Official DOTS Guide - tutorials and more

Very impressive, neat and tidy setup, helped to understand the different aspects. Hope there will be more guides on the different windows etc.

Did however have to get through about 5 Unity reloads (build system error, something to do with saving code VS/recompile), and finally out of memory crash (32GB) blackscreened. Oddly I can no longer load the project, it just keeps loading Application.UpdateScene. Probably need a computer restart.

Internal: JobTempAlloc has allocations that are more than the maximum lifespan of 4 frames old - this is not allowed and likely a leak

Internal: deleting an allocation that is older than its permitted lifetime of 4 frames (age = 6)
UnityEngine.GUIUtilityrocessEvent (int,intptr,bool&)

I put this down to the Editor being beta though (b9), or something to do with Burst (1.7.4).

 

Restarted and stable so far, and still impressive. Was hoping to build, is that a no go on IL2CPP atm, or am I missing a setting in Build Configuration?

Assembly-CSharp.cpp(11739):
error C2664: 'float fmodf(float,float)': cannot convert argument 1 from 'RuntimeObject *' to 'float'
error C2660: 'Il2CppCodeGenWriteBarrier': function does not take 1 arguments
error C2664: 'Color_tD001788D726C3A7F1379BEED0260B9591F440C1F Color_HSVToRGB_m1E66966AAB74D56DB4D339B65E60E2AF435C8105_inline(float,float,float,const RuntimeMethod *)': cannot convert argument 1 from 'String_t *' to 'float'

 

https://github.com/Unity-Technologi...ter/DOTS_Guide/intro/intro-jobs.md#allocators

But only listing two.

So far great job! I'll post more as I go through the material.

 

https://github.com/Unity-Technologi.../DOTS_Guide/intro/intro-entities.md#systemapi

Document said SystemAPI can only be used with ISystem or IJobEntity, but package documentation shows that SystemAPI is used in SystemBase.

https://docs.unity3d.com/Packages/com.unity.entities@1.0/manual/systems-systembase.html

Code (CSharp):

1. [RequireMatchingQueriesForUpdate]
2. public partial class ECSSystem : SystemBase
3. {
4.     protected override void OnUpdate()
5.     {
6.         // Local variable captured in ForEach
7.         float dT = SystemAPI.Time.DeltaTime;
8.  
9.         Entities
10.             .WithName("Update_Displacement")
11.             .ForEach(
12.                 (ref Position position, in Velocity velocity) =>
13.                 {
14.                     position = new Position()
15.                     {
16.                         Value = position.Value + velocity.Value * dT
17.                     };
18.                 }
19.             )
20.             .ScheduleParallel();
21.     }
22. }
23.  
24.  

What is correct? can I use SystemAPI on both SystemBase and ISystem? or ISystem only?

 

I've tried a normal build (now using Smaller Builds) also using a build configuration which doesn't have a choice. Furthest I get is, cannot find mspdcore.dll. When I updated to VS2022 I deleted VS2019 not sure if that has anything to do with it. I'll try adding some more build tools in VS feel that something is missing as unable to find manually.

 

Finding the material really useful to 'get my head round' DOTS and am enjoying the process. The organisation of scripts into different DOTS directories by concepts is helpful. The step by step, illustrate one concept at a time approach works for me, as usually I drown in detail. I am using this tutorial to establish my workflow for creating projects with DOTS, so a template for the 'correct' way of creating and organising a DOTS project would be useful.

 

Fantastic job with the guide, especially the example of the ecs tutorial was a very nice and good way to showcase ecs.

Also great to have it hosted on GitHub as it works really well on all devices to look at the documentation.

I’m hoping for more guides in a similar style for the other packages and more advanced topics.

Keep up the great work!

 

The guide is great, excellent and clear way to learn about the fundamental concepts.

What is really needed, and I'm sure you know this, is a series to walk through the practical steps of integrating these concepts into a game. Roll-a-ball but for DOTS, or something. The tech is not settled so I get that this release cycle is aimed for established devs who presumably can figure out that stuff on their own. But the true herald of the DOTS era will be when we can see and follow along with best-practice implementation to create a functional DOTS game.

The guide is great though!

 

I think is important to have guides and tutorial around it on full release so that users who might actively promote it can more easily get to love it and make it popular. Maybe also some basic useable templates to start people off. I like the idea of visual scripting and high performance which tend to be opposite ends of the spectrum.

 

There is a slight ambiguity in:
Modify the contents of the file named "TurretShootingSystem.cs" in the folder "Scripts/Systems" as follows:

+// Requiring the Shooting tag component effectively prevents this job from running
+// for the tanks which are in the safe zone.
+[WithAll(typeof(Shooting))]
[BurstCompile]

Being skilled in the art of getting things slightly wrong, I inserted the modification before the first instance of [BurstCompile]. Of course the tanks were not inhibited from shooting in the safe zone. It took me two iterations of creating the project to realize that what is meant (when I read the instructions carefully) is to insert the code before the second instance of [BurstCompile]. But thanks for this excellent example - I am enjoying learning ECS.

 

Are you talking about step 4 of this part?
I wouldn't exactly say there's ambiguity here, the context provided below that part of code - the whole TurretShoot job, actually - should be sufficient. It's totally understandable to make mistakes like this when you're over-eager (that's usually a good state of mind).

 

I agree and perhaps it is the best way to learn. However, if some of the original context before [BurstCompile] had been provided, then there would have been no ambiguity, and my 'digital correlator' would have operated correctly, even when operating at zero lines of look-ahead awareness.

 

Is DOTS and ECS supported in WebGL platform?

 

@Fabrice_Lete
Can you add a section using dynamic buffer ?
Something like I do with my DOTS training series where entities follow a path defined by a dynamic buffer ?

 

Hi.

You asked for feedback. I'm still reading it through and testing. While it's dense (and the initial setup not as smooth as I wished, but ti's more my fault and configuration from unity hub fault), the whole is very digest and informative.

I'm currently doing the ecs tutorial : https://github.com/Unity-Technologi...emSamples/tree/master/DOTS_Guide/ecs_tutorial

And on point 12, in the note it's mentioned that the following step would use ComponentDataFromEntity with a link to the doc. The doc points to the correct method, but this one is documented as Obsolete, and indeed in the following code the method is not used. Reading the comment from the code and the note text I believe it should be updated (in the doc) to ComponentLookup?
If this is the case it would be great as well in the documentation of ComponentDataFromEntity to have a link mentioning that the correct replacement for this obsolete method is ComponentLookup.

Except for that, so far so good, really excellent tutorial!

Thanks

 

Hey, thanks for the guide, I found it very helpful

Ran into a problem on the ECS tutorial (the colored tanks) at https://github.com/Unity-Technologi...blob/master/DOTS_Guide/ecs_tutorial/README.md

The "shooting" component is always enabled, even when tanks are in the safe zone, which makes them always shoot.

I tried setting it to false directly, as shown here:



But the tanks still shoot. I can't see the tank GameObjects in my subscene hierarchy so I can't check to verify but it seems like the shooting component is never disabled, or is not checked properly.

Did I make a mistake somewhere, and is there a way to directly inspect the tank gameobjects while playing the scene? I'm using version 2022.2.0b13

 

Hi , I have some question for sample
In editor playing is fine , but Build window platform is not work

Also tank sample have crash when I play in window platform,but in unity editor is work
I use 2022.2.0.b16 entities 1.0
I have no idea for this question , thx

 

Hello! Can anyone explain about ISystem and SystemBase. I have read the docs. But I didn't understand.
For example. ISystem is recommended because it works ОК with Burst. But foreach that main-threaded is used there.
At the same time, a SystemBase with a burst is not OK, but there you can make a multi-threaded ForEach.ScaduleParallel "simple". (for the ISystem, in order to achieve such a simple look, you need to write an additional job)
There is some simple version of multithreading in ISystem?
Or is there not so much sense in ScaduleParallel in SystemBase?

Thank you!

 

Isystem can burst method like update, onCreate, ... That 's the different!

 

@Foreverplane_

Major difference is:

ISystem is burst able, as previous poster.
Plus you will be using idiomatic foreach on main thread.

While SystemBase is not burstable.
However you can use Entities.ForEach in parallel.

Of course in both cases jobs can be burstable.

 

You can try to use Entity Hierarchy window in the editor, though I am not sure whether it will help you. Most likely you have made a mistake somewhere. Check the system scheduling the job too.

 

I have a question regarding the TankSpawningSystem. It runs its tank creation code in the

OnUpdate

method. Is it possible or more appropriate to run it in the

OnCreate

method? If not, can

OnStartRunning

be utilized for it?

I suspect that

OnCreate

is designed to be used for internal initialization of the system, with no structural changes. Is it true?

 

The The Unity Job System video [2:40] states "Completing all scheduled jobs is required to avoid a resource leak"

In the ECS tutorial, none of the scheduled jobs call the Complete() method. Are these not causing a resource leak? Or did I miss anything?

(great tutorial btw!)

 

In ECS the scheduling and completing of jobs is done for you. When a job needs to be completed for a different job to start ECS will make sure the dependent job is finished first. It automatically uses the data (components) that are used for all different jobs and works out which jobs are using (writing to) the same data and executes them in the right order. When data is only read it can be used in parallel by many jobs.
There is a lot more detail in what scheduling you can influence in ECS, but I think this is the basic idea.

 

I'm not a beginner to DOTS so this doesn't relate to me but I would like to show the guide to my beginner friends so I have some thoughts.

I would love if the videos were split into two categories
1. Minimum amount of information required to understand how to write high level code in DOTS.
2. Extra information to understand how it all works under the hood and how to solve special cases with for example IJobChunk.

The part where I feel most beginners would start to drift off is the part about Archetypes and Chunks and the Entity Metadata part in the video "Unity Entities package 1.0 - Entities and Components". Yes it's important to understand these concepts but the information is far too complex to chew through. People might drop off at that point.

 

I agree. I'm not a Unity beginner, but I really am struggling understanding how I would use DOTS, or even Jobs, Burst for that matter. It seems like a lot of overhead from my normal approach and would only really dive deep if I had a project that required the best possible performance.

The first part of that tutorial was pretty clear, and as PolarTron guessed I started to drift off with talk about Archetypes and Chunks. I'm really just trying to understand the basics and not looking for a deep dive at the beginning.

For me, I think I'll need a small game tutorial that incorporates DOTS as needed. I can't wrap my head around the need for sub-scenes and not seeing what is going on in the Editor. I used Unity to learn programming, and for me it was most helpful to have that combination of the Editor (things I can see) and then running the code. As things drift away from being in the Editor (Sriptable Objects, for example) it getss progressively harder for me to follow.

 

Hey @Fabrice_Lete, this URL no longer works.

 

The repo has just been updated to the latest version of Entities. Its structure is changed too so that link won't work anymore. But you can always navigate from the repo root:
https://github.com/Unity-Technologies/EntityComponentSystemSamples/

 

Did you find the source of your issue?

 

+1

 

Hi all I am making a network intensive game that requires making network calls very frequently I wanted to use burst for this purpose can some one tell will this be a right approach I am a bit new to ECS some initial guidance would be appreciated

 

u could download the character controller package,it has a sample project about multiplayer.

 

The HelloCube tutorial won't work if the cube is uniform, which might confuse new users trying to recreate the tutorial. I've opened a PullRequest that fixes the issue: https://github.com/Unity-Technologies/EntityComponentSystemSamples/pull/270

 

You could probably do with a single onboarding tutorial which linearly walks new users through creating a simple ECS demo from scratch. The current onboarding via the github repo feels unnecessarily obtuse, relying on heavily hyperlinked documentation (sometimes to dead pages) and videos which only show the end result (even if annotated). The videos also tend to make statements about certain content being covered in other videos, but without any links or guidance on how to find that content it mostly feels like a tease.

The internet is already packed with plenty of out of date information from earlier version of ECS, so I'm depending on official docs to get accurate guidance on getting started. It's not impossible to puzzle it all out from there, but I think a simpler, more linear walkthrough would go a long way towards making ECS more approachable.