DOTS Visual Scripting 6th experimental drop

This might be from my C# version or something but line 143 of com.unity.visualscripting.entities@0.2.3-preview\Runtime\TracingRecorderSystem.cs thinks that Time refers to

ComponentSystemBase.Time

, which cannot be called from a static context, rather than

UnityEngine.Time

. This was fixed by changing

var frame = Time.frameCount;

to

var frame = UnityEngine.Time.frameCount;

I had to do this last version too, but then I could just edit the source file, now they are coming straight from packages, so my modifications will be undone next time I open the editor

 

This only happens when you have the DOTS Editor package also installed. It would be nice if this is fixed so you are able to use the DOTS Editor with Visual scripting out the box.

Also to have your changes stay you can make the package local as if you were downloading the previous drops. Just copy the package from Library/PackageCache/Packages you want to move - You can move the packages you want to modify to Your Project/Packages (Where the manifest file is and all packages placed in that folder will automatically import)

 

Bug report:
1. creating more than one custom functions in a graph, it usually got errors.
2. using "if" node in a custom function, the function will get crashed.
3. when senario 1 or 2 happens, you will never call any custom graph function in your main thread.
4. custom function doesn't support reference function parameters( ref float a).
5. sometimes a custom function can be created inside a stack, sometimes the same function can only be created from graph(out side of stacks).
6. cannot "get item" directly form a float 3x3 node. But you can create a "get item" node out of other type(like float3) node, and connect the "get item" node with "float 3x3" node, it works.
7. I lost all my connect lines after saving graph with above bugs.

 

Thank you so much for your reply.
It might because of what you said, "If your function returns a value this is a graph function. If the function just returns void, then it's a stack function. "
New bug report:
1. I just noticed that float2x2, float3x3, float4x4 variable cannot be created from blackboard.
2. It seems that "Once" node should swap "if done" and "otherwise", according to the code generated.

 

Hello,

I've downloaded Unity 2019.3.0f.3 then added the line of code "com.unity.visualscripting.entities" : "0.2.3-preview" to the manifest.json file but don't see the DOTS menu items, can someone point me in the right direction. I'm charged up to help!

I'm not sure how to delete this post but 3rd times a charm its working now
Edit / Update: Ok, so far I'm loving this!!!

I've noticed that after connecting a variable to a node (multiplier in this case), the mul float parameter inside of the node disappears (I'm assuming this is by design).


Also when in play mode objects that are used in an ECSgraph disappear from the hierarchy, it looks like this is the reason for the Entity Debugger once an item is selected the details show up in the inspector. One hurdle nothing is selectable in the scene view?

P.S. did I say Im loving this (tool tips are sweet)!

 

How'd you get it to work I still can't find it?

 

What's the thinking behind the "Visual Script -> New Event" menu option?
It defines a bufferElementData, but not sure how I might use this for events in dots.
Simply check the buffer contents in a system?

 

I'm running the editor in the light color theme and this is how the new component window looks, barely readable. Also the script preview window was show on top at the exact same location so I didn't know that there was this second window below it at first

 

I followed the video by CodeMonkey during testing out the Visual Scripting system myself, you can find his video here

Overall I'm starting to see how to use the Visual Scripting system, as expected it's not production ready in any way but that's very clear from the main post.
Here's a bunch of things I noticed during my testing

• A new ECS Graph doesn't auto open whereas the new Components do automatically open
• Can't press delete or backspace on an object to remove it inside the blackboard
• The ECS graph opened with the OnUpdate in the top left corner cutting off "My Query", this made me think that it was some kind of tools tab or the component menu at first glance
• The overall theme is very much focussed on the dark mode even when using the light mode. Not all text is readable because of this
• Error tooltips don't try to stay within the bounds of the ECS graph window, they can easily be cut off at the edge
• The icons in the top look like they are disabled in the light theme, the Save icon looks fine but the others all look grayed out, did not know I could click on them because of this.
• A double click is required to add a component to a query where a single click could be enough
• When you drag out a node from the bottom of the on-update and similar it doesn't automatically show the function window, you need to press spacebar first. This shouldn't be required imo
• It's not that intuitive how you can drag nodes around, when you hover over a node and it shows a line in between the top of the node-stack and function itself (a single if-statement in my case) you can't drag it to move the node around.
• The 'Get Property' -> 'Properties' -> 'Edit Ports' workflow for getting a single value from a component is not that user friendly.
• When adding a new field to a component the code-viewer automatically shows up even though I closed it right after creating the component
• A blank/unsaved component script can't be added to a gameobject, it gives the error "Can't add script behaviour MoveDirection. The script needs to derive from MonoBehaviour!"
• It's not visually obvious that you can add a function back into a node-stack, there are two tiny blue dots at the sides but the "press spacebar" text seems to be on top of this. It does work when there already is a node inside the stack
• In the component editor you can't press CMD+s to save it, you have to press the save button at the bottom
• It would be nice to have a way to control what nodes will be moved when you drag a parent node. Right now it always moved the entire stack so you'd have to work from left to right instead of just moving a single node
• I can't drag a component from the Blackboard into the script
• When dragging out a node from a component the 'functions menu' appears on a completely different position than the visual script window (not the window is not in the top left corner but in the center of my screen and not full-screen) could either have something to do with display scaling or it not taking the window position into account.
• Align node/hierarchy allows nodes to overlap each other
• On the "Translate by" function, the add boolean is kinda odd, I know what it means but it's not that intuitive.
• CMD+Z doesn't fully respect the position of nodes, I just added a Greater Than node to a property output, it moved the child node down to that location (the point I referred to earlier), I pressed CMD+Z and the Greater Than node did disappear but the location didn't properly restore itself.
• Can't shift scroll in the code-viewer to scroll horizontally
• Saving a visual script isn't enough to get it to run, you also need to build it (at least it doesn't auto build all the time)
• In the first couple seconds the gameview in the editor lags quite a bit, might be related to 2019.3 in general though.

And I've also got two things that I felt were missing:

• Having a snap to grid on the nodes would be very welcome, or some kind of auto align tool depending on the nearby nodes.
• A way to add comments would be highly appreciated

Overall I like the direction where this is going, it's got a long road ahead but there's some hard work being done!

I might try to make some more stuff and could also have a look at the video posted on the Unity Channel on Youtube regarding ECS and taking input from the user and re-producing that in the Visual Scripting to see how feasible it is right now to follow coding tutorials with the Visual Scripting system

 

Yup I just posted that video, hope it works as a useful introduction!

One more issue I noticed while recording, if you create a new Component, and then switch to another window before hitting "Save", it will create the Component without "Proxy" in the name.
Create Component named "Test" -> Alt Tab to another window -> Back to Unity -> New file shows up, Test.cs
If you click "Save" it will rename itself to TestProxy.cs, if you forget to hit "Save" it will stay as Test.cs and be unable to drag into a Game Object.

Also is there a reason why the Blackboard isn't visible by default? Seems like it should automatically open as soon as there's a Query in the script.

I'm planning on doing a complete simple game using only Visual Scripting so will have more feedback soon.

Keep up the great work!

 

I'm also noticing that the search window doesn't like it when I try to fuzzy search, if I search for "float2" I don't get the option to create a Float2 object, but if I search for "float 2" I do, the only difference is the spacebar

 

@ICEC00L3D
In the Unity Hub goto installs (left hand side), then click on the add button (top right), once you have installed 2019.3.0f launch it, create a project under somename. After creating a project close Unity, find that folder "somename" on your system inside those folders there is a folder named "Packages" inside that folder there is a file name manifest.json open it up and "com.unity.visualscripting.entities" : "0.2.3-preview" to the list of others (hint if you put it on the first line add a comma "," at the end (both of these without parenthesis), restart unity and you should see the DOTS menu item in the top bar. (game on )

@jeanedouard_unity
Thank you very much! I did some research and realized the difference between entities and objects and so much more

@CodeMonkeyYT
Keep those UVS tutorials coming, myself and the community will surely benefit (hopefully your youtube channel will as well)!

--
I'm absolutely loving this (woohoo, dots and visual scripting)!!!

 

Is there a way to handle UI?
From what I understand DOTS isn't yet set up to handle UI so since Visual Scripting is DOTS only I'm guessing it can't be done yet.
If so, is the plan to wait for a official DOTS UI or will there be some workaround to work with Unity.UI?
Trying to make a simple game completely without writing any code.

 

Is there a way to add other field types to components? I have a custom struct that I'd like to use.

 

I'm also not understanding how to modify components in this. The graphs automatically adds the Read Only parameter and does not remove it when I change the value (which, obviously, throws an error) How do I go about removing the read only parameter?

I've also noticed it can't create a struct variable. I can create it but it throws errors since it won't use a default value and I can initialize it until it compiles so it's currently impossible due to errors preventing the window from recompiling.

 

Code (CSharp):

1. [UpdateAfterAttribute(typeof(StartProductionGraph))]
2. public class UpdateProductionProgressGraph : JobComponentSystem
3. {
4.     private Unity.Entities.EntityQuery Worker_Query;
5.     [BurstCompile]
6.     [ExcludeComponent(typeof(LockedTag))]
7.     struct Update_Worker_Query_Job : IJobForEachWithEntity_ECC<WorkerComponent, WorkerProgressComponent>
8.     {
9.         public void Execute(
10.             Unity.Entities.Entity Worker_QueryEntity,
11.             int Update_Worker_Query_JobIdx,
12.             [ReadOnlyAttribute] ref WorkerComponent Worker_QueryWorkerComponent,
13.             [ReadOnlyAttribute] ref WorkerProgressComponent Worker_QueryWorkerProgressComponent)
14.         {
15.             Worker_QueryWorkerProgressComponent.ProductionAmount = (Worker_QueryWorkerProgressComponent.ProductionAmount + Worker_QueryWorkerComponent.inputProgress);
16.         }
17.     }
18.  
19.     protected override void OnCreate()
20.     {
21.         Worker_Query = GetEntityQuery(
22.             ComponentType.Exclude<LockedTag>(),
23.             ComponentType.ReadOnly<WorkerComponent>(),
24.             ComponentType.ReadOnly<WorkerProgressComponent>());
25.     }
26.  
27.     protected override JobHandle OnUpdate(JobHandle inputDeps)
28.     {
29.         {
30.             inputDeps = JobForEachExtensions.Schedule(new Update_Worker_Query_Job()
31.             {
32.             }, Worker_Query, inputDeps);
33.         }
34.  
35.         return inputDeps;
36.     }
37. }

 

Please, where do I actually input that dependencies line of code to allow me to use the package?

 

Go into your /ProjectFolder/Packages/manifest.json

 

I'm having issues with trying to make a Entity variable, as soon as I make it there's a NullReferenceException when I run the game.
I'm trying to store a Entity in order to use it later for spawning. The Instantiate stack action takes a "Set Variable" field which I'm guessing is where the new Entity will be placed.

 

Check this tutorial. To instantiate something, you need to create a "Generator Entity", which is the entry of controlling when to spawn and when to stop spawning.

 

Bug report:
Create an int2 variable, get it's property, unity will get crashed at the moment.

 

Oh interesting, you can put a GameObject in a ComponentProxy and it gets converted and stored as an Entity.
Thanks!

 

Found a new issue, I can't add a float4 to a shared component. Before this I had two float2 components which also caused issues (the UI doesn't yet block you from doing things that can't be done in DOTS, would be great to have that) and then I changed it to the float4 which resulted in this error. There are no mentions of bool or bool4 in the code generated by it.

 

How to use buffers in VS?
How to set seed in Random function?

 

using Unity.Mathematics;
using Unity.Entities;
[GenerateAuthoringComponent]
public struct Data: IComponentData
{
public float4 a;
public bool4 b;
public float3x3 c;
}


Save above codes as Data.cs
You can create componentData manually like this, and use those variables in your VS Tool Graph.

 

I am trying to do a jump mechanic by effecting the linear velocity on the PhysicsVelocity component. I am able to GetProperty but I am having trouble setting the property. Any ideas how to do this?

 

So for physics velocity you have to GetProperty...then Set Variable. Kind of odd but it works.

 

I hate to sound a bit like a whiner, but it seems surprising that so many months later, this error is still in the package. I also went to remove the DOTS editor, but, I dont have that installed, so it seems to be "normal" now

 

our new demo released: Create Neural Network with DOTS VS Tool

attached file is the related Graph Asset screenshot.

 

This is looking AMAZING guys! -- I love the drag-to-disconnect / stack-action thing! You guys have absolutely _nailed_ the design! (It's a cross between Behavior Designer and Node Canvas -- but better and more performant!)


Just a few critical (practical-use) questions before I'm fully sold:

1. - Behavior Tree support in the near future?
2. - Reusable code actions / assets (i.e. write a subgraph of any complexity, then plop it in any graph in any project as a subgraph)?
3. - Exisiting components -- Will there be a way to convert them into a Visual Scripting graph representation (after Entity conversion) or is there some reason why this is not possible? (I know there have to be some cases where converting to DOTS won't work cleanly, but what about for simple scripts?)
   
4. - What's up with Sprites being forced to be quads? Are sprites just not designed for DOTS yet? -- Does this affect models or other kinds of rendering in any way?
5. - Button input for DOTS Visual Scripting... Are there any plans for it in the pipeline yet? (I love the new Input System, but I wonder what is going to happen with the DOTS version? How long are we going to have to wait again??)
6. - Freeform Modular Animation Rigging -- is this planned for DOTS Visual Scripting in node-form as well? -- (If not, you guys are missing an opportunity for easy query and physics interaction with IK targets / Sensors / LookAt targets / Bone editing / Constraint editing to both inform AND be informed by DOTS physics systems. Just saying...
   
7. - Editor tooling -- Will it be possible to use Visual Scripting / Entities to create editor tools? (pleasesayyespleasesayyes)

Final question -- are we looking at an ETA when this should theoretically be considered ready for production? -- From an artist's POV, this form of Visual Scripting is actually very approachable and fun! It's getting me excited to code again!


Thanks for all your hard work, guys -- and to you, @Joachim_Ante, for pushing DOTS and making it a reality!

I'm really looking forward to using this one day soon!

 

Thats good to know, unfortunately I must have missed which version of entities was required, and only saw which version of unity..

 

I wont be there, but my feedback would be I can see its got real good points, however, sometimes I need to move a node and it just disconnects, sometimes it eats the links between nodes. While it still does that, its a tad in infuriating.

 

About that, it seems they're working on a whole new Animation System on top of DOTS. I suppose the Animation Rigging package will eventually support it, if they're not working on it already.

https://forum.unity.com/threads/wil...machine-for-a-controller.751529/#post-5045303

They also mention it (and show it working, although there's no tooling for it yet) in the DOTS Sample from last Unite's Keynote.

I'm pretty sure they already mentioned something about this on the Animation Rigging thread, but I can't seem to find it.

 

...
Oops... My question came across totally wrong. D:

I actually _meant_ to ask about whether the Visual Scripting portion of the Entity framework would support the DOTS Animation / Freeform Rigging frameworks using Visual Nodes/graphs to query and control things like Sensors / IK targets / LookAt targets / Bones / Constraints in the context of, say, physics code blocks in a system.



This would make more sense being part of the Visual Scripting portion of the DOTS Entity Component System than it would being a self-contained project. Wouldn't you agree, @willgoldstone? -- Would anyone verify whether this kind of thing is in the works?

It's possible this question should have been directed toward @davehunt_unity or @Mecanim-Dev instead, but I thought it more pertinent to Visual Scripting since that's the system I would expect the animation team to be working with for a feature like this.

Just my two-cents.

 

That's awesome to hear! -- Thank you for your answer.


If you guys are interested in some inspiration or ideas for a good animation/physics/logic integration workflows for Visual Scripting, please check out my topic on Freeform Animation. It is a long read, but it's worth it. There are some interesting points to note about how to approach this kind of workflow:

https://forum.unity.com/threads/freeform-animation-modular-rigging.648088/#post-5308587

 

Sadly it is a random behavior, but for example many times Ive done as little as select on update entities, and from there the next node of translate by.. and gone to move translate by and its no longer connected to the on update entities (and disconnected any time i moved it - but sometimes its fine), or, taken a float 3 and tried to provide inputs hit save, run, and... wasnt working look back and none of the inputs are there any more..

 

After you're done with DOTS node based scripting, please introduce Mono Unity script node based visual scripting.

 

No

 

They have already said it is not going to happen.