Official DOTS: get in touch with the teams behind it!

Hi everyone,

My name is Laurent Gibert, Director of Product Management in charge of DOTS and Multiplayer for the Unity engine. I wanted to address the concerns some of our users have that the work we have accomplished so far with DOTS could be impacted by recent events at Unity.

I’d like to confirm the same teams are still focused on shipping the final version of ECS, with its netcode, graphics, and physics packages, for Unity 2022 LTS. I would like to highlight the amazing contributions of the people who started DOTS originally years ago, some of them are still in our teams, and some have moved on, but the technology is still alive and well! In fact, we are seeing more and more usage and questions, more demand for training, and more projects exploring the possibilities.

We have seen dozens of games already shipping using ECS for Unity on most platforms Unity engine supports and we are excited at the prospect to see more and more ambitious games made with Unity landing on the market, oftentimes thanks to DOTS!

Here is one of the last examples we showcased from Sunblink Entertainment - HEROish (March 2023): CTO Justin Larrabee exposes how their clever use of ECS helped them achieve performance, reduce production risks, and empower designers.

We've invited the team working on DOTS to come say hi in this thread. You'll recognize some of us who are very active on this forum or on our discord server, and some new faces who are usually more shy. Please don't hesitate to say hello!

Laurent

 

Hi folks. I'm Joe Valenzuela, Director on DOTS. I've been running the DOTS engineering team for the last year or so and I wanted to introduce myself.

My background is in the video game industry, where I made games for about 20 years. My first industry job was working at Loki Entertainment, where I helped port Windows games to GNU/Linux. I went from there to Treyarch (mostly before they really made Call of Duty) and then Insomniac (in the PS3 and PS4 era). I've been at Unity for about 3½ years.

I've always been more of an engine programmer than a gameplay programmer - I love a juicy technical puzzle. I'm also a Data Oriented Design (DOD) true believer. That's why I jumped at the chance to join the DOTS team at Unity - using the principles of DOD to allow the thousands of people using Unity to create the games of their dreams? It's very exciting.

The team has been hard at work on our upcoming ECS release for a while now. I'm very much looking forward to seeing it in the hands of all y'all.

 

Hello!

Seán from Physics here. I've been at unity almost 8 years now and have been leading the physics team for nearly 3 years.

I have 24 years experience in the games industry and before Unity I worked on Formula 1 99-04, Destruction Derby Raw, Lego Island 2, Peter Pan 2 PS2, Stolen, Battlefield, Supercars, Ride to Hell, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, SBK, WRC, Mud, Moto GP, Diggs Nightcrawler, Angry Birds, Crackdown 3.

I love turning math into code that can then provide users with the tech they need to create advanced physics simulations for fun and profit. As a former quantum mechanic, as far as I am concerned the sky is not the limit when it comes to physics programming. DOTS will enable us to push that limit.

"Above us, only sky" - John Lennon, Imagine.

 

Hey Folks! I'm Jonathan Mankin, Quality Manager on DOTS. I've been managing the Quality process for DOTS for the past couple of years.

Like most folks on DOTS I got my start working on video games. My first two jobs were at Squaresoft and Blizzard Entertainment. Some of the games I worked on: Chocobo's Mysterious Dungeon, Final Fantasy VIII, Final Fantasy IX, Chrono Cross, Warcraft III, Diablo II, World of Warcaft, Hearthstone and Diablo III.

As Joe said, we are working very hard to get our upcoming ECS packages into your hands. We are super excited when we see what you do with these tools!

 

Hey all!

I'm Christopher Redden, a Staff Engineer working as part of the technical leadership team in DOTS. I've been working in DOTS for over 3 years, and it is a genuinely real passion project for me

I've got 15 years experience and come from the UK games industry originally. I won't list all the games, because it just wouldn't make me look as cool as some of my colleagues above I originally went into the industry as a junior desperate to be a gameplay programmer, but very quickly fell into working on the tech side. In the end, I found it to be incredibly satisfying to build frameworks and utilities to enable gameplay programmers, designers and artists to express their creative vision. This led me to work on in-house engines, and later here at Unity!

I love to hack at home, and personally use Linux in my day to day (not Arch, btw). I constantly bounce between weird useless stuff like writing emulators nobody will use and a variety of hobby game prototypes I'll totally one day finish...maybe.

For me, Entities 1.0 is just the start, and I very much look forward to where the we and the community will be going with Entities in the future.

 

Hey, thanks for the question @Fancisco_Greco. We cannot comment on any individual's situation.

However, I can tell you that after having immensely and positively impacted our DOTS efforts, Mike moved on to other projects within Unity about 10 months ago. @jivalenzuela has been leading our DOTS engineering efforts since then with great success!

 

is there plan to implement dynamic loading baker? Roguelike be in need of that。​

I'm afraid not - runtime conversion is largely incompatible with the data pipeline that we're trying to build that has a clean separation between editor and runtime features. If you have a use-case you feel isn't possible otherwise I'd love to know more.

The only comment I'll make about DOTS and the recent news is that DOTS has been, and is, a high priority for Unity and we're adequately resourced to hit our current plans.

 

DOTS is enough to put any non-DOD engines in shame.​

I certainly think so Although really the proof of this pudding is going to be the ambitious games people make with it.

 

Hi,

I'm Tim and I am also part of the engineering leadership for DOTS.

I've been at Unity for about 7 years and working on DOTS for almost all of that time, since back when we were just a couple of developers building the C# job system and Unity Collections.
I've had my hands in many of the core parts and technical decisions of DOTS, such as rewriting entities to be archetype based, exposing the job system to C#, prototyping of the compiler which later became Burst, and the workflows of using GameObjects and conversion to author content, just to mention a few.

For the last few years I've been leading the effort to make sure multiplayer is a core feature of DOTS, which resulted in Netcode for Entities and also multiple architectural changes to the core of entities to better support multiplayer.

Before joining Unity I was working on Battlefield - primarily focusing on performance / multi-threading, netcode and some rendering - and the Opera web browser where I led one of the core teams making the Presto browser engine.

 

Yes, you can do this. Take a look at this method https://docs.unity3d.com/Packages/c....LoadPrefabAsync.html?q=EntityPrefabReference and EntityPrefabReference. Further docs and samples for this specifically are coming in the final 1.0 release.

 

https://docs.unity3d.com/Packages/c...yPrefabReference.html?q=EntityPrefabReference

If you look at the constructors, it can be constructed with a GameObject (Prefab) or GUID of the Prefab asset. In the final 1.0 release it also has proper inspector support, so that you could have an EntityPrefabReference field on your authoring object and just drag a Prefab onto it in the Inspector.

 

This is still something we will want to get back to, but not before we have progressed enough with filling the gap of a few missing ECS-based systems such as animation, environment, and navigation... Tiny wouldn't be as useful without decent coverage of the various game systems you'll need.

This one has been in the works for a while and is approaching completion. We can't tell you too much about it just yet, but I would expect this to be our next major deliverable. Stay tuned!

 

Hey! I'm Philippe St-Amand. Before I joined the DOTS team last year, I was a Unity user for 14 years (8 of these professionally), and an Asset Store publisher.

I first started playing around with DOTS back in 2018, and I knew right then and there that this was the tech I had always wanted. Since then, I've been busy creating DOTS-powered tools in hopes of making it easier and quicker to build games with this tech, starting with a character controller.

I make it my mission to use my previous experience as a user to provide feedback on common pain points internally, and bring attention to other user feedback as well

 

Hi all,

Andrew Parsons here, I look after the product marketing side of DOTS and ECS. I was previously a developer for 15 years before switching over to roles that are more focused on empowering and enabling other developers to achieve more. I work closely on a daily basis with Laurent, Joe, and others to ensure that the great message around DOTS and ECS is communicated clearly so you all can see how it could help you in your projects.

Laurent has done a great job of highlighting both our technical direction (and I promise - Unity 2022 LTS is literally just around the corner!) and an awesome sampling of some studios already using DOTS to great success.

I've just posted my latest top ten DOTS links on Twitter (https://twitter.com/MrAndyPuppy/status/1656329064242884610), but I'll include it here also.

1. "Harnessing the Power of ECS" - GDC Dev Summit talk.
2. V Rising Creator Spotlight - Twitch livestream recording with V Rising creators, Stunlock Studios.
3. ECS Full Project Tutorial - Turbo Makes Games -
   (and pretty much anything Johnny does!)
4. Official ECS Forums - Get the latest updates directly from the DOTS team (yes, this forum - including here for completeness) https://forum.unity.com/categories/ecs-for-unity.823/
5. Unity Roadmap for 2023 - GDC Dev Summit talk. Includes an overview of DOTS developments.
6. Expanded Scale blog post - Games Focus series. A little older than some on this list, but still useful to show how integral DOTS is to our development path. https://blog.unity.com/engine-platform/games-focus-expanded-scale-for-ambitious-games
7. DOTS Best Practices - Unity Learn. Learn from real world creators' experiences. https://learn.unity.com/course/dots-best-practices
8. Official Unity Discord - Main server link https://discord.gg/unity. DOTS Forum channel https://discord.com/channels/489222168727519232/1062393052863414313. DOTS Dev Blitz Day archive https://discord.com/channels/489222168727519232/1046863767100727376
9. Official Unity Multiplayer Discord - Main server link https://discord.gg/unity-multiplayer-network. Check out the Netcode for Entities category.
10. DOTS and ECS web pages - high level introductions to what this is all about. https://unity.com/dots + https://unity.com/ecs

Feel free to let me and the rest of the team know what you'd like to see and how we can help you leverage ECS in your latest game project.

 

As you've noticed, until recently we haven't been talking broadly about DOTS, including the technical side of things because we wanted to make sure we had a great version of what DOTS is intended to be before doing so.

In the last twelve months, we have intentionally been highlighting different creators and how they're leveraging DOTS in their shipped (and soon-to-be shipped) titles. We had creators on stage with us at GDC last year and this year diving into some of those technical details.

We've also been working closely with some YouTube creators such as Turbo Makes Games, Code Monkey, and Jason Weimann so they have the latest up to date info on DOTS and ECS, including directly meeting with the DOTS team. This has helped create more technical content for you all. And we published the DOTS Best Practices "course" on Unity Learn which is a collation of lessons learned from our engineers working with studios implementing DOTS.

However, always willing to look at more technical content, and we've been having ongoing discussions internally about what will have the best and longest lasting impact.

 

Ayo, Daniel, Software Engineer for Entities here o/

I grew up dreaming about working in the game industry, started programming at age 8. Hooked ever since, tinkering with every piece of tech imaginable. My curiosity is always on, always 'What happens if I poke it there'. I've been a user of Unity since 2012, tinkering away. I grew up on games, my favorites were the Sly games by Sucker Punch, and the Ratchet&Clank games by Insomniac Games. So you could imagine my excitement when I learned that not only did presentations exist by someone from Insomniac. But it also perfectly described some of my frustrations in programming. The infamous 'CppCon 2014: Mike Acton "Data-Oriented Design and C++"'. You can most definitely say that DOD runs in my veins! On that subject, something also running in my veins is JAM!... ... no, not the gooey kind. I love game jams, and making games is my daily hobby. So, let's just say, I'm highly motivated to improve the product

As for what I do. You might know me for such things as IJobEntity, SystemAPI, Systems, the new Analyzers, and more! I also love removing code, as an example, all but one deprecation in the 1.0.0-pre.15 changelog entry were me, so if we deleted something you like, feel free to yell at me! Recently I shifted my focus to Iteration time too, as it's a big player for me - So, if you have a project with iteration time problems, reach out at daniel.andersen@unity3d.com. I would love to do some profiling and discuss your pain points :3

PS: feel free to tag me on the Unity Discord @Dani anytime you run into Entities issues. Just make sure you've looked a little into it first, and to Include how you got there, the more context, the better a solution possible, see https://xyproblem.info/. Though, don't be afraid to ask without, last thing we want is you getting stuck :3

 

Will it have big breaking changes from 1.0.0-pre.65 to final 1.0?​

No. We've improved support so that Rider can flag some dodgy constructions as errors, and have renamed a couple things, but nothing big.

 

Hi everyone, Fabrice here. I’ve been on the DOTS team for over 5 years, working on scene streaming and conversion back when we made Megacity, and generally touching a little bit of everything since then. Before that I was working at Havok, with whom we are partnering for Unity Physics. And before that I was working at various video game studios, and I’ve also been teaching video games programming for a few years. Some of my former students are now working with studios shipping games with DOTS, and some became colleagues at Unity. Small world.

 

Hi everyone!

I'm Daniel from the physics team. I've been working in real-time physics all my professional life and joined the team as senior physics developer about 6 months ago. I studied Computer Science with specialization in Virtual Reality and Computer Graphics before starting to work on a proprietary rigid body dynamics engine used for real-time virtual reality training simulators in 2008 in beautiful Montreal. As part of that engagement, I developed a novel soil simulation method for excavator simulators which was lots of fun and allowed me to collaborate with various local universities here in the city.

Now, I'm focusing full-time on getting you the physics tech you all need to make amazing games!

 

Hello! I’m Amanda and I’m a senior dev on the DOTS Physics team. I’ve been at Unity for about 3 years now, and have been on the Physics team for about 2.5 years of that. Unlike many of my teammates, I have not worked in games prior to my joining Unity. I went to school for physics and earned a Masters degree in observational astrophysics (focusing on galaxy formation and dynamics, if you are curious). I took a bit of a long, wandering path to figure out what to do with a physics degree, and eventually ended up here!

I think physics is pretty awesome and am always curious to figure out how things move, collide and interact. Thus far, I haven’t been very active on this forum, but be assured that I’m busy improving Unity Physics!

 

Greetings everyone,

I'm Barbara, a member of the DOTS Kernel team at Unity. It has been a great journey of 3 years since I joined Unity, and I have been a part of the DOTS team since day one. Interestingly, Unity is my first experience in the game industry, and I am thoroughly enjoying it!

I have always been a curious individual, which led me to pursue three master's degrees in mechanical engineering, robotics, and computer science. Prior to Unity, I worked as a Staff Software Engineer at Qualcomm for over a decade, where I was responsible for designing, developing, and integrating embedded software and firmware for various Qualcomm projects. Additionally, I worked as a Principal Engineer at Microchip Technology, where I focused on planning, developing, coding, and executing pre-silicon and post-silicon validations. I am passionate about ensuring the performance and reliability of software systems.

Currently, my focus is on DOTS memory management. You may have already used the World Update Allocator, which happens to be my work!

 

Hi Everybody, I'm Alex. I've been working in the game industry for... *counts* 20 years now? Everything from AAA console and PC games, solo indie dev, to mobile and WebGL, and now 6 years and counting at Unity. I've been a huge fan of Data Oriented Design since before my time at Unity, and have been working within the DOTS team for about 2 years now improving ECS API usability and performance (EntityQueryBuilder, for example) and improving the native allocation leak detection (available in the 1.0 release).

 

Hello there,
My name is Mathias and I lead the Samples team in the DOTS org. I started my professional career at Unity as a QA making internal samples to test our own technology. I have recently moved to be lead of our samples team for DOTS.

My team have made two samples that have been released publicly so far:

• Megacity (the OG sample project that showed off DOTS was reworked and released last year again)
  
  
• ECS Networked Racing Sample was released early this year. It is a car racing game showcasing netcode, matchmaking, lobby, Vivox voice chat, physics car controller and a vertical slice of a racing game with all the game logic associated with that.
  

We are also preparing to release a new sample for the release of the Entities 1.0 - Megacity Multiplayer. It is a reworked sample of the Megacity project that features multiplayer dogfighting between players with support of up to +64 players. Stay tuned for more news around that soon!