Question Serialization of Arrays of Arrays

I feel like this is probably not the best way to go about doing this, but Im fairly new so happy for someone to steer me in the right direction.

I currently have a script on an enemy object that determines the kind of attack it can do. I have a float array like so {.25f,.5f,.75f,1f} that uses Random.Range(0f,1f) to determine which attack the enemy does.


I want to advance that so that instead I have one big array madeup of other arrays and so I can swap in and out which array i'm using to determine attacks.

The addendum to this is I'm hoping to then use the Serialize Field to create prefabs so that every enemy can use the same script. So that a lv1 enemy may only have 1 array of 2 attacks, but a boss may have 4 arrays of 8 attacks.

Is there a good and optimal way of doing this?

 

Well, for starters, Unity doesn't support multidimensional array serialisation. The world around is to have a wrapper class and have a collection of those instead. Something like this:

Code (CSharp):

1. [System.Serializable]
2. public class AttackCollection
3. {
4.     public float[] AttackValues;
5. }
6.  
7. //usage
8. public AttackCollection[] AttackCollection;

But further to that, I would look at scriptable objects in this situation. For these kind of values it'd make sense to author them in pure data assets and then reference said assets in your enemy prefabs.

 

Yeah this was sort of where I was looking at. It's been a while since I looked at them though so will need to refresh myself on it.

Was just hoping I could do it the array way since my code was 95% done in that department and would have needed only a slight tweak

Thanks for your help! I appreciate it

 

You can have a list of array. Or you can navigate your array using 1 dimension using any constant or known mathematics defining that array. Try a new List <GameObject[]>(), or else take it into 1 dimension. I had a few array issues I had to solve with the 1 dimension handling of that list. One notable was Euler angles not accepting a list of list to define the setting of an int in those xyz vector fields. Instead euler angles wanted me to grab the value of the three ints using the mathematics of a 1 dimension. Go figure. I don’t know how I did. Skeptical I guess. But it worked none the less where a list of list had failed for me.

 

The question was about serialising arrays of arrays (multidimensional collections), which Unity can't do. Try reading the posts please.

 

Yeah list of array will let him serialise it

 

Um... no it won't.

Code (CSharp):

1.     public class SerialisationTestObject : ScriptableObject
2.     {
3.         [SerializeField]
4.         private List<float[]> listArray = new List<float[]>();
5.     }

Unity does not support multidimensional collections in any way shape or form. Please stop dispensing incorrect advice.

 

You’re quite right you can’t serialise that array my mistake. I could have sworn I managed to serialise a list of arrays before :S can’t remember what I did now

 

There is a way to get the same effect though.

Code (csharp):

1. [System.Serializable]
2. public class Cell
3. {
4.    //some stuff
5. }
6.  
7. [System.Serializable]
8. public class Array
9. {
10.    public List<Cell> cells = new List<Cell>();
11.    public Cell this[int index] => cells[index];
12. }
13.  
14. [System.Serializable]
15. public class Matrix
16. {
17.    public List<Array> arrays = new List<Array>();
18.    public Cell this[int x, int y] => arrays[x][y];
19. }

https://stackoverflow.com/questions...dimensional-arrays-in-unity/69019548#69019548

 

Yes, which was in my original post. Bottom line is you'll have to use wrapper classes to achieve the structure.

 

Whoops. I may have skimmed the thread a bit too much this time.

There is a paid alternative in the form of Odin Inspector.

Code (csharp):

1. using Sirenix.OdinInspector;
2.  
3. public class MyMB : SerializedMonoBehaviour
4. {
5.     [TableMatrix]
6.     public int[,] IntArray;
7. }