Native Container IComponentData baking support

[sick pollen]

From my testing, looks like pre.15 release still can't write authoring monobehavior to bake IComponentData that contains native containers like NativeList, NativeArray and etc. into subscene. Can official make it support in next or future release?

[karmic magnet]

Doubt this will be supported ever tbh. Use Dynamic buffers

[sick pollen]

I already use dynamic buffer and at the same time I also need to use native container IComponentData. Currently with this limitation, it makes things become complicated to setup and also introduce structural changes

[karmic magnet]

that is only runtime

and it will be non-trivial to make it otherwise

since native collection is just a pointer to unmanaged heap

technically

NativeCollections are not even meant to be stored on ICD

that breaks safety system

[sick pollen]

I know. Just want to further simplify the code.

[karmic magnet]

just use Dynamic buffers then, it's by far the easiest solution with SystemAPI

[sick pollen]

I believe it should be the correct way to use it. If not how u share native container easily across multiple systems?

[karmic magnet]

you share buffers

it's pretty much the same thing, just managed by entities system

and is tied to lifetime of entity in a chunk

[sick pollen]

I need to share key and multiple values structure like NativeMultiHashMap. Simple Array/List structure like dynamic buffer is not enough for me.

[karmic magnet]

then you should probably be fine making it in runtime

similiar to PhysicsWorld

[acoustic hornet]

there's always Unsafe* versions of the containers, but you'll have to manage their lifecycle agressively, preferably with an ICleanupComponent

[warm heath]

are DynamicBuffers any slower than UnsafeList?

[karmic magnet]

Same thing

Except maybe if your dynamic buffer is stored in chunk

In which case it's faster

[acoustic hornet]

if your DynamicBuffer would cause chunk fragmentation, you can set the capacity to 0 with the [InternalBufferCapacity] and it'll be stored outside the chunk.

If it's not too big, I'd just go with DynamicBuffer

if the data would be read-only and duplicated between instances, you should probably store it in a blob array.

If it's associated specifically with a system, you could make it either part of a SystemHandle entity, or a Singleton entity.

Alternatively, if you need more complex data structures only associated with a system and only that system writes to them, I'd put them as fields in a system and have them be readonly accessible outside the system via accessors so other systems can read/pass them to jobs.

If you really really need like a non-list native container per-entity, then Unsafe* containers might be an acceptable way to go assuming you're ensuring all lifecycle corner cases are handled correctly.

[warm heath]

i`m using NativeList<T> and it works

[sick pollen]

@fleet ibex I would like to know whether official has any plan to support this feature. It will be really nice that I no longer need to write a init native collection IComponentData system at runtime when I can just bake it.