Id like to restructure my entire project, how to?

Basically, I want to redo my projects folder structure. I tried in the past, but it led to many terrible problems and I want to do it well.

I am aware that I should restructure in the Unity Editor (to generate and edit the meta files). Any other tips? To avoid the project blowing up?

 

First, put the project in source control before you do ANYTHING.

Second, work iteratively and ONLY move files/folders from inside the Unity structure. After each step, exit Unity and commit all the changes to source control.

If you follow the above to steps it's easy. I'm constantly moving crud around in my games when I find things are poorly organized. I also use source control religiously for every project I work on, tiny to large.

Personally I use git because it is free and there are tons of tutorials out there to help you set it up.

Here's how I use git in one of my games, Jetpack Kurt:

https://forum.unity.com/threads/2-steps-backwards.965048/#post-6282497

Using fine-grained source control as you work to refine your engineering:

https://forum.unity.com/threads/whe...grammer-example-in-text.1048739/#post-6783740

Share/Sharing source code between projects:

https://forum.unity.com/threads/your-techniques-to-share-code-between-projects.575959/#post-3835837

 

Hi Kurt, thanks for answering so quickly!

Firstly dont worry, I do source control on everything I do on every project I have (small or big as well). I use Git alongside Git Hub and its desktop app (Ive learned to use the CLI of Git, but Im much more comfortable with these tools).

I was more interested on the second point and Ill do the following as you suggest:
1 Branch to a "Folder-Restructure" branch on git.
2 Make a restructure step
3 See that everything works and close unity
4 Commit.
5 Do 2 - 4 iteratively.

Furthermore, If you have any heads up on possible problems that may arise from restructuring the folders (as it happened to me the first time I wanted to do so, thankfully I had commited and could go back to a stable version of my project, indeed Source Control is golden!)

 

If it is just references to things dragged into prefabs, scenes and scriptable objects, those only rely on the GUID in the meta file.

This means if you move them by the Unity file browser, all will be golden.

If you are loading stuff with

Resources.Load("MyPath/ToThe/Asset")

and change the path, well, that's not gonna work.

Unity has some sloppy file-write and file-flush errors with the

ProjectSettings/EditorBuildSettings.asset

list of scenes not being properly updated when you move or rename scenes. In past versions of Unity it failed 100% of the time. In current versions I've seen it fail and work, so not sure.

If you move scenes around, I find the solution is to move the scenes, then open the Build Settings window, toggle at least one scene on / off (enabled in the list), then close Unity and the paths SHOULD be updated.

 

Very well, thanks for the heads up! Ill update on my progress on this.

 

ALSO: Remember to NEVER EVER EVER EVER rename a MonoBehavior using Visual Studio or MonoDevelop.

First: rename the C# file in Unity (

OldClassName.cs

to

NewClassName.cs

)

Second: use Assets -> Open C# Project to recreate the VS / Mono project and THEN rename the class

Otherwise the meta file will be regenerated with different GUIDs and all your scripts will be Missing and you will be sad panda.

 

Noted! I didnt know that. I tried before, and I realized that the metas didnt change, so Id create a new script with the right name and then copy paste and delete the last one, etc. Quite an annoying process.

 

Hey, Im here just to mention that I managed to restructure the entire project to a scheme that fits the project. Thanks Kurt for the advice, it really helped and I really recommend this method of doing folder restructuring and such.