.meta files update

I asked this before, never got an answer. I have a project where I have about 8 different versions of it in Git, each of them are in different directories on my disk. The major problem in comparing these directories are the dogonned meta files... Unity updates the serialization format whenever it feels like it for the meta files. What I'd like is a way to force Unity to update ALL of the meta files in my project to the LATEST serialization format.

Is this possible?

 

Why do you have 8 version of the same project in source control?

Why do you need to compare 8 copies of the same project in different directories instead of having one project on disk with multiple branches in Git?

Unity updates the serialization format whenever you upgrade the editor version and the format was updated. That doesn't sound arbitrary, but it might be an issue, if you are switching Unity versions frequently.

In general, once you upgrade, all files will be updated. There should be no reason to update in between, and I've never experienced it.

To make sure, you could delete the library folder and thereby force a complete reimport of all files. This, however, might change all GUIDs and maybe even some specific import data, which is not (yet) deterministic. But again, what about those copies of the project which you are trying to compare? How should this work, when Unity generates unique data per project, meaning that as soon as you change something in any project the GUIDs are most likely not the same anymore, etc.

I assume you already use text serialization and visible meta files? Are you sure that the serialization format is being updated and not something else? I've run into a small issue, where Spine would update the custom user data and some field like "time created" whenever I would update an animation, but not with any of Unity's native features.

 

Because I do. (8 versions). Unity doesn't update the serialization when you upgrade the editor version. Where did you get that idea? Deleting the Library folder doesn't do it either....

I do already use text serialization and visible meta files. And I'm quite sure the serialization format is not being updated unless I touch the asset itself, and THEN unity sees fit to update it. There is no way I'm going to delete the .meta files themselves, too dangerous. Unity needs a menu item to "thump" all the serialization formats and write them in the latest format, I think. Feature/Bug request.

 

They added an API to do this in 2017.3:
https://docs.unity3d.com/2017.3/Doc...nce/AssetDatabase.ForceReserializeAssets.html

 

Hell yeah. Good.