Other [0.8.3] Latios Framework for ECS megathread

Hi everyone. I'm back.

The recent events over the last two weeks completely disrupted the major 0.8 release and hurt the future growth prospect of the Latios Framework community. We are still figuring out how to recover, move forward, and make the best of things. You can help us out by taking this survey: https://forms.gle/ZkWreKvGmbBciqRC9

If you have any questions or concerns, feel free to PM me.

 

Latios Framework 0.8 is Officially Here
Link​

This is a feature release targeting Entities 1.0.16. Feature releases contain breaking changes. If you would like to upgrade from [0.7.7], please read the Upgrade Guide. Expected changes are minimal this time around, as this release mostly contains new features.

This release is heavily influenced by the collaboration with Sovogal.

Overall Highlights

I had three goals for this release:

1. Add Unity Transforms Compatibility
2. Improve featureset for facilitating gameplay
3. Collaborate with Sovogal

Core Highlights

Scene Blackboard Entity now initializes in a much more predictable manner when combined with Scene Management. There’s also been some additions across various features such as Rng, Smart Blobbers, UnsafeParallelBlockList, and source generators. A new serializable DynamicHashMap type has also been added.

QVVS Transforms Highlights

A Unity Transforms compatibility mode has been added across the entire framework and can be enabled with the LATIOS_TRANSFORMS_UNITY scripting define. Some features related to scaling and stretching are disabled in this mode, but for most users, this just works. The Abstract namespace provides special APIs for libraries that wish to be compatible with both Transform systems (not recommended for normal gameplay code).

For QVVS Transforms, Hierarchy Update Modes allows for greater control of world-space attributes on child entities, often avoiding many frustrations with ECS transform systems.

Lastly GameObjectEntity provides a fast and easy way to connect normal scene GameObjects to subscene entities.

Psyshock Physics Highlights

Psyshock got a new TriMesh collider type! This will automatically be generated for non-convex mesh colliders during baking.

Work has started on contact generation. While the features aren’t available yet, many special cases in distance queries have been fixed as a result of this work.

Myri Audio Highlights

Myri now has a workaround for one of Unity’s bugs. When installing Myri but never playing audio, the backing resources will no longer be created, avoiding an infinite domain reload stall.

Kinemation Highlights

A Mecanim runtime is here! (A little experimental, but still here.) Now you can bake your animator controllers using familiar tools and have Kinemation play the animations for you. You can also choose for some characters to still use the low-level APIs when you need them.

New Module: Calligraphics

Calligraphics is a new module that is all about rendering world-space text with full support for the Entities Graphics workflows. Whether you need damage numbers, name tags, or full dialogue, Calligraphics brings true DOTS performance for your world-space text needs!

What’s Next?

While I myself am just a hobbyist, the Latios Framework community consists of both hobbyists and professionals alike, from solo devs to teams actively using the framework in production.

Over the last two weeks, the Latios Framework Discord has been discussing the FEEasco and considering alternative options beyond Unity. With the corrected policies, the majority have decided to cautiously stay within Unity’s DOTS ecosystem for now. But discussions about alternatives are expected to continue in the Latios Framework Discord.

If you are a Unity employee reading this, we encourage you to directly engage with our community, and incorporate our needs into future plans.

The next two weeks will be a planning phase for 0.9 features. The original plan for 0.9 was to focus on NetCode compatibility and workflows. However, after what has transpired over the last two weeks, this plan has been compromised. I am seeking any and all suggestions for new features for 0.9, as well as collaboration on any project that can be used to battle-test such features.

If you haven’t filled out the previous survey, feel free to do that too.

As always, feel free to discuss here, on GitHub, and on the Discord. Never hesitate to ask questions, report bugs, or showcase your accomplishments with this framework!

Enjoy the new release!

 

Latios Framework 0.8.1 is out!

This is a small bugfix that fixes companion GameObjects for QVVS Transforms.

I'm still planning out 0.9 features and would appreciate any additional inputs.

Enjoy the release!

 

Latios Framework 0.8.2 is out!

This is a small bugfix release for Myri and Kinemation.

Development for 0.9 has started. This development cycle is expected to last a while and will have more breaking changes compared to what 0.8 introduced. However, most changes I've committed to are infrastructural in nature and not part of any big features. The big features are still up in the air. If you would like to collaborate on development for 0.9, please reach out to me.

The main branch of Free Parking will remain on 0.8.x so that everyone has a stable documented environment to experiment in. I may create a prerelease branch for 0.9 if that becomes the place to collaborate on new features. Also, users testing in the same project I develop features within falls within my definition of "collaboration" and is actually the biggest time save for me when developing features. So definitely reach out if that's something you are interested in.

Enjoy the release!

 

Latios Framework 0.8.3 is out!

This is mainly a small bugfix release for Kinemation.

I've also just released 0.9.0-alpha.1. You can find it under the branch prerelease/0.9.0. APIs in alpha versions are subject to change at any time, so don't use it in production unless you are willing to accept the risk and keep up with the changes. With that said, this new alpha brings back basic NetCode support. By basic, I mean that I have Unity sample projects working with LATIOS_TRANSFORMS_UNITY and Kinemation installed doing the rendering.

Normally this is the part where I would discuss some of the remaining features planned for 0.9, but I honestly don't know which features are going to fall into the 0.9 dev cycle next. There's lots of candidates. Feedback and suggestions are very much appreciated, especially with regards to how I can make NetCode support better, as I still don't have a great grasp of NetCode yet.

Enjoy the release!