Baking systems not acting on prefabs loaded via SceneSystem.LoadPrefabAsync

[tropic stream]

Hello!
I'm struggling with loading entity prefabs at runtime with SceneSystem.LoadPrefabAsync. They get loaded correctly and all component added by Bakers are fine, but I noticed that Baking Systems don't run on those entities. If the same entity is manually added to a subscene the Baking Systems work correctly, the issue it's just when the entity is loaded with SceneSystem.LoadPrefabAsync.

So, is there some configuration in the editor or some steps I'm missing with this approach, or this is not expected behavior?

Unity 2022.3.0
Entities 1.0.10

[iron agate]

Baking systems don't run in runtime

everything gets baked beforehand

and if you want to debug baking you need to open subscene (sadly that's the only way) and run playmode

as it will do live conversion, which does run in runtime (but only in editor)

[tropic stream]

The approach I'm following is loading prefabs individually at runtime. I understand that they are supposed to be already baked at the moment of loading, but they are not, they are baked in play mode as I load them. I'm assuming that's not actually runtime but some "editor runtime" that will not occur in a build and will only occur in the editor if a prefab has not been baked and cached yet.

But the thing is, bakers do run, the entity prefab is loaded correctly, it's just the baking systems that don't receive the loaded entities to process.

The baking systems actually run, they just don't detect any of the loaded entities.

[iron agate]

of course they don't detect

every baking is done in isolation to subscene

when you bake prefab

it will get it's own subscene

also worth mentioning that editor baking runs on separate process

(that's why you can't debug it)

[tropic stream]

But even when editing a prefab and the baking process triggers, baking systems still don't detect the entity.

[tropic stream]

That makes sense

[iron agate]

what entity it doesn't detect?

[tropic stream]

The one generated by baking the prefab

[iron agate]

can't say much without code then

[tropic stream]

Gimme a sec

  public partial class TestBakingSystem : SystemBase
  {
   
      protected override void OnUpdate()
      {
          var query1 = new EntityQueryBuilder(Allocator.Temp).
           WithAll<TempMultirenderElement>().
           Build(this);

          UnityEngine.Debug.Log($"TestBakingSystem About to run! \tRends:              {query1.CalculateEntityCount()} ");
      }
    }```

In the case of this system. If I modify the prefab directly, the TestBakingSystem runs, but the entity count of that query is 0.

But If that same prefab gets added to a subscene, it is not 0.

[iron agate]

you mean you modify it in live baking?

if so, live baking is incremental

no idea how it works precisely

and it freqeuently breaks

[tropic stream]

I don't thing modifying the asset triggers Live baking, but it could be. It only triggers the bake process when saving the changes.

[iron agate]

when it comes to prefabs - it does

it should work fine when you load it just normally intially though

does it?

[tropic stream]

No, none of the loaded prefabs work with SceneSystem.LoadPrefabAsync. Or do you mean adding them manually to a subscene?

[iron agate]

nah, I mean just loading them via scene system directly by guid

(EntityPrefabReference)

to be precise

how does Baker look like then?

[tropic stream]

It just adds the TempMultirenderElement buffer, so it can be detected and processed by the baking system.

But the weird thing is the different behaviors between using a subscene and loading the entity via LoadPrefabAsync.

Is there a way to force the baking process on a prefab asset?

[iron agate]

wait

add to query

WithOptions

include prefabs

I always forget about that one lol

[tropic stream]

Oh haha, I feel so dumb

Let me try

No, It still does not work. I was hoping that was the issue :/

[iron agate]

you sure that buffer is on Entity?

[tropic stream]

Yes, If I add the entity to a subscene in the current scene, it works fine

[iron agate]

just in case: try to use EntityManager.GetAllEntities()

and see if it's there

[tropic stream]

Ok

[iron agate]

you can do foreach on them and log SystemAPI.HasComponent

[tropic stream]

None of them have the component. So maybe bakers are not running at the moment of modifying the prefab, but when they are loaded

I'm adding debug.log to baker

[iron agate]

once again - it's incremental, so if none authoring data has changed

baker shouldn't run

I have no idea how it interacts with systems though

but to properly test

you need to make some modification to authoring component

try adding field to it

[tropic stream]

I'm modifying the authoring component, so it should runs the baker, right?

But it's not running

[iron agate]

when you change it it'll trigger rebaking

[tropic stream]

Yeah, it triggers the rebaking, and the baking system runs, but bakers don't so system doesn't do anything

[iron agate]

if your baker doesn't run - that's the explanation 🤷‍♂️

[tropic stream]

But it seems it's not just my bakers that doesn't work, also the unity's ones. The Companion Objects dont work. The Linked Entity Groups are also wrong

[iron agate]

add a field to your authoring

and modify it

this will trigger baking on baker that relies on it

[tropic stream]

That's what I'm doing haha, this is the actual authoring component. Baking gets triggered correctly, but the baker is not doing its job. But as I mentioned, I noticed at least to of the unity's bakers are not working either

Is there a way to check how many and which components an entity has?

From EntityManager?

[iron agate]

live baking is not something easily debugged anyway

[tropic stream]

Yeah, I'm getting real frustrated haha

[iron agate]

why do you even want that

just do what you want in baking

and only debug if something is wrong

[tropic stream]

I want to see if the entity has any component. My bakers are not working when modifying the prefab asset, only in subscene.

I mean, when I modify the asset, baking systems run, but bakers don't

And that's the issue as you mentioned. With no bakers, systems won't do anything.

[iron agate]

don't rely on live baking

just stop play mode

modify prefab

and start again

live baking only works fine when you modify pure data

which also doesn't change during runtime

[tropic stream]

I'm not in play mode, I'm working directly with the asset in the project window

[iron agate]

then it shouldn't bake at all

until you call SceneSystem.LoadPrefabAsync

[tropic stream]

Right, but at that moment also doesnt work

[iron agate]

what doesn't work?

[tropic stream]

My baking system. The initial issue I had is that when loading an entity prefab, my Baking system was not doing anything.

[iron agate]

if you mean that testing system which does nothing but log - then write a normal one that actually does what you want

and see if this one would work

[tropic stream]

No, i dont mean that. That was just to show you, the actual system uses that buffer to do things, but neither the test one or the actual one detect the entity with the buffer component, they just run.

[iron agate]

🤔

[tropic stream]

But the thing is, why they work on an entity baked on a subcene but not with LoadPrefabAsync

[iron agate]

just did a quick repro - all works fine

using Unity.Entities;
using Unity.Entities.Serialization;
using Unity.Scenes;
using UnityEngine;

public class TestAuthoring : MonoBehaviour
{
    public GameObject prefab;

    public class TestAuthoringBaker : Baker<TestAuthoring>
    {
        public override void Bake(TestAuthoring authoring)
        {
            var entity = GetEntity(TransformUsageFlags.Dynamic);
            AddComponent(entity, new TestComponentData { prefab = new(authoring.prefab) });
        }
    }
}

public struct TestComponentData : IComponentData
{
    public EntityPrefabReference prefab;
}


public partial struct TestInstantiateSystem : ISystem
{
    public void OnCreate(ref SystemState state)
    {
        state.RequireForUpdate<TestComponentData>();
    }

    public void OnUpdate(ref SystemState state)
    {
        var prefab = SystemAPI.GetSingleton<TestComponentData>().prefab;
        SceneSystem.LoadPrefabAsync(state.WorldUnmanaged, prefab);
        state.Enabled = false;
    }
}

using Unity.Entities;
using UnityEngine;

public class TestPrefabAuthoring : MonoBehaviour
{
    public class TestPrefabAuthoringBaker : Baker<TestPrefabAuthoring>
    {
        public override void Bake(TestPrefabAuthoring authoring)
        {
            var entity = GetEntity(TransformUsageFlags.Dynamic);
            AddComponent(entity, new TestPrefabComponentData());
        }
    }
}

public struct TestPrefabComponentData : IComponentData { }

[WorldSystemFilter(WorldSystemFilterFlags.BakingSystem)]
public partial struct TestBakingSystem : ISystem
{
    public void OnUpdate(ref SystemState state)
    {
        foreach (var test in SystemAPI.Query<TestPrefabComponentData>()
                     .WithOptions(EntityQueryOptions.IncludePrefab))
        {
            Debug.Log("kekw");
        }
    }
}

with only object in subscene

where

worth mentioning also: there is only one kekw

afterwards it's not rebaked when I run play mode

if I trigger recompile though - it will

[tropic stream]

I just did my same test on a clean project, and it works fine too.

What could my project be doing differently. Same editor and entities and rest of the packages

[iron agate]

to be certain

trigger a recompile

before you do your baking

changes to assembly must be made in assembly which contains that buffer/component

[tropic stream]

Nope, still not working. Well, at least I know my code is not wrong. But I still don't know how to fix it. I saw an error about corrupted EntitiesClient or something like that, I couldn't read it completely because I had already clicked the playmode button. Maybe it's related