IJobChunk could only process that on a single thread but IJEB could divide that up to multiple.

[shell berry]

I see.

What I would have wanted is number of entities. Say I want separate batches for every 2 entities because computation of each could be long. By using batchesPerChunk, it's hard to gauge what number is optimal.

[amber flicker]

Yea I think it's designed for the more common use-case. In that case there are lots of approaches you can take but they all depend on what your data & transformations actually are.

[robust scaffold]

IJobChunk is still multithreaded just along chunk boundaries. One chunk per thread. IJobEntityBatch can further break down each chunk into multiple threads so its recommended. Problem is, only IJobChunk works with ISystemBase.

[amber flicker]

Isn't that pretty much exactly what I said? 😅 - but yup, gotta stick with IJCs for the ISBs for now, that's true.

[robust scaffold]

Ah, yea. My excuse for terrible reading comprehension is that I typed that the minute I woke up.

[amber flicker]

Np ✌️

[gusty comet]

i think about adding mechas to the game as a way to escape floating point precision issues

up to 5000meters normal monobehaviour/dots world

but after that you have to wear mecha suit or you die

and mecha suit would be moved purely by dots with doubles

of course that would involve recoding combat, camera, etc

but i guess its integrable way to make gameplay in big worlds possible (even without starting the game in this manner)

[naive ice]

I like it. That is a good solution and sounds like super fun gameplay - but note that you're not gaining much in the sense of solving the fundamental requirement of needing to rebase the world's coordinates at arbitrary points. Once you implement this functionality, you can do so whenever needed, not necessarily only at specific points like transitioning in/out of a mech. 😉

Camera is a good example of that, and likely what you'll run into the most trouble with in order to get smooth transitions between coordinate shifts / coordinate worlds

[gusty comet]

well you dont need to do this from day one

so thats definitely a plus

i still dont know how to achieve this with dots, i know theres dots physics system with doubles

perhaps could add that to game so it can do the work for you

[naive ice]

Depends on the scale involved - doubles weren't large enough for me, so I went with camera-origin rebasing from day one. But if you're sure that it won't limit you later on, I would probably just stick with doubles everywhere from the start for both performance and simplicity, as you won't even need to rebase coordinates of game objects

The old advice of designing everything on paper first is annoyingly true, especially when it comes to difficult architecture decisions like this - measure twice, cut once and all that 🙂

[gusty comet]

oh i do multiplayer, floating origin wont work

yeah except my game is a mix of monos and dots - as far as i know you cant really use doubles for position with monobehaviours?

thats why i probably cant start with only doubles from day one

[naive ice]

Why not? You'd need to handle the conversion of each player's coordinates when interacting with their objects, but there's nothing stopping the design from working 😄

[naive ice]

Not with the built-in Transform system AFAIK, you'll have to roll your own - but that will always be true of pretty much everything once you start going down this wonderful rabbit hole

[gusty comet]

that alone is a nuissance and then you can only have local origin shifting (differently for each player) but on server the origin cannot move

so you will experience malfunctioning floats on server at least

[amber flicker]

underlying transform representation: doubles
rendering & physics: doubles->floats with origin shifting.. no?

[naive ice]

It doesn't have to - the server should have perfect knowledge of every client's origins, and can maintain coordinate spaces for each of them

[naive ice]

That's another good way of handling it, yeah 👍

Like I said, it's one of those problems where it really helps to plan everything out from the start to make sure the flow of coordinate systems and conversions between them makes sense at every level

[robust scaffold]

DOTS is alive: https://forum.unity.com/threads/dots-editor-0-12-0-preview-release-the-new-way-to-inspect-entities.1045306/#post-7094827

At least the employee is talking about 0.20 release. They might just be skipping 0.18 and 0.19. Or those will be locked to LTS and 0.20 is the reconnection with the Beta/Alpha tech stream.

[slim nebula]

SUPER happy about this: Multiple Inspectors We now support inspecting Entities in multiple inspector windows. Bringing the option to lock and inspect multiple Entities for debugging just like with GameObjects.

[deft stump]

so where's enable disable?

[safe lintel]

dont think there was any doubt about dots being alive

[robust scaffold]

This gives me hope there might be an update sometime in my lifetime rather than the next.

[safe lintel]

the time between updates is getting frustratingly long

[frosty siren]

lol uDamian is giving us more info right now than that dramatic compatibility post

[safe lintel]

@frosty siren I really appreciate when the devs just post stuff like that, makes it so much easier to understand current development issues. dont understand why we cant have more of that

- Entities Structural Changes - see what happened each frame, like entities created, components added/removed, etc.
- Entities Memory Profiler - see current state of your ECS memory, grouped by Archetypes```

these are major profiling improvements 🥳

[frosty siren]

@safe lintel hope uDamian have told it to us in a "legal" way and will not suffer. Because all this silent with DOTS are a bit creepy 🤐

[slim nebula]

where is this uDamian information you guys speak of?

[frosty siren]

https://forum.unity.com/threads/dots-editor-0-12-0-preview-release-the-new-way-to-inspect-entities.1045306/#post-7094827

[slim nebula]

ty

[robust scaffold]

I swear, I read somewhere that there is best practice related to when to use GetEnumerator for Native Containers but I have no clue where.

It was something along the lines of Use GetEnumerator at the creation of the native container and not at job struct settings.

But I cant find it anymore

[naive ice]

Suggestions for the cleanest way of waiting on an EntityCommandBuffer to playback before continuing scheduling job?
I have a scheduling system that creates an Entity for each long-running task, and tags it with the specific work that needs to be done. All of these items of work depend upon the results of the prior one being completed. E.g:

struct ExpensiveParallelTaskTwo : IComponentData {}
...
Entity workOrder = EntityManager.CreateEntity();
EntityManager.AddComponent<ExpensiveParallelTaskOne>();
EntityManager.AddComponent<ExpensiveParallelTaskTwo>();
...
Entities.ForEach((in ExpensiveParallelTaskOne foo) => 
{
    //do work, write some output to an EntityCommandBuffer
    ecb.RemoveComponent<ExpensiveParallelTaskOne>(); //and ensure that the job is cleared; syntax omitted for brevity
}.ScheduleParallel();
...
Entities.WithNone<ExpensiveParallelTaskOne>.ForEach((in ExpensiveParallelTaskTwo bar) =>
{
    //we know that the first task is complete, but how do we make sure that the commandbuffer has been run too?
}.ScheduleParallel();```

[robust scaffold]

The ideal solution is to not use ECBs or any structural changes at all. Do you have to use something that creates or destroys entities?

[naive ice]

Yup, this is for generating and processing chunks of terrain data in fairly complex chains. Mix of procgen + handcrafted chunks and other special sauce that requires multiple passes in order to function.

For example, one task has to write out global flags out to a NativeMultiHashMap, which another task will read from and use to guide its processing

[robust scaffold]

Hrm, what Im trying to say is that do you need the ExpensiveParallelTask tags? You can instead force a dependency between the two tasks to force the first pass to complete before the second.

Just make an empty tag and include it in the delegate variable list as "in" with both ForEach functions.

It wont do anything other than fill a space in the variable list but it will create a dependency chain between the two ForEach lambdas. The first will have to complete before the second.

[naive ice]

Hmm, I'm not sure I understand - isn't that what I'm already doing by filtering with the existing empty tags? Further, I'm already enforcing order via tagging the Systems that each of those lambdas are running in, e.g.

public class ExpensiveParallelTaskTwoSystem : SystemBase
...```

[robust scaffold]

Actually, it should do that automatically. If you need multiple passes, that implies that the next pass will require information from the first. That dependency is already handled.

Everything should work properly out of the box. No need for tags or ECBs. Just make sure the actual systems are in order with UpdateBefore and UpdateAfter like that.

[naive ice]

Yup, I just had that epiphany as well - I think the bug is elsewhere in my implementation, as removing the tags in the ECB, at the final step of its command chain too, would implicitly assure that the ECB has been run before the next job that relies upon its output.

Thank you for being my rubber duck haha 😄

[jaunty herald]

Is there a way to create temporary NativeCollections inside the Execute method of a job?

Or do I need to assign everything before scheduling?

[coarse turtle]

Use Allocator.Temp

So you can do

void Execute() 
{
  var list = new NativeList<int>(n, Allocator.Temp);
}

[jaunty herald]

I then get this: InvalidOperationException: The UNKNOWN_OBJECT_TYPE VoronoiMerger.regionEnterPoints has not been assigned or constructed. All containers must be valid when scheduling a job.

Or am I not allowed to have them as a field in the job? They are marked private. Do they need to be completely local to the execute method?

[coarse turtle]

Dont have them as private fields, temp containers are generally treated as local containers

[robust scaffold]

It's a miracle. The build of my project worked first try. Literal magic.

[robust scaffold]

And never mind.

I apparently can not use blob assets obtained from a singleton in a ForEach lambda. Fuck. Time to write out the struct version.

Well, at that point, I have no excuse not to use ISystemBase.

[karmic basin]

what do you mean ? You can access a ICD that contains a blobassetreference, from a lambda right ?

[robust scaffold]

Yes, if it's stored as a component on the entity. However, that's a int sized component I particularly need across 5000+ entities so I instead store the reference on a singleton that also manages its disposal in a special system.

So when I try to pass in the reference to the Lambda after obtaining the singleton's data, C# itself complains. Well, off to writing my own manual IJobChunks. Fun.

It's not too hard, just an incredible amount of boilerplate.

Wait, fuck. No. Even this doesnt work. Why unity.

Wait, am I stupid?

I am. I didn't read the error message. I need to pass around the reference, not the blob array itself.

[half jay]

I have main Grid Entity which has thousands of child. So if i want to destroy Grid entity i have two ways :

1. get DynamicBuffer<Child> and destroy all children
2. Before create Child adding it to linked group to parent and no need to care about children later
   which way is better?

[slim nebula]

is that not the same thing?

@half jay

[half jay]

@slim nebula LinkedEntityGroup it is like logic relationship and DynamicBuffer<Child> it transform relationship. Destroy Parent with only Child buffer without LinekdEntityGroup destroy Only parent, children will survive and will have null in their parent component

[mint iron]

Yeah the relationships create/destroy are pretty annoying

[mint iron]

i guess the decision would come down to if you need your childs to be components or if bufferdata is okay.

buffer data would be faster, but you lose the ability to do component only things

[night venture]

Hi. is it possible to have different scenes, each one with their own systems? (maybe that's called multiple worlds?)

[karmic basin]

Yes you can disable auto discovery/update of your systems and add them to a different World

[night venture]

do subscenes share systems?

[karmic basin]

Subscenes are not relevant for systems. If anything, Unity conversion will put them on your default World. But you can convert yourself and add to whichever World. But I don't really know your use case so i hope I'm not off topic

Sorry should be read: will put gameobjects in the subscenes as entities * in your default World

[night venture]

Thanks for clarification @karmic basin.
Youtubing' about ECS, seems Megacity demos use subscenes with low/hight quality versions to improve performance, not loading neither rendering the whole city.
As i'm doing something similar in scale, i was wondering if that's a correct approach.
However, there's a little difference that bugs me out: subscenes seems to be for "rendering" objects, but I'm concerned about "loading" objects from code(using a system)

what i really need is to split my world into several smaller worlds, each one loading their part only when needed...but instead of gameobjects, like subscenes, a huge bunch of entities created by code

Do any of you have any link/ref/doc...to better help me understand how worlds can be loaded/unloaded and so?

[scenic kayak]

Is there continuous collision detection in havoc physics like there is in monobrhavior

[karmic basin]

@night venture I dont think you need multiple Worlds (entity ones) or systems then. Split your game World (gameplay area) into subscenes like Megacity yeah. But again I',m not sure I understand well sorry :p

You would need another Entity WOrld if you wanted to apply different systems to each entity group (think physics vs rendering world, or server vs client world)

If you want the same systems to apply to everything, but just splitted in multiple groups, use subscenes

damn that's not a clearer explanation 😅

[acoustic spire]

Should I dispose Unsafe* members in component when I destroy entity?

[coarse turtle]

generally yes, if you allocate it

[acoustic spire]

so it looks like it's better not to use it in components

[safe lintel]

not disagreeing with this but physics colliders are unsafe arent they? and they dont appear to have any special cleanup associated with them(like system state components to dispose of them), although I havent really delved into looking for this in the physics code

[coarse turtle]

yeah i always wondered how the physics system does that 🤔

[acoustic spire]

Another question.
How is NativeStream supposed to work? Are there any simple examples?

        [Test]
        public void StreamTest()
        {
            using var stream = new NativeStream(1, Allocator.Temp);
            var writer = stream.AsWriter();
            // Getting System.ArgumentException :
            // NativeStream.Writer must be passed by ref once it is in use
            writer.Write(42);
            Assert.AreEqual(1, stream);
            var reader = stream.AsReader();
            Assert.AreEqual(42, reader.Read<int>());
        }

[acoustic spire]

Alright. The correct usage in this single thread case would be:

            using var stream = new NativeStream(1, Allocator.Temp);
            var writer = stream.AsWriter();
            writer.BeginForEachIndex(0);
            writer.Write(42);
            writer.EndForEachIndex();
            Assert.AreEqual(1, stream.Count());
            var reader = stream.AsReader();
            reader.BeginForEachIndex(0);
            Assert.AreEqual(42, reader.Read<int>());
            reader.EndForEachIndex();

You need to specify "thread index" every time

[remote crater]

Day 45ish, still trying to get a standalone to work since I have a finished DOTS/ECS game, but it will only run in the editor. Can someone please help? https://hatebin.com/wbigwfiidj

[robust scaffold]

For one, make sure GameBoardModel.playerEntity and GameBoardModel.entityManager exist and not null. That's 3 variables you must check for null, GameBoardModel object, playerEntity property, and entityManager property. If any three are null, it'll throw that error.

[robust scaffold]

Use the debugging mechanism in your IDE to check during runtime.

[crude sierra]

i'm having trouble with understanding how systems work - I run some parallel code on my OnStartRunning method and it works fine, however, if I copy paste that code into a public void method and run it from another system, it stops working with some errors regarding Call Complete() before ...
this is what i'm trying to run

m_ecb = World.GetOrCreateSystem<EntityCommandBufferSystem>();
        var ecb = m_ecb.CreateCommandBuffer().AsParallelWriter();
        Dependency = Entities
          .WithBurst()
          .WithAll<AttackerComponent>()
          .ForEach((int entityInQueryIndex, Entity e) =>
          {
              ecb.SetComponent(entityInQueryIndex, e, new Translation
              {
                  Value = new float3(450, 0, 450)
              });
          }).ScheduleParallel(Dependency);

        m_ecb.AddJobHandleForProducer(Dependency);

[robust scaffold]

First, you dont need the .WithBurst(), Dependency = and .ScheduleParallel(Dependency). They are all done automatically.

[crude sierra]

ah okay, was just following some examples from the unity ECS sample project

[robust scaffold]

.SetComponent requires that the component already exist on the entity. Make sure the Entity has a Translation component.

Oh, yea, they do a lot of boilerplate so you understand but those are not needed.

Is that the entire code?

[crude sierra]

the entitties have translations when I call this yes

nvalidOperationException: The previously scheduled job EnemyPatternSystem:SpawnInPattern_LambdaJob0 reads from the Unity.Entities.EntityTypeHandle SpawnInPattern_LambdaJob0.safety. You must call JobHandle.Complete() on the job EnemyPatternSystem:SpawnInPattern_LambdaJob0, before you can deallocate the Unity.Entities.EntityTypeHandle safely.

[robust scaffold]

Call complete error typically only happens if you have multiple jobs (Entity.ForEach() and Jobs.WithCode()) one after another.

[remote crater]

For one, make sure GameBoardModel.playerEntity and GameBoardModel.entityManager exist and not null. I already did

There is literally no difference between standalone and editor that I can see in debug statements.

https://hatebin.com/phpchbshdy Gives the same output on both

[robust scaffold]

Alright, you're deleting an entity somewhere. Where is the code for the EnemyPatternSystem?

[crude sierra]

that's the one, the code block is all that system does.

[remote crater]

KornFlaks, like I said, I already made sure all of those exist and are not null. The values are the same in standalone and editor.

[crude sierra]

inside a function called SpawnInPattern

[remote crater]

This is all terribly frustrating, I have a very large and super ambitious game ready to be published, but I can't compile a standalone.

A game I spent about 3500 hours on...

500 of it being DOTS/ECS

[robust scaffold]

Is that function the only thing being called? Because the error message is for code after that job is created / run. What's the rest of the code>

[remote crater]

It crashes there

Because the next Debug.Error log never gets called

https://hatebin.com/wbigwfiidj is literally the last line executed before the crash

I wonder if it has to do with weird package incompatibilities

since I added packages manually and such

Upgraded/downgraded etc etc

[crude sierra]

https://hatebin.com/kwiandoibq
litteraly the entire system is that code block

[robust scaffold]

Is your code on github? If you spent thousands of hours making this, then there are probably a lot of interconnected systems and interactions occurring here.

[robust scaffold]

Where is SpawnInPattern(SpawnPattern pattern) being run? Nothing is wrong with this section of code itself.

[remote crater]

KornFlaks, I can give you the entirety of all the entity stuff if you want, there isn't much, but it'd take me about 10 minutes to format for you. You were asking for code after, and there was nothing executed after. Now you're asking for code before which I can provide. Is this your request?

[crude sierra]

I call it from another system, after a certain job operation is being completed, you think it's related?

[remote crater]

Or perhaps... Would you like me to reduce the project minimalistically to the least amount of code in order to cause the error?

I've stripped projects down for this end before.

[robust scaffold]

Im not good at debugging code that isnt mine. Im sorry but you'll probably need to ask someone else to go through it all with a comb because what it seems like is a race condition in standalone.

[remote crater]

I don't believe it is a race condition

I used a dif tool and compared editor/standalone

[robust scaffold]

Yes. I need that other system.

[remote crater]

All my debug statements come out at the same time.

Well you know what... Lets try a hacky solution

Lets not even access the physics of the entity for a second

[crude sierra]

https://hatebin.com/asftnvuluq
line 37 calls SpawnPattern

[robust scaffold]

Ah, I know the problem now. You're misunderstanding the concept of systems. It is not a "class" where you access and call functions with jobs in them.

[robust scaffold]

The problem here is that the Dependency chain used in the EnemyPatternSystem is not the same as the one used in EnemySpawnerSystem, which results in jobs not scheduling correctly.

[crude sierra]

yes, i thought it might be my understanding of having systems operate in response to something

i was thinking to enable/disable EnemyPatternSystem whenever I want it's code to run

[robust scaffold]

Yes, sorta. Systems operate upon Entities where they get their data from. If you need another system to begin working due to a change in the first system, you create a "flag" / singleton.

You do not manually find the system using World.GetOrCreateSystem and then call the function itself.

Here is what I'll do. Give me a sec to type something out.

[crude sierra]

so I should query a singleton value in OnUpdate?

[robust scaffold]

Also, it's not [BurstCompatible], it's [BurstCompile].

[remote crater]

Nope it can't be a race condition, waited 2 seconds

[robust scaffold]

You first create an empty tag component. This is just a struct that extends IComponentData that has nothing in it like this:

public struct EnemyPatternSystemEnabler : IComponentData {}

[remote crater]

Is there a way to print out an entity's name in Debug.Log? Right now all I get is: printing EntityManager: Unity.Entities.EntityManager
printing Entity: Entity(2:1)

[robust scaffold]

Debug.Log(Entity.Name), so long as the entity has a name set.

[remote crater]

oh caps Name

ty

no,

it gives error

[robust scaffold]

Then in EnemyPatternSystem's OnCreate() function, you would add: RequireSingletonForUpdate<EnemyPatternSystemEnabler>().

[safe lintel]

entity doesnt have a name

[remote crater]

Entity does not contain a definition for 'Name'

Is there some other data I could be viewing?

[safe lintel]

you can use EntityManager to query an entity name but it wont work unless you are in the editor

[remote crater]

It doesn't matter the name, just something better than 2:1

I need something to compare a standalone to editor

[robust scaffold]

Create a component that has a fixedstring32 property. Use that as a name.

[safe lintel]

if you need to debug a specific entity, id suggest you make a single tag, give that tag a name and query for the tags existence

[robust scaffold]

The RequireSingletonForUpdate<>() will make the system only update if that singleton entity exist. Or at least a single entity with that component exists anywhere in that world.

[remote crater]

What is the syntax to query a tags existence from an enity? I know how to set a tag.

[safe lintel]

a tag is just a component without any data

same as a component

[robust scaffold]

Then in EnemyPatternSystem's OnUpdate(), do that section of code setting Translation.

[remote crater]

so playerEntity.getComponent<tag>() ?

[crude sierra]

and lastly, need to add that component to somewhere when i want to execute that code?

[crude sierra]

and then to remove it in the following frame?

[robust scaffold]

Yes, in the original system where you used GetOrCreateSystem, you will instead use the EntityManager to create an entity with a component EnemyPatternSystemEnabler.

EntityManager.CreateEntity(typeof(EnemyPatternSystemEnabler));

In the EnemyPatternSystem, you want to use the EntityManager to delete that entity to prevent it from continually running every frame:

var singleton = GetSingletonEntity<EnemyPatternSystemEnabler>();
EntityManager.DestroyEntity(singleton);

[remote crater]

GameBoardModel.entityManager.GetComponentData<????>(GameBoardModel.playerEntity)); What is the ???? to get the tag data

[crude sierra]

nice, thanks for the explanation - shame it's not in the docs (or at least i couldnt find it)
one more thing - would it be better to just enable and disable a system at a time of need and have the one-time code run in OnStartRunning()?

[remote crater]

nevermind

I think I can just set a value in its movementdata.

[robust scaffold]

You can... technically do that. But it's not intended in an ECS architecture. Systems are not supposed to be referenced and then have their internals modified externally. That creates spaghetti code. Systems are suppose to be as isolated as possible and using Singletons (Single entities) and Entities to communicate between them.

[robust scaffold]

Isolation promotes code modularity. Which makes refactoring and debugging a lot easier.

[pliant pike]

you have to be careful with OnStartRunning(), it can be run more than once in a frame, you can end up with non desirable results with that

[crude sierra]

I see, gonna go with singletons then. thanks for your time and elaborate information!

[robust scaffold]

True. I've had some really strange experiences with OnStartRunning that I just gave up on debugging and made everything work with OnCreate.

[pliant pike]

yeah same

[robust scaffold]

No problem. Good luck. I learned this all trial and error over the past few years so it's not "official" unity DOTS intended design. Although, I'm pretty sure no one knows what unity's intended design is.

[crude sierra]

really? I had the opposite experience

regarding OnCreate

I assume it's also good practice to have data stored in the Singleton rather than iterate over entities to get them (if it's not volatile)?

[robust scaffold]

This was back before an official implementation of FixedStepSimulationGroup. I was trying to make my own fixed step (because unity was lazy and didnt ship it with Entities back then) and OnStartRunning was running multiple times, running once, and not running at all. Couldn't make any sense of it.
OnCreate at least runs once since I dont touch GetOrCreateSystem with a ten foot pole.

[robust scaffold]

Depends on the data. Generally, you want everything distributed between various entities simply because it's a lot easier to use and access with the Entities.ForEach lambdas.

[robust scaffold]

However, if it's something massive like mesh data and largely not unique per entity, you'll use a BlobAsset in a singleton.

[crude sierra]

right, seeing how cheap Entities.ForEach is I guess it makes sense

[crude sierra]

hopefully I won't get to that kind of complications.. for now my meshes are similar and therefore accessed via SharedComponents

[robust scaffold]

Yep. Typically singletons are for universal one off data. Something that you dont need to waste memory copying across all the entities.

[crude sierra]

interestingly enough, using the EntityManager.CreateEntity(typeof(EnemyPatternSystemEnabler)); doesn't add any enttiies to the EntityDebugger - is this intentional?

[robust scaffold]

Are you sure? It should.

[crude sierra]

yeah, even tried replacing with

var e = EntityManager.CreateEntity();
        EntityManager.AddComponent<EnemyPatternSystemEnabler>(e);

[crude sierra]

it's just instead of the line that used to call the other system, line 37 in EnemySpawnerSystem

[robust scaffold]

Make sure you've cleared all the chunk filters.

[robust scaffold]

Both All Entities in the systems list and the All Entities button above filter.

[remote crater]

I found the culprit, my function that overrides convertanddestroy as instructed to be used by a few Youtubers. Basically I'm just trying to get a reference to an Entity that is in the scene. On the editor I get the reference. On the Standalone I do not get the reference: https://www.crystalfighter.com/code/racecconditionconverttoentity.txt

[robust scaffold]

As I mentioned, race condition.

[remote crater]

On the editor, it prints 123 for rotationAccelerationx

On the standalone, it prints 0

[crude sierra]

it's not something with the debugger as well - seeing as the OnUpdate on the now requiring singleton PatternSystem doesn't invoke Update

[remote crater]

Yes, but I have no clue how to solve this. I thought it was due to convert and destroy, but I did convert and stay and it still won't get the 123

[robust scaffold]

Put a Debug.Log("TEST"); before the EntityManager.CreateEntity. Make sure it's actually being run.

[crude sierra]

yes, done that, it's being run

[robust scaffold]

Do you have the EntityManager.DestroyEntity also being used? That will destroy the entity the same frame as the creation and will not show up on the debugger.

[crude sierra]

i moved the CreateEntity to the start of the OnStartRunning and it worked. very weird

but I don't want it there

also, I removed the DestroyEntity from the last line of the OnUpdate from EnemyPatternSystem and it also worked. very weird

[remote crater]

Man, this whole time I was stuck for a month and a half is because Unity couldn't figure out how to add indices to their scene elements in order to get an easy reference to an entity directly in code?

[robust scaffold]

Right, make sure you have these three components: RequireSingletonForUpdate<>() in the OnCreate of the second system, EntityManager.CreateEntity() at the bottom of that OnStartRunning() of the first, and EntityManager.DestroyEntity() at the start of the second system.

[remote crater]

So I guess the question is... Say I have a gameObject in scene that gets converted to an Entity. How do I store a reference to that Entity in a MonoBehavior Singleton?

This should be super super super super easy.

Like setting x=1;

[robust scaffold]

Doesnt really exist. You'll need to create a unique tag struct or a component struct that sets a unique index for that gameobject to entity. Search using GetSingleton() if you use unique tag struct or Entities.ForEach and search for the unique index in a series of components, then output the resulting entity.

[crude sierra]

when you say EntityManager.DestroyEntity() at the start of the second system. you mean the first line of OnUpdate yes?
it appears that indeed the entity somehow gets destroyed before it manages to trigger the system, which is weird because the thing itself that deletes that is the system

[robust scaffold]

Yes, the first line. Just because the entity does not exist does not mean the entire OnUpdate is canceled. That's not possible. If the EntityManager.DestroyEntity is run, the whole update is run.

[crude sierra]

added debug logs, made sure it was run once. but the parallel jobs did not complete ( the targets didnt move to their location)

could it be the destruction of the entity terminates jobs in progress?

[robust scaffold]

Yes. Structural changes like CreateEntity and DestroyEntity result in all dependency completions. Try CompleteDependency() after the parallel job? If that doesnt work, try .WithoutBurst() of the parallel job then add Debug.Log() to check if the Entities.ForEach() is actually running.

[remote crater]

Wait, Korn, how does it not exist?

Now, this is something that should not even be remotely difficult to do. THIS SHOULD BE SUPER SUPER SUPER SIMPLE, but it's not! UNITY DEVS should merely assign every scene object a unique index. Then in your code, on your monobehavior public ENITY variables, you should be able to just drag and drop the game object to be converted into the variable slot just like traditional unity. During the conversion, it matches the index of the gameObject to slot it in the proper entity variable. This should be super easy to understand, super easy for UNITY DEVS to code, but what we have now is a failure to communicate.

[robust scaffold]

DOTS inspector support is barren at best, non-existent in reality. There is no drag and drop. You will have to code out finding the reference to GO -> Entity in a system after initialization.

[remote crater]

I know. I'm just posting in case a dev sees.

Cuz the solution is brain dead simple.

So my question is

Exactly what code gets the reference?

Like where in my code can I find that reference, anywhere?

Maybe I search the

Ohyeah

I can search the EntityManager

And set one variable

I might be good to go.

Thanks KornFlaks bro

[pliant pike]

the best thing is to add a tag to the converted entity

[remote crater]

I did add a tag

however, I can't access this tag

[pliant pike]

weird

[remote crater]

GameBoardModel.entityManager.GetComponentData<???????>().rotationAccelerationx

[crude sierra]

Okay, done that, the entities.foreach has no iterations to it for some reason

[remote crater]

I don't know the syntax to get GetComponent of a tag

I should be good to go tho

[robust scaffold]

Use [GenerateAuthoringComponent] then set a unique random string or index for that game object. In a regular system, use a Entities.ForEach() to search for that unique string / index.

[remote crater]

yah yeah yeah Korn, thats what I was saying

I know where to go now. I just had some code from Youtube that worked, but doesn't now in standalone, but works in editor.

freaky stuff

[robust scaffold]

Ah, make sure the entities all have a AttackerComponent. Also, it's better to have a Translation component originally on the entity and not set it via ECB in a job. That's wildly inefficient.

[pliant pike]

you do something like Entitties.Withall<...TagComponent> or WithAny

[remote crater]

Almost as bad as when I got my first pentium and my MMO I was making no longer worked...

TY Calabi, good to broaden my horizons, never had the need to use tags before.

Good to learn new stuff

[pliant pike]

no prob, tags don't contain any data on there own so you have to get other data with them

[remote crater]

Until I realized the computer was wrong because of Pentium floating point division rounding errors

[crude sierra]

the parallel job in the other system instantiates prefabs that already have AttackerComponent with them. for some reason there's a race condition here even though I call Complete() on the job that instantiates those entities

[robust scaffold]

Ideally, you never need to touch ECBs in general. My experience with them (admittedly a year ago) told me to avoid using them at all. ECBs are so sensitive to specific ways of coding and have the most illusive bugs. Personally, I would scrap all the ECBs then use EntityManager in a regular C# foreach loop and set them that way.

[crude sierra]

nevermind, there's no race condition here

[crude sierra]

something else is up

[robust scaffold]

I have an initialization function that just creates entities with all possible components already attached. No adding or removing components during runtime.

[crude sierra]

using hybrid ECS here, got a prefab attached to the component it's iterating over

could something internally be delaying adding the components?

[robust scaffold]

Ah. Also, if you're using SetComponent, why not just set the component directly using:

Entities
.WithAll<AttackerComponent>()
.ForEach((ref Translation translation) =>
{
  translation = new Translation(100, 100, 100); // Or whatever debug position.
}.ScheduleParallel();```

[crude sierra]

yes, will change that

[crude sierra]

added more logs, and to my surprise, the first frame (the triggered one) does not have any iterations to it
BUT the second frame already detects entities with AttackerComponent

there's a one frame delay for some reason

I could do a coroutine that skips a frame, i guess

or set a flag that gets consumes in the following update invocation

[pliant pike]

is that right when the program starts?

[crude sierra]

yes

the whole loop is on OnStartRunning()

[pliant pike]

yeah I've had similar weird behaviour when trying to run things immediately

[crude sierra]

unless theres a super efficient way to check if an entity with a non singleton component exists in the world? will GetSingletonEntity do?

[pliant pike]

I've got around it by running things a few frames later or just having buttons start things

with a non singleton entity wouldn't you use an EntityQuery otherwise it would just not work or come up with an error

[crude sierra]

can't find any references regarding using entityqueries in that manner

[pliant pike]

I'm not sure what you mean exactly, by "non singleton component" do you mean more than one exists?

[crude sierra]

yes

[pliant pike]

yeah then you would use an EntityQuery or Entities.Foreach

[robust scaffold]

GetSingleton() will throw an error if more than one entity exists that has that singleton component.

[crude sierra]

basically I need to check if any entity in the world has that component, looking for a slim solution rather than using ECB again hehe

[pliant pike]

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

that page should show you how

[robust scaffold]

GetEntityQuery().IsEmpty. Returns true if that no entities exist with that set of components. Returns false if there is at least one.

[crude sierra]

yes, i've read that. entity queries are basically a nicer way of doing
Entities.ForEach with parameters

[crude sierra]

oh nice that could do

[pliant pike]

there's also CalculateEntityCount(), I think its called that

[crude sierra]

however, thinking into the future that might cause me bugs

so i have to skip that frame anyways

[robust scaffold]

HybridRenderer is such a mess. Thats why I just ignore converting game objects to entities and manually communicate transform changes between GOs and DOTS.

[crude sierra]

yeah but the inspector needs to play a part otherwise things are too hard to change

[pliant pike]

how do you go about doing that exactly @robust scaffold 🤔

[robust scaffold]

Hardcode your way to victory. My IDE is my inspector. What can possibly go wrong.

[pliant pike]

I've thought about trying that

[robust scaffold]

Make a component with a float3 property called Position. Use IParallelForTransforms and set the transform position value using an array.

[crude sierra]

btw, do I also need to write my own delay systems? I see theres no support for coroutines in the main thread loop of systems

[robust scaffold]

That kinda works. Right now, my DOTS is purely simulation. No moving game objects, just displaying numbers on the UI so I dont worry about that.

[pliant pike]

interesting thanks

[robust scaffold]

You cant really delay. I guess you can skip one frame using this:

public class System : SystemBase
{
  private int Counter;
  public override void OnCreate()
  {
    RequireSingletonForUpdate<SystemEnabler>();
  }
  public override void OnUpdate()
  {
    if (Counter++ == 0)
      return;
    Counter = 0;
    EntityManager.DestroyEntity(GetSingletonEntity<SystemEnabler>());
  }
}```
There, skips one frame.

[crude sierra]

yeah thought so

horrible 🙂

[robust scaffold]

ehhh, yea

Real sad I typed that system out by memory. I really need to stop doing DOTS so much.

[crude sierra]

works now, thanks a bunch @robust scaffold

and @pliant pike too!

[robust scaffold]

Soon, you'll get to the point where you can grab a sheet of paper and write out functional SystemBase classes. Maybe my CS professors were right. We do write code on paper.

[crude sierra]

every day we stray further from the goal of becoming game designers.

[hollow sorrel]

@karmic basin buddy?

[karmic basin]

sorry that's my cat

[hollow sorrel]

lmao

[karmic basin]

deleting all that

[agile dome]

Protip: Shift displays the delete button on the message

[safe lintel]

I wish I didnt miss that 🙀

[light mason]

Wondering if someone could help me out

In building a simple cube in ECS and Hybrid Renderer 2 for oculus quest 2

Everything is working in editor but the entities are not rendering on my quest

Any ideas ?

In building with Android-build build configuration

[robust scaffold]

Using the platforms package? Check your player log in the AppData folder.

[light mason]

@robust scaffold can you run me thought that

I’m running com.platform.unity.android

[robust scaffold]

That seems correct. I'm on my bed so I cant really screenshot the process. Make sure you're using the build asset, not the traditional build button in the top left.

The build asset will have you building the project via inspector window, not a popup.

If you are doing that, check the logs. Google Unity Player Log Location to find the path. I cant recall it from the top of my head. Read it, see where the error is.

Debug it and fix it. Welcome to build debugging, where pain not optional but mandatory. Consider also regularly building your project to prevent the debugging process from being too painful.

[light mason]

I’m running it on the quest 2 , simple ECS cube

I can see console now

Failed to load native plugins: Un

[gusty comet]

hello

seems copying MB position to entity position (rotation too) every frame is not very effective?

entities move smoothly

object with copied pos is shaking

its hard to explain

the shaking is only visible if you are child of that object, eg if you parent camera to it

[frosty siren]

If i use static function in bursted job will function be bursted too, or should i add [BurstCompile] attr?

[mint iron]

it will be bursted too, only the entry point needs the attr

[night venture]

text file contains lines "type1", "type2"...is reflection the only (proper) way to attach "type1" component to entities according to file ?

[karmic basin]

You're not supposed to do so. The GO/Entity workflow at runtime is intended to be single-way from Entity to companion GO (at authoring time it's the opposite).

But I think it's still achievable what you're trying to do. You probably can hack your way if you manage to update after of before the ECS Transforms systems

But I never tried 🤷‍♂️

[karmic basin]

or maybe it's only a camera update order thing based on what you say here

[gusty comet]

ah it was unrelated to dots honestly

position updating will always break at higher speeds unless u use rb and interpolation

[karmic basin]

yeah you def need to smooth, interpolate or extrapolate or whatever :p

unless you have a big enough framerate

[gusty comet]

no way even at 60 fps it will break

if the speed is too high

without rb

but yeah then i added RB and in return ive got some parrenting problems where before there were none

[karmic basin]

gotcha, you'll need a huge framerate for it to work. As a side note, using transform pos + rb forces is even worse, the two would compete.

the rb is kinematic ?

sorry I'm just asking questions out of curiosity 😛

[robust scaffold]

Every morning, I wake up and check the DOTS forum for updates and a changelog for 0.18. Every morning I am disappointed.

[light mason]

@robust scaffold I check the compatibility forum post every hour

[gusty comet]

i dont

[acoustic spire]

Any ideas how to make it simpler using Unity.Mathematics functions? E.g. to avoid ifs

var buttonPos = float2(...);
var pos = float3(0);
if (r.Normal.x != 0) pos.yz = buttonPos;
else if (r.Normal.y != 0) pos.xz = buttonPos;
else if (r.Normal.z != 0) pos.xy = buttonPos;

[robust scaffold]

You can use a switch statement. I cant think of an algebraic function that would do something like that.

[acoustic spire]

I'm afraid a switch would be even more cumbersome.

[north bay]

You can use two for loops but that's even more code

[night venture]

text file contains key="type1", key="type2"...is reflection the only (proper) way to attach "type1" icomponent to entities according to file ?

[robust scaffold]

Reflection? If it's a text file with strings, just use a switch statement matching the string.

[night venture]

tying to avoid that...hence the reflection

i don't know how that text->switch->class is called, but probably "dead cat"

[robust scaffold]

I dont see how you can use reflection. That typically implies trying to access the internals of an externally provided class within the code. Like how I use reflection to access the int RGBA value of Color32 because Unity is evil and doesnt make that public. If you're trying to deserialize a text file into entities, that's not reflection. That's just a bunch of switch statements.

switch(keyText)
{
  case "type1":
    EntityManager.AddComponent(entity, typeof(Type1));
    break;
}```

[night venture]

sure, sure...but that was I was trying to avoid

[crude sierra]

do you guys recommend HybridRendererV2 or is it too much headache? using V1 atm but want lit shaders..

[night venture]

ill recommend unity LTS...so v1

[robust scaffold]

I dont think there's any other possible way to do this, unless you want to rip open the EntityManager and access the internals using reflection just to make serializing into one line rather than a switch statement. At that point, I would clone the Entities package and manually make all the components public.

[crude sierra]

which means I have to write my own lit shaders if I want them, right?

[night venture]

did someone say switch? xD

[robust scaffold]

I dont recommend HybridRenderer at all. If you must use it, V2 is the way to go. V1 is no longer being developed and straight up can not do lit shaders. It can not access the Unity lighting engine. So if you want to write your own lighting engine, go for V1.

[night venture]

for that, ill go v2, but at this moment, unity editor is somehow "between" worlds...

[crude sierra]

wdym not use it at all? isnt it a must part of DOTS?

when I installed entities package, it came with it automatically

[robust scaffold]

Yesssss, it technically is. But you can use Entities without HybridRenderer. You can not use HybridRenderer without Entities.
There are 3 levels of DOTS.
The base structure: Burst and Job System.
The implementation: Entities (the package) and Mathematics.
The abstraction: Hybrid Renderer and DOTS Netcode.
Abstraction is a buggy, inefficient, and horrible mess. I just stop at the implementation and do the abstraction myself.

[crude sierra]

what does "doing the abstraction yourself" include?

[robust scaffold]

That is my package list. Notice the lack of Hybrid Renderer and an override of Burst package (to get the latest goodies).

[north bay]

Depends, adding the component can be done without reflection/modifying the source code. But if you want to give the component a value you have to expose the method for setting a component by it's typeindex or write a reflection extension for it.

[robust scaffold]

Since I dont use that many visual entities (entities that need to be rendered), I instead just use IJobParallelForTransform to communicate any translation (positional and rotational) changes via a single job. Notice how HybridRenderer requires 5 to 8 ms of overhead not even rendering anything. With IJobParallelForTransform and regular old GameObjects, my game is already significantly faster rendering just a cube. And I have all the HDRP features without worry of HybridRenderer compatibility.

[robust scaffold]

The netcode, ehhh, I dont use netcode so I can miss out. Also, there is a third abstraction: DOTS Physics. I also dont use entity physics or anything that needs collisions so I just use regular Physics for my raycasts.

[crude sierra]

what would you recommend if my game needs both lit shaders and 10-20k moving entities?

[robust scaffold]

10,000 moving entities? Yea, hybrid renderer V2. Use IJobParallelForTransform if you're using a few to a dozen entities.

[crude sierra]

okay.. gonna have to struggle with the mess. just enabled it and already getting swamped with errors

[robust scaffold]

Yea, you might want to start a new project with HybridRendererV2 enabled from the start. Then selectively transfer over script files and materials to make sure everything works.

[crude sierra]

thats crazy. really?

[robust scaffold]

Eh, unless you want to start digging through the error log. Something major like enabling V2 is going to be an absolute pain to debug and fix starting from the top.

[night venture]

atm im only interested in setting compA when (key=)value is "compA". using a switch seems a crappy idea, but also the most straightforward to achieve that.

[robust scaffold]

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/648160/how-do-i-create-an-instance-from-a-string-in-c

That's for a class but I doubt it'll be much different from a struct. That for a pre-existing class defined in the code. If you're trying to make a struct from a string using c#, consider instead researching into compilers.

[night venture]

interesting...

[robust scaffold]

A warning though. It may have some unexplained or unexpected behavior between the Editor and Build. Reflection is very sensitive to the environment it is being used in and who knows what may be changed behind the scenes during the build process. If you need to use Reflection, build and test constantly to ensure that everything is working properly.

[robust scaffold]

And you can not use IL2CPP with reflection. If I remember correctly, the compiler will strip the "unused" classes/structs even if it's referenced in the reflection code. Well, you can manually include them using assembly (not the language, the unity asset) tricks.

[night venture]

I don't understand the implications of this statement

[robust scaffold]

Right, if you have no clue what I'm talking about, use the switch statement.

[night venture]

xd

[crude sierra]

ArgumentOutOfRangeException: sub array range 0-715 is outside the range of the native array 0-714
Parameter name: length
Unity.Collections.NativeArray`1[T].CheckGetSubArrayArguments (System.Int32 start, System.Int32 length) (at <10564ed154d647e194bef4aef8878649>:0)
Unity.Collections.NativeArray`1[T].GetSubArray (System.Int32 start, System.Int32 length) (at <10564ed154d647e194bef4aef8878649>:0)
Unity.Rendering.HybridRendererSystem.UpdateAllBatches (Unity.Jobs.JobHandle inputDependencies) (at 

What are you doing, step hybridrenderer?!

[robust scaffold]

RIP, something internal broke.

[crude sierra]

what a mess

has nothing to do with my own code at all, just attaching a mesh renderer to an object fucks everything

[karmic basin]

Isn't it easier to multiply with the normal ?

[robust scaffold]

You can't multiply a float3 by a float2.

[acoustic spire]

Do you mean the * operation? like float3(buttonPos, 1) * r.Normal?

It doesn't seem to be the correct result

[robust scaffold]

The code requires that the float2 buttonPos be placed in the two values of a float3 that is not masked by the value of r.Normal prioritized by XYZ order.

[karmic basin]

was thinking of math.mul() but yeah there's a f3 on one side and a f2 on the other hehe

[robust scaffold]

I can not think of a series of operations that can result in that outcome, let alone the final XYZ priority order.

[karmic basin]

or surely there's a quaternion or Quaternion helper if you'rel ucky

maybe ?

[acoustic spire]

basically, the point is to "convert" coords of the rect from 2d to 3d so that its surface will be perpendicular to normal

[robust scaffold]

Nah, the first hurdle is somehow masking the float3 and filling two values with a float2. var mask = -(1-r.Normal) requiring that math.Length2(r.Normal) == 1. Then converting the float2 to float3 somehow, then you can multiply var outcome = mask * float3ButtonPos

Without using an if statement. I think it's impossible.

[karmic basin]

rotations stuff melt my brain. gonna go eat see ya

[robust scaffold]

It ain't rotations. It's just basic linear algebra. You get real used to this exotic stuff when you try inlining everything in shaders.

[raven grail]

So I have a SystemGroup that I need to update after (not in) SimulationSystemGroup, but [UpdateAfter] doesn't really work since Unity will complain that it's not in the same group. [UpdateInGroup(typeof(Update))] doesn't work either since it'll error, saying Update's not derived from ComponentSystem. What's the syntax for putting a system in the root of Update?

[robust scaffold]

Have you tried [UpdateInGroup(typeof(LateSimulationSystemGroup))]? Check the EntityDebugger for the full list of systems and system groups you can use.

[robust scaffold]

DOTS is decoupled from the traditional Mono/GameObject update loop, so you cant use Update.

[raven grail]

That's not what I need

[robust scaffold]

There is PresentationSystemGroup, for after rendering.

[raven grail]

I need my systems to run after EndSimulationEntityCommandBufferSystem

I need it to run before rendering too

[robust scaffold]

Three options, use PresentationSystemGroup, [UpdateAfter(typeof(EndSimulationEntityCommandBufferSystem))] although I'm pretty sure that will throw an error, or make your own systemgroup and add it to the list.

[raven grail]

[UpdateAfter(typeof(EndSimulationEntityCommandBufferSystem))] does nothing, not even give an error. Making my own SystemGroup is exactly what I'm trying to do

[robust scaffold]

Ah, you'll need to modify ICustomBootstrap somehow. I dont have much experience with it though so google is your best friend.

[raven grail]

But I don't know how to order it between SimulationSystemGroup and PresentationSystemGroup since the normal syntax doesn't work

[robust scaffold]

Normal syntax for [UpdateInGroup] and such are for already existing system groups. ICustomBootstrap is where you order the system groups. You will need to manually override this command: DefaultWorldInitialization.AddSystemsToRootLevelSystemGroups(world, systems);

[acoustic spire]

This seem to work if consider that normal is axis-aligned

var temp = float3(0, button.Pos);
var n = abs(r.Normal);
var pos = n.x * temp.xyz;
pos += n.y * temp.yxz;
pos += n.z * temp.yzx;

[robust scaffold]

Look inside this file: DefaultWorldInitialization.cs. Surprisingly, it doesnt look that complex.

private static void AddSystemToRootLevelSystemGroupsInternal(World world, IEnumerable<Type> systemTypesOrig, int managedTypesCountOrig)
{
    var initializationSystemGroup = world.GetOrCreateSystem<InitializationSystemGroup>();
    var simulationSystemGroup = world.GetOrCreateSystem<SimulationSystemGroup>();
    var presentationSystemGroup = world.GetOrCreateSystem<PresentationSystemGroup>();
    var managedTypes = new List<Type>();
    var unmanagedTypes = new List<Type>();
    foreach (var stype in systemTypesOrig)
    {
        if (typeof(ComponentSystemBase).IsAssignableFrom(stype))
            managedTypes.Add(stype);
        else if (typeof(ISystemBase).IsAssignableFrom(stype))
            unmanagedTypes.Add(stype);
        else
            throw new InvalidOperationException("Bad type");
    }
    var systems = world.GetOrCreateSystemsAndLogException(managedTypes, managedTypes.Count);```

[robust scaffold]

There ya go, that works. I bow to your shader abilities as it is beyond mine. I did not consider reordering the values. Although, it might be simplified with a multiplication.

[acoustic spire]

how?

[robust scaffold]

var temp = float3(0, button.Pos);
var n = abs(r.Normal);
var options = new float3x3(temp.xyz, temp.yxz, temp.yzx);
pos = math.mul(n, options);```

[raven grail]

So the solution would be to implement ICustomBootstrap and copy-paste the default world generation? That seems like pretty bad design

[acoustic spire]

hmm, it looks like you'd need to pass components in different order to the matrix. Just tested it and got a mess. Good idea, anyway, ty

[robust scaffold]

Welcome to DOTS. It is your first time here?

[robust scaffold]

Hrm, I may be misunderstanding how matrix multiplication works.

[robust scaffold]

Try pos = math.mul(options, n);. The order may be wrong.

[acoustic spire]

Yes, it works!
So the final solution is beautiful

var temp = float3(0, button.Pos);
var options = float3x3(temp.xyz, temp.yxz, temp.yzx);
var pos = mul(options, abs(r.Normal));

[night venture]

I'm having issues (low FPS) loading a quite large amount of entities (100k) and after trying a few approaches none of them seems to fit my needs.
So far, I have a nativehashmap<position,entity>. do you know if there's a efficient/fast way to get entities within a radius without needing to iterate through them?
Setting a Colliders/physics could work, but I dont know if putting so many entities would cause issues...

[karmic basin]

@raven grail @robust scaffold You shouldnt have to override ICustomBootstrap to add system groups. They are just convenience systems with a name and preferably an empty update

[karmic basin]

I feel that 100k is a lot. Did you try some spatial partitioning algorithm ?

[night venture]

in fact is what im trying to do

ie: draw only closer

i could iterate throught the map and check math.distance

or use sphere collider

...or... ?

[night venture]

-cough cough-

[mint iron]

what do you mean by 'loading' them?

[night venture]

putting into world, creating entities, instantiating meshes...

[mint iron]

you need to do everything in bulk, like preallocate array of entities and instantiate them all at once etc, its hard to say whats wrong without seeing your code

[night venture]

imho nothing is wrong, just putting tooo many entities on scene(100k)

so i probably need something like LOD

and ask for ideas:

iterating+math.distance

sphere collider

...

[karmic basin]

iterating what ? 100k items ? too heavy

collider okay, but this means you already have 100k entities in your scene in order to imply the physics system 🤔

[night venture]

to clarify: im loading a whole city map

every road, building, traffic light...

[karmic basin]

iterating would be okay if you had a smart way to parse based on index

[night venture]

im using float3 position as the key for the entities hashmap

dont know if that could help

[karmic basin]

which is what spatial partitionning is. The gist of it is a 3d grid. Every entity register to a cell, you query your current cell + neighbors

[night venture]

so, dividing city in a grid, loading some of them...and when camera goes far, load more objects, but with low-poly scene?

[karmic basin]

you can study the boids demo, it could give you ideas

[night venture]

link, please?

[karmic basin]

looks a lot like megacity demo

[night venture]

but megacity demo is not "real scale" xD

[karmic basin]

What do you mean by real scale ? It's flying car scale

[night venture]

well...think in london scale xD

[karmic basin]

https://github.com/Unity-Technologies/EntityComponentSystemSamples/tree/master/ECSSamples/Assets/Advanced/Boids

[night venture]

thx

[karmic basin]

that's huge, can't even picture it

are you on foot or flying above ?

don't need to have everything loaded ? unload as you move away

[night venture]

"god vision" mode

[karmic basin]

erf

very low res then ^^

[night venture]

yep...but the first try was "load all roads", and my CPU started crying

[karmic basin]

if you wanna see cars, roads and traffic lights, surely your camera is not so far from the ground

[night venture]

you can move closer

so, LOD required

probably sphere collider

or splitting into "cubes", rather than grid

[karmic basin]

I would start from megacity rather than boids

[night venture]

yes, sure

im already there

but is quite complex to digest without making little steps xD

[amber flicker]

How many of the 100k do you plan on being dynamic?

[night venture]

100k its only roads. add triffic lights, cars...so at the end, a low percentage

but quite a large amount

[low tangle]

your gonna need to construct the rendering yourself probably and it sounds like your aiming too high, but more power to ya

[night venture]

world entities are being created by instancing a prefab, but i cant select/move/interact with them on editor

whats the expected way to be able to move objects on editor scene...use GO+conversion?

using Handler class?

[low tangle]

conversion

[night venture]

googling show people is coding a system raycasting/colliding to get the entity selected

but that sounds quite ugly

[wary anchor]

What's the appropriate collection type to use for writing a bunch of structs to in one ScheduleParallel(Dependency) foreach to then read in the next ScheduleParallel(Dependency) foreach within the same SystemBase?
It feels like I shouldn't need a separate Job between the two to convert the parallel-written collection into something that can be parallel-read - I'm sure I'm just being dumb!

[wary anchor]

Narrator: he was being dumb, and was later to find .AsDeferredJobArray() 🤦

[half jay]

i have test system like this

public class TestSystemC : SystemBase
{
    protected override void OnUpdate()
    {
        if (HasSingleton<TestTag>()) return;

        var e = EntityManager.CreateEntity();
        EntityManager.AddComponent<TestTag>(e);
        EntityManager.SetName(e,"TestTag");
        Debug.Log("TestTag");
    }
}

and getting strange thing for me. When destroy this "TestTag" entity. This system doesn't execute. Looks like HasSingleton<T> creating something like query filter? Any tips how to avoid this ?

[north bay]

Tag your system with [AlwaysUpdateSystem]

[night venture]

errr...when you destroy the object, has is false, hence return...

[north bay]

Other way around, it returns if it has the singleton, not if it doesn't have it

[amber flicker]

has anyone here tried writing directly to the SkinMatrix components of a converted skinned mesh renderer? (rather than using DOTS animation)

[night venture]

excuse me?
if entity is destroyed and doesnt exist any object with TestTag, hasSingleton is false, and hence it returns

[north bay]

The evaluated condition if no singleton of that component exists is the following if (false) return;

That won't execute the branch body

[night venture]

sorry. too tired to realize i was wrong sooner xD

[north bay]

That happens lol

[robust scaffold]

Martin Gram once again decides to grace us with his presence. Bestowing upon the proletarian masses his wisdom and disappearing into the wind.

Also, does anyone have a blittable version if DateTime?

[safe lintel]

still irks me to be moving to lts when dots is so feature incomplete

[karmic basin]

Maybe work with a timestamp (as a big enough uint)

[robust scaffold]

I just need Year, Month, and Date. So i'm just hardcoding a conversion system using a Ushort, Byte, and Byte respectively. Annoying honestly but eh.

[karmic basin]

that sounds good

[robust scaffold]

public void AddMonth(byte months = 1)
{
    for (var i = 0; i < months; i++)
    {
        if (Month == Months.January)
            Month = Months.February;
        else if (Month == Months.February)
            Month = Months.March;
        else if (Month == Months.March)
            Month = Months.April;
        else if (Month == Months.April)
            Month = Months.May;
        else if (Month == Months.May)
            Month = Months.June;
        else if (Month == Months.June)
            Month = Months.July;
        else if (Month == Months.July)
            Month = Months.August;
        else if (Month == Months.August)
            Month = Months.September;
        else if (Month == Months.September)
            Month = Months.October;
        else if (Month == Months.October)
            Month = Months.November;
        else if (Month == Months.November)
            Month = Months.December;
        else if (Month == Months.December)
            Month = Months.January;
    }
}```

[robust scaffold]

Does it really sound good?

[robust scaffold]

public void AddMonth(byte months = 1)
{
    for (var i = 0; i < months; i++)
    {
        if (Month == Months.January)
            Month = Months.February;
        else if (Month == Months.February)
            Month = Months.March;
        else if (Month == Months.March)
            Month = Months.April;
        else if (Month == Months.April)
            Month = Months.May;
        else if (Month == Months.May)
            Month = Months.June;
        else if (Month == Months.June)
            Month = Months.July;
        else if (Month == Months.July)
            Month = Months.August;
        else if (Month == Months.August)
            Month = Months.September;
        else if (Month == Months.September)
            Month = Months.October;
        else if (Month == Months.October)
            Month = Months.November;
        else if (Month == Months.November)
            Month = Months.December;
        else if (Month == Months.December)
            Month = Months.January;
    }
}```

[karmic basin]

for date operations timestamp would be better yeah

[robust scaffold]

Yeaaaa

[karmic basin]

but hey that works too :p

[robust scaffold]

No it doesnt. That if statement is horrifying.

[karmic basin]

or maybe bit shift

[robust scaffold]

Hrm, 12 bits. Fits in a ushort. Yea, might work.

[robust scaffold]

public ushort Year;
public Months Month;
public byte Date;
public void AddDay(byte days = 1)
{
    Date += days;
    
    if (Date < (byte) Month) 
        return;
    
    Date -= (byte) Month;
}
public enum Months : byte
{
    January   = 31,
    February  = 28,
    March     = 31,
    April     = 30,
    May       = 31,
    June      = 30,
    July      = 31,
    August    = 31,
    September = 30,
    October   = 31,
    November  = 30,
    December  = 31
}```

[robust scaffold]

I'm using the months as both the indicator of actual month and the number of days per month. If I were to convert that to a bit mask, how would I then determine the number of days per month?

[amber flicker]

don't forget leap years 😬

[robust scaffold]

Yea, I gonna pretend that doesnt exist

[karmic basin]

I was thinkig { Jan = 0, Feb = 1, Mar = 2, Apr=4 } and so on

then you bit shift the number of months to add and so on