Question Pure DOTS Map Editor in "EditorTime"?

I'm trying to create a MapEditor for my Grid based World but having some troubles.

I have an Authoring component;

WorldMapAuthoring

that has a

GameObjectConversionSystem

that creates a WorldMap entity and a WorldCell entity for every cell in the grid. So a 2x2 grid would create entities like this:

Which works great & the entities are loaded into the EditorWorld.

I then have other Editor systems that let me add/modify components on the cells, set cell types, elevation etc. that changes the map.

However when I run the project the changes that were made on my WorldMap entity & it's cells in "editor time" are not persistent & the conversion code will run again, recreating all the cells thus removing all the modification I did.

Is there a way to save my entities (The entities are already created so running the conversion code on every "Enter playmode" seems redudant?). Or maybe access the corresponding Entities in the EditorWorld & copying them? Maybe there is another Conversion/authoring flow or technique I should use thats better suited for what I'm trying to do?

What I want is that the Editor tools generates the Entities in "edit time" instead of handling GameObjects that converts to entities only in runtime.

Would appreciate any help/guidlines!

 

Are you doing this in the editor? Is the subscene closed? If it's open it'll go through the default conversion process.
When it's closed it won't.

 

I see, closing the SubScene does exactly what I want/assumed subscenes worked, thanks!!

Do you know if there is a way to have a SubScene always be open in the Editor & close/save it right before enter playmode?

 

Watch the editor world in Dots Editor -> Entities to see how it behaves. It can also help you debug when things go wrong with the cache.

I have only prefabs in my subscene so I can keep it closed and still have the entities loaded. When I change a prefab from the project folder, the subscene and the entity cache is automatically updated. That way I don't have to do anything.