New Prefab workflows got worse. (Unity 2018.3)

Now I can't put my prefab right in the scene.
(Need to do another bunch of prefab from the scene to add something to an existing prefab without destroying it).
I cannot add objects to a blend file in a scene.
Perhaps this system is very convenient in some cases, but after the update I felt only restrictions.

 

When you drag something into a prefab in the scene, click on the top level of the prefab, click the inspector dropdown that says "overrides" and hit apply. This not only makes it easier to update all prefabs in a scene, but also makes it harder to destructively alter your prefabs.

 

I'm also feeling the restrictions too, though managed to figure out a workflow (with added steps)

 

I would LOVE if they added a scene level option to disable independent prefab adjustments, meaning if i make an adjustment to something, it would automatically affect the prefab as if i was in the prefab edit mode in the given scene. I understand that for individual level creation is it important that scaling and position doesn't update globally, but for the purposes of tuning assets, these restrictions are incredibly confusing.

I have a "construction" scene where i make adjustments to all my core prefabs and prefab variants, and it's so disorienting to make changes to assets. If i'm in prefab mode it alters the prefab, but if i'm not it only has a per asset adjustment. It creates a disconnect in my head if i'm making an adjustment to the prefab or the individual asset and that uncertainty very draining.

In this scene a lot of times i'm using external assets from the prefab to link to various game objects in the project hierarchy (think a unique projectile for an attack), so going into prefab mode limits my ability to pick other assets, meaning it's not feasible to go into prefab mode because i need to link other objects that are readily available in the scene and a huge headache to search for in project hierarchy.

In a perfect world these references would automatically go to the project level reference to the object and not the scene level reference so i could easily drag and drop assets into script variable references in the construction scene that would retain references in other scenes because they are referencing the root prefab and not the scene prefab.

And if i'm propagating those changes, are they going to the root prefab? Or just the prefab variant?

I'm over the moon with the new changes, they are amazing. But there are a few core issues that drive me crazy. Like changing the name of an asset in the scene and not having any means whatsoever to make that new name adjust the prefab.

 

So where were you all when prefab workflow feedback was requested in the past 6 months or so? I guess now you just have to adapt.

 

It was released 5 days ago.

 

Wrong. It was a package long before it even hit 2018.3 beta.

Nested prefabs are absolutely great. You just need to adapt for it.
One thing I'd changed personally is the inspector to view prefab contents without requiring to open it up.
(When clicking in project view)

 

I guess you have all emails and notifications turned off or blocked but public betas for new prefab workflows begun ages ago and feedback was requested with emails or even with forum notifications. But not only that but 2018.3 beta has been going on for months with the possibility to still leave some feedback. Release is a release so it's a bit late to begin requesting or commenting the workflow which has been done as a compromise from the people who gave feedback.

 

A public preview build was released at Unite Berlin back in the middle of June for feedback on workflows.

 

@Andy-Touch The problem is, a lot of developers don't have the time to download dedicated prefab builds. I think the package preview system is the best way to do it, if possible. Unity may have missed out on a lot of feedback by making you have to download separate builds.

 

It's a very core feature of the editor. I suppose the package system is not made for such things.
Also if you don't have time to download a build then you especially have no time to test it.

 

Because Prefabs are so embedded into the core tech of Unity; R&D weren't able to distribute the new workflows as a Package. This why the new prefab workflows were distributed as Preview builds, and then public beta builds (Which we used to do a while ago before Packages existed for some systems like 2D Tilemaps, Sprite Shape, etc). We did also put out a variety of videos for people to watch and a few already-setup example projects for people to download, dive right in and start experimenting!

 

@Andy-Touch is there way to disable new unity nested prefabs ?

 

That's understandable, and you guys are doing a great job, but I'm just saying the feedback you got may have not been that great because of the accessibility of the build download preview system. Having incentives for developers may help more, or having the preview builds / test stuff in a tab on Unity Hub for easy downloading, etc may help.

 

It was only a special preview build at the beginning but 2018.3 beta with it included was available for like +4 months before release.

 

Being able to download the latest beta, play with any upcoming features that will impact you (we're talking half an hour at most here), and providing feedback that influences its development should be more than enough incentive on its own.

Spoiler

 

I'm using 2019.1a12 right now. Did they stop doing the separate preview download thing? If so, then problem mostly solved for me.

 

Nope. Why would you want to disable them?

I doubt you have seen all the feedback we collected so its unlikely you can state if it is good or not.

In terms of accessibility of the prefab preview build; we highlighted it in Unite Berlin Keynote, Blogposts, Social Media, Talks, Videos, Example Projects, etc. We also have Alpha and Beta Builds in the Hub already. As we are moving into using Packages to distribute and update features/systems; its likely those will be used for future public feature testing; we just couldn't Package up the new Prefab system.

 

i don't like the new unity Prefabs sometime i have to open prefab to add script or remove it

 

@Andy-Touch I told this in the Improved Prefab/Prefab workflow critique topic already, but I tell this again, because I think it's important: I think people need more learning material on this, because they misunderstanding the nature of the workflow, it's not clear to them, what they are doing is usually hack (hiding scale/design problems of prefabs editing in the scene to the design of the scene), and/or misuse or not use the prefab overrides (multi-edit). I think a lot of users just don't know why is it wrong to do that way. So having some tutorials or learning materials would solve a lot of cases like this.

 

Maybe this could be solved by showing the normal inspector tab along with the open prefab button.

 

@LurkingNinjaDev This is precisely how I learned to use the new prefab system. It is all about knowing the workflow. It was nice to be able to quickly modify prefabs in the scene, but obviously there's drawbacks to that (especially in larger teams), but it wasn't really clear the new system would be like that.

 

Ya I read the limited docs they have, and a lot of the comments in the beta forum. And never could make heads or tails of how the new system worked from that. All the comments I've read make it pretty clear that the docs are not complete.

 

Did you try watching the editor videos or downloading the example projects?

https://unity.com/prefabs

Or watch the technical/workflow videos from various conferences?

They also used the new Prefab Workflows in the FPS Sample Project: https://github.com/Unity-Technologies/FPSSample

 

I watched everything you have. Yes. And I don't question the new workflow at all, because I see the undeniable benefits from it (comparing to the old way).

But apparently a lot of users don't go there and they are just moaning about the inability to edit in the scene meaningfully and the lack of mass-edit. As Unity, it is your responsibility to teach your users how to use your tools and more importantly it is your responsibility to show them why the old workflow is flawed and why the new workflow is better.

IMHO

 

"lot of users don't go there and they are just moaning about the inability to edit in the scene meaningfully and the lack of mass-edit" Yup, that was me a few weeks ago! I'm definitely appreciating the new system more and more though.

 

I didn't see those resources. But I wasn't looking hard either because we are waiting a few weeks to let 2018.3 settle a bit, so it wasn't an immediate need.

 

We did give feedback.

This thread is yet another along the same theme - a lot of people use prefabs in a fairly flat non nested manner and the new prefab workflow is not as efficient for that. Having said this, Unity said they would look at engineering a way to allow the root prefab to show in inspector and be edited like old behaviour (for the root prefab) + multi editing.

Since this exact issue comes up time and time again, Unity probably does need to do something. If they do not, then there is always ye olde asset store...

 

Ya so after viewing a bit of the videos to get some idea of how they work, I have mixed emotions. This workflow I think a lot will like and it serves a purpose for a real use case. But nesting prefabs is also widely abused when a flatter structure would be better. Runtime composition is gaining popularity because it just scales better. While it takes more tooling to make that work, on some games it quickly surpasses manually creating complex nested prefabs in efficiency and maintainability.

So I would also like to see better support for flat structures so I don't have to go through hoops that provide no value. But it's not a huge deal.

 

Videos are cool. However, as a working professional I don't want to have to spend 4 hours (you posted 233 minutes of videos!) watching videos to find out how to use a new thing. For me that's just not an effective way to learn stuff.

I want complete, professional level, skimmable, searchable written documentation. A manual.

I haven't yet looked to see if that's what you've got as I haven't tried the new workflow yet. But if it's not what you've got then "we have videos" isn't really a suitable replacement. Go ahead and have videos, but please also have a solid manual.

 

Ya I was thinking that also but was trying to limit the amount of criticism in a single post

I got a good laugh out of 'think of prefabs as boxes'. Container too difficult a concept? 5 different videos using different terminology for stuff and having to endure hours of duplicate and obvious stuff to get to what I really need. Ya just give me a reference guide please.

 

If it takes more work and only offers benefits for some games, it's really not worth it for all the other games.

 

I think it's more related to scale then genre. Thinking of assets and code wholistically is something I first started using on facebook apps back in the day. Using convention over configuration, making heavy use of composition vs inheritance, and generally thinking of assets and code as being equal and applying the same design patterns to all of it.

Proper nested prefab support is good, but it will encourage people who already abuse it to abuse it even more.

 

Are you suggesting that we forego improved tools because some people don't need them? Every change has some downsides.

The projects which are made harder with this new stuff aren't made much harder (as long as the training / documentation stuff is sorted). On the flip side, the stuff that's made easier is likely to get made much easier. And, for example, any game using Canvas to make a non-trivial UI will see benefit from this.

 

I'm saying that Unity is a generalised toolset, not a specific one? Those tools would benefit few people who, if they are working at that level, can implement their own workflow solutions.

 

Nested prefabs are both complicated to implement well and very broadly applicable. Plus, as already mentioned, the built-in UI system is basically incomplete without some way to do some of these things. At least in my mind this is exactly the kind of problem I want my tools vendors to be solving for me, because I see it being useful in all of my projects.

 

Non trivial UI isn't exactly a niche solution. Almost every single game I've worked on, including the hacky weekend game jams, requires some sort of system to nest prefabs.

 

We already have documentation on the new Prefab Workflows:
https://docs.unity3d.com/Manual/Prefabs.html

Have you read them yet?

 

I have been following this post and I am yet to understand what is the problem with the new prefab workflow. Could someone maybe explain a use case which the new worflow does not work properly or it is harder to do?

I downloaded the 2018.3 yesterday just to take a look at the new prefab and it felt quite straightforward to migrate after reading the documentation (https://docs.unity3d.com/Manual/Prefabs.html) and the June blog post (https://blogs.unity3d.com/pt/2018/06/20/introducing-new-prefab-workflows/).

I am still quite a noob on Unity, so maybe there is something I am not getting about this issue or maybe I am not using prefabs at its maximum (like, I don't even use nested prefabs yet)?

 

Thank you. Like some above, I would much prefer a written document than a long video. Much easier to use as a reference than having to replay a video over and over again. I was about to add my name to the list of people demanding a document, but will try this first.

Everything seems difficult when we first learn it but it gets easier with time.

 

Its why we already offer several videos and documentation and forums and examples projects and even a preview build about 6 months ago etc; everyone learns in different ways!

Hopefully those people who have 'demanded' a manual will take the time to read our prefabs manual/documentation.

 

They don't want to migrate because then they have to fix their assets instead of hiding the inconsistencies and minor scaling and/or other problems. So they are demanding to support the old way, where they could edit the prefab in the scene, so they could change the looks to the specific scene (why they even bother to create a prefab if it's tied to a scene? Well, I have no idea). These sort of things...

 

Well, but I am still able to change the prefab on the scene without applying the changes to the original prefab. And if I find the need to apply any of the changes, it is even easier to do that with the Overrides panel, because now I can choose what to apply/revert or apply/revert all.

The panel even highlights what has been changed in a more clear way. If I change something on the original prefab that has not been overriden on the scene, it even updates every copy prefab without any issues.

Is the issue because of the prefab children not being able to be changed on the scene (you have to change the original prefab to add/remove/reorder a child)? But why would you want to do that anyways? Am I still missing something?

Edit: Actually I thought of some reasons to change the hierarchy of a prefab without changing the original, but that could be achieved with prefab variations, right?

 

I think what people are saying (and I could be wrong) is that they want to place a prefab in a scene (lets say a lamppost for arguments sake) then be able to edit the prefab in the scene (such as adjust the lamppost so it looks nice in relation to the road). But with the new nested prefab system you edit the prefab in a separate window where you can't see the scene it is placed in.

I have seen some software have solutions for this. (I think Flash does it this way). What they do is when you open the prefab for editing (in Flash it is called a "MovieClip", in other software it might be a "Group" usually opened by double-clicking), it greys out the scene it is in. Thus letting you edit the prefab while also seeing the scene this particular instance of the prefab was in. Because sometimes you want to edit something in context.

Is this what people are getting at?

 

I already said I hadn't. I will as soon as I'm looking at working with that stuff, which I hope to be immediately after Christmas festivities.

My request for a manual was made purely in the context of what I've seen in this tread. (It's also a fairly generic request I find myself making a lot... not generally of Unity itself.)

 

Well, but as far as I could check, you can change whatever you want from the prefab on the scene (scale, position, component properties, etc.) and if you want, apply these changes back to original prefab , as you can see here: https://docs.unity3d.com/Manual/EditingPrefabViaInstance.html

 

yeah but no one cares for preview versions I can't fking stand them, its why if they go with doing alpha version and at least try to fix the bugs, I'm more likely to try them out with a project.. ofc in the case of 2019.1 they goofed up and threw out UnityEngine.Networking thus breaking half a dozen assets, with no suitable replacement even existing...thus once again making end users have to do even more work just to test an existing project in the damn alpha version in order to actually provide feedback on new features.. and with the asset developers who have used dll's , still it's Unity that are doing things in the most inconvenient ways, damn annoying.

And yes I think many users have found the new prefab workflow for things we used to do a bit backwards now.. it puzzles me how such workflows got lost in translation with the new update, you're not meant to improve a feature by making common steps taken before take even longer to do in a newer update on the feature as a whole. It's like people assigned to working with it didn't really work with it all that much. Which is why I'm staying on 2018.2 because the prefab update in 2018.3 really just isn't where it should have been.. and now 2018.4 will be just worthless unless they backport improvements made in 2019 for prefabs because it's such a core aspect of using the damn editor... depending on when that even happens, given how long it took get the update on prefabs, getting an update on workflow that worked better in the previous one might take who knows how long.

 

In general most the new stuff that comes out with new is poorly tutorialized or provided with good documentation imo.. you kinda have to wait a year or so before someone outside of unity provides something.

 

Graying out the scene would be an option that would work for editing prefabs in place

 

But, what exactly has become worse or is taking longer to do? Can you provide an example of a use case you found harder with the new workflow?