help with character not changing

i have a character select scene and when i change my character and hit play my character is still the default character here is my CharacterSwitcher code

Code (CSharp):

1. using System;
2. using UnityEngine;
3.  
4. public class CharacterSwitcher : MonoBehaviour
5. {
6.     private void Awake()
7.     {
8.         if (currentIndex != -1)
9.             return;
10.         SetCharacter(0);
11.         currentIndex = 0;
12.         Debug.Log("CharacterSwitcher awake");
13.     }
14.  
15.     [SerializeField] private Transform playerRoot;
16.  
17.     [SerializeField] public static int currentIndex = -1;
18.  
19.     public void NextCharacter()
20.     {
21.         //Add 1 to our current index
22.         currentIndex++;
23.         //Make sure it doesn't go too high
24.         if (currentIndex >= playerRoot.childCount)
25.             currentIndex = 0;
26.         SetCharacter(currentIndex);
27.     }
28.  
29.     public void SetCharacter(int transformIndex)
30.     {
31.         //Disable all our child transforms
32.         for (int i = 0; i < playerRoot.childCount; i++)
33.             playerRoot.GetChild(i).gameObject.SetActive(false);
34.         //Enable only the one we want
35.         playerRoot.GetChild(transformIndex).gameObject.SetActive(true);
36.        
37.     }
38.  
39. }

and I attached public void NextCharacter to my button and in the character select scene it changes but when I hit play it is still the default character. I also added this line to my play button to try to save the character decision I made to play as

Code (CSharp):

1. UnityEngine.Object.FindObjectOfType<CharacterSwitcher>().SetCharacter(CharacterSwitcher.currentIndex);

I added a debug log to the awake function and got nothing I also set up breakpoints in visual studio in the awake function and when I select a character and hit a back button to go to a main menu scene and then hit play I got this error Exception thrown at 0x00000000425594F9 in Unity.exe: 0xC0000005: Access violation reading location 0x0000000000000000 but if I select a character then hit play in the character select scene it's ok and doesn't throw any errors.

 

Is the index being saved anywhere? As soon as another scene loads, the index isn't retained unless stored in a DontDestroyOnLoad object or to a file that is read when the play scene is loaded.

 

I thought the line UnityEngine.Object.FindObjectOfType<CharacterSwitcher>().SetCharacter(CharacterSwitcher.currentIndex); would retain what i chose throughout scenes how can i fix this, what code do i need to add?

 

Nothing is retained between scenes unless you tell it to. Take a look at DontDestroyOnLoad in the docs to see how. There are also many ways to save a file, do a search for a tutorial on it to get an idea of what to do so you can save game play progress.