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Slow and cumbersome asset management/workflow for any serious project

Discussion in 'Assets and Asset Store' started by Rod-Galvao, Apr 11, 2018.

  1. Rod-Galvao

    Rod-Galvao

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    Hi All,

    If one is serious about game development it's unbearable to work with the Asset Store the way it is.
    If you have hundreds of assets there's no way to filter or sort items.

    It would be welcome:
    * to "install" and "uninstall" assets inside a folder like "Third Party", cleaning/organizing my project's root folder
    * to know which asset were "installed"
    * to update installed assets per project. Today you have to track each asset installed, know its version and update it manually. Do that for a hundred assets and you don't have time for true creation.
    * some sort of dependency management (that would also fix the annoying commonly duplicated scripts that you need to fix each one by hand so not to lose GameObject's references)
    * some way to group items like "basic assets every project should have" (one have to resort to Grab Yer Assets for this kind of functionality)
    * in general, allow one to be productive and focus on game creation, not spending so many hours managing assets

    The thing is, even basic functionality for any serious project is missing. You cannot search your purchased assets for a title or publisher's name, for example. Go ahead and find what you want in hundreds of assets spread across various pages each time.

    Things are extremely slow and cumbersome. Very bad UX. It's unbelievable they didn't fix that yet.
    Since Unity doesn't make money when you're are successful, they don't have an incentive to help you manage your assets and workflow. Unity's interest stops after you buy an item.

    Caveat emptor: if you're starting game development now look for alternatives or be aware before you spend thousands of dollars in a very unproductive and subpar asset workflow and management.

    What do you think? Tell me if I am missing something because the way I see now is very unproductive.

    I found a similar feedback request here:

    https://feedback.unity3d.com/suggestions/speed-up-the-asset-store-online-and-inside-unity3d

    Please vote to help all of us have a decent productivity
     
    Last edited: Apr 11, 2018
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  2. Joe-Censored

    Joe-Censored

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    Keeping track of what assets are installed or not is a difficult task, since you're free to move the assets anywhere you want in the Assets folder, and you're also free to only partially install assets. Is the asset installed or not when you left out half of it when you installed it? (I routinely do this when excluding demo scenes or standard assets for asset store installs)

    I do think they should enforce requiring all assets to install in their own folder under a "Third Party" folder though.

    Updating assets is another tricky one, because the design of the asset could have completely changed, previous script files may no longer even need to be there, and the existing asset may have serialized references all over your project. Another issue is you are free to modify assets you download, which I routinely do, so how should Unity handle these modifications? Just delete them?

    In general though you shouldn't need to update assets you download from the store unless they are fixing a bug you are hitting or are adding new functionality you need. If the update doesn't do either then you shouldn't be updating it, simply because why are you even updating it then? I can't imagine any scenario where updating 100 assets in your project is a good idea.
     
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  3. Ony

    Ony

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    starting a new project and you plan on using a bunch of already owned assets. There's one.
     
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  4. Joe-Censored

    Joe-Censored

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    Yeah starting a project you'd download possibly a lot of assets, but that wouldn't be updating the assets within your existing project.
     
  5. Ony

    Ony

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    ...unless you have a base project containing all of the assets you want to use already, and you use that project to start new ones.

    Point is, it's easy to disagree with someone's perspective and dismiss an idea if we ourselves aren't affected by it. Sometimes it helps to put ourselves in someone else's shoes.
     
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  6. angrypenguin

    angrypenguin

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    I'm also in agreement that even if I could mass-update in a project I wouldn't do that. Just updating one asset generally involves effort and testing, doing a hundred at once just doesn't make any sense to me. Moreso if it's a shared set of assets used with many projects, the testing and troubleshooting becomes even more important there.

    I definitely agree that some kind of enforced organisation is a good idea. My project folders get 3rd party stuff scattered all over the place and it often makes things a mess. I used to manually put stuff in a "3rd party" folder, but that just caused a bunch of other issues - it breaks updating and, even worse, some assets hard code paths to things...

    Dependency management would also be neat. It hasn't really been an issue for me, but I can see how that would easily be an issue with some combinations of assets, and it's something that other package distribution systems (like NuGet) cover.

    Install tracking would also be great. I think that some of the complications could be handled by a) enforcing some organisation as mentioned above, and b) making sure it has "partial" and "modified" states. (Once something becomes "modified" the package manager really can't do much for you any more, but at the same time you probably don't want it to change things and lose your modifications anyway.) The system doesn't have to be perfect to make life easier.
     
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  7. AndersMalmgren

    AndersMalmgren

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    You cant even update a single asset anymore in the new store integration in the editor :D
     
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  8. XCPU

    XCPU

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    I keep a document of 3rd party assets I've imported and list what I've unchecked/removed demos etc.
    if I moved it afterwards, changed anything, interferes with other assets, what assets within assets :mad: it has.
    At least then I have some reference if I might update something later and how dangerous it might become.
    Generally code assets I don't move, pure texture/model assets go into a 3rdParty folder.
    One real troublesome one gets its own project because I've done major changes to it and gets export/imported.

    It's not all bad though, I find most assets aren't much of a problem, some very good stuff on the store.
    Just need to keep track of them. Project Management.
     
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  9. Joe-Censored

    Joe-Censored

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    I had no intention of dismissing anyone's idea. I was just trying to convey my own opinion, which is no more valid than yours or the opinion of the OP. Apologies if I came off otherwise.
     
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  10. Rod-Galvao

    Rod-Galvao

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    Hundreds at a time may be an exaggeration. (Well, maybe not for a big studio)
    I do get to update hundreds during the course of many months. Sometimes because of Unity changes, like many editor extensions.

    I have a spreadsheet with 400+ assets and try to keep track which assets (+version) are installed where. It’s common to a project to have 100+ assets. I wonder how a bigger studio deals with it. It is no fun.

    Unity has hundreds of people working in so many areas. Why not a little attention to such important issues?

    They could start fixing basic things like the slow store, the ability to filter the list of downloaded assets etc.

    But, hey, that isn’t a source of new revenue, is it?
     
  11. angrypenguin

    angrypenguin

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    Most likely by not updating stuff unless there is a strong and specific reason to do so, that is worth the significant testing overhead.

    Another likely approach, which @zombiegorilla may be able to back up, is that they just avoid 3rd party assets in the first place, because once you've got a big team working on a big project the overheads may not be worth it.

    The bigger you get the more important your internal workflows, procedures and standards are, and anything that messes with those is potentially a spanner in the works. Even in the small teams I've mostly worked in we'd avoid mid-project updates.
     
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  12. zombiegorilla

    zombiegorilla

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    Yea, generally in large and smaller teams, we avoid 3rd party stuff like the plague. Certainly never for art assets, and very, very rarely for game dependent stuff. Editor/productivity tools we’re a little looser on, as if there is a problem it doesn’t impact shipping. With having to constantly deal with device/os/market place & unity updates, it’s simply not worth adding extra dependence to most things that can be written more efficiently and specific to our needs. With all the challenges associated with shipping/updating a game, the risk isn’t worth it.
     
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  13. Rod-Galvao

    Rod-Galvao

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    I think that may be relevant for art assets, but not for items like helper tools.

    But I digress.

    Don’t you think fixing theses issues would be important and proportionally cheap for Unity to do?
     
  14. Rod-Galvao

    Rod-Galvao

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    But is it not worth by itself or is it not worth because we have adapted to the pain that is installing/updating/managing/...?
     
    Last edited: Apr 13, 2018
  15. angrypenguin

    angrypenguin

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    It's a general software development and management issue, nothing specific to Unity.

    If I'm working on a significantly sized project and I have a bunch of 3rd party stuff integrated, I've tested the integration and then built some stuff with or on top of it and then tested that. I don't want the extra work of testing and then sometimes having to fix things just because a version number has changed.

    On a case-by-case basis we'll decide if updates are relevant and provide a bigger benefit than their cost, and in that case someone will explicitly manage and test the integration of the update. (Otherwise you're basically blindly trusting a 3rd party with your project and/or data, by letting them change stuff while you're not paying attention.) If you have a process like that in place a mass update function just isn't really appealing, because there are no circumstances under which you'd use it.

    I don't think that making arbitrary, untested changes to my project is worth it by itself. I especially don't think that making such changes en-mass is worth it.

    Slow and steady is definitely my preferred approach. :)
     
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  16. zombiegorilla

    zombiegorilla

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    Managing assets has nothing to do with. That part is easy. Quality and usefulness (and dependence) is the problem. Most non art assets are made for folks who don’t have time or skills to do it themselves are are often of questionable quality or meant for overly general purposes. It’s not worth the effort of optimizing/tailoring someone else’s work, when you can just write it yourself within your own architecture and have full control. There are a few exceptions, but not many.
     
  17. AndersMalmgren

    AndersMalmgren

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    I agree for the most part, like core game mechanics stuff, games that rely too much on those always get that asset flip feel to me, plus like you said the quality is often piss poor. But stuff like Node canvas or Final IK is a different story, who have time writing their own visual behaviour tree editor or IK framework :D
     
    Last edited: Apr 13, 2018
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  18. zombiegorilla

    zombiegorilla

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    Certainly there are exceptions, TMP is a good one as well. There about two or three we have used regularly across studios. There are many more we have tried that just became a time suck and had to be replaced.
     
  19. Kronnect

    Kronnect

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    Well, it's legit to have that preference - but reinventing the wheel on every aspect may also delay your game on shipping. Will you start from scratch a weather package, lighting solution, a character controller or AI system, your own shaders, utility packages, etc. ? Maybe you have the resources and knowledge to produce them all but not everyone can, want or have the time to produce every bit, and that's the purpose of the Asset Store. And even having tight control on everything, it doesn't mean that you or anyone will produce the better quality.

    One way to learn how to produce software of decent quality is to study the code from top packages. At the minimum the Asset Store is a phenomenal learning experience and the fact that most assets come with source code make it very flexible and a time saver for those who want to build upon the development experience of others.
     
    Last edited: Apr 13, 2018
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  20. zombiegorilla

    zombiegorilla

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    On those... definitely, always. Productivity / editor tools, more open to using if there isn't a runtime aspect.

    Of course for some, those may be useful and/or helpful and of great benefit. And they can be learning tool for some. But Unity isn't specifically a beginner tool, and not everyone using is just learning how to make games, or doing it as a hobby. For those, simple tools from the asset store may be great, for others, not so much. The op constantly uses the term "serious" games/developers, but I think you will find that most of the time larger/successful/professional teams and projects will be using fewer and fewer third party solutions, at least not gameplay related or content ones. Certainly not "hundreds" of assets.
     
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  21. AndersMalmgren

    AndersMalmgren

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    Slow day at work so I looked at which assets I have that are none art assets. Here is a list

     
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  22. Rod-Galvao

    Rod-Galvao

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    I don't know how one would create so much value that you can get from the asset store. There are millions of dollars of development time in it. Bellow there is a list of many packages we're using in our current project. Some have duplicate features and some are not that necessary. We could live with 60% of this list but it would be too much to manage still.

    Well, one could live without them at all. I could also create a game using Ogre3D and a decade of my life programming. The point is, what are the priorities? What one should focus on? To me it would be focus on the fun factor. So, Unity's Asset Store is a source of revenue to them but asset management is not their priority. They are innovating in many areas but these issues get ignored.

    My main point wasn't even about assets management thou. It would be nice if we had it. But, if the store could be at least faster and let you be more productive it would be a good start. Sorry but today it's no fun.

    The list bellow is from the spreadsheet I use to track them. These are the common packages:

    Grab Yer Assets
    Reports4Unity
    Tag & Layer Manager
    SceneMate
    Find Pro
    SRDebugger - Console & Tools On-Device
    QHierarchy
    Advanced PlayerPrefs Window
    Advanced Builder
    ProBuilder Advanced
    Find Replace Tags Layers
    SpaceNavigator Driver
    Package Uninstaller
    Easy Save - The Complete Save & Load Asset for Unity
    Beautify
    I2 Localization
    Asset Hunter 2
    Rewired
    Advanced FPS Counter
    Anti-Cheat Toolkit
    Maintainer
    Super Sampling SSAA
    Script Inspector 3
    Auto Quality Hardware Assessment Tool - AQHAT
    DOTween Pro
    Advanced Multi-Scene: Cross-Scene References!
    Rainbow Folders
    Monitor Components
    Obfuscator
    A+ Assets Explorer

    Our current project also has:

    HipFilters
    Physics Inspector
    PlaceIt - Modular Building System
    VisionTimer
    Camera Filter Pack
    Post Processing Stack
    Highlight Effect Shader
    Dynamic Circuits
    RTS Battle Kit
    SE Natural Bloom & Dirty Lens
    SE Screen-Space Ambient Occlusion
    Galaxia
    Color Grading LUT Pack
    Advanced Decal And Object Painter System
    Mesh Cutting Animate
    PhysSound
    LB Hologram Shaders
    Exploder
    Login Pro
    DeepSky Haze
    psai® Music Engine Pro
    ProMouse
    Pool, Trigger, Constrain Bundle
    Filmic Tonemapping DELUXE
    Behavior Designer
    Behavior Designer - Movement Pack
    Behavior Designer - Tactical Pack
    Controller Overlays & Button Kits (3 styles) x6 controllers +keyboard/mouse
    DestroyIt - Destruction System
    ProTips - UGUI Tooltip System
    Vector Grid
    Horizon Based Ambient Occlusion
    P.A.T.C.H. - Ultimate Patching System
    Ultimate Fog of War
    Character Selector +
    Energy Bar Toolkit
    Mad Level Manager
    Chronos - Time Control
    Compass Navigator Pro
    KGFMapSystem (minimap)
    Real-time Strategy FX
    Dynamic Music Pack
    SPACE for Unity - Space Scene Construction Kit
    Mesh Baker
    Mesh Baker LOD
    Location Tracking UI Toolkit
    Playmaker
    Nakama
    Lexic: A Procedural Name Generator
    PRISM - Realistic Post-Processing
    Force Field
    Curvy
    Simple Physics Toolkit - Magnet, Water, Wind
    Lightning - Procedural Lightning (2D and 3D)
    Tech Tree Tool
    Los Pro - Line of sight & hearing system
    MapMagic World Generator
    Texture Adjustments
    Core GameKit
    Achievement Creator
    Pro Radar Builder
    Cinema Director - Sequencer & Cutscene Editor
    Cinema Pro Cams - Film Lens & 3D Toolkit
    Cinema Themes 2 - Color Grading LUTs Library
    See-Through System
    Outline Effect
    Pro 3D Camera
    Icon Creator
    A* Pathfinding Project Pro
    Amplify Color
    Amplify Shader Editor
    Credits Pro!
    VertexDirt - AO baking tool
    Extreme Combat Music
    100 + Detail Prefabs for Surforge Volume 1
    Moon Environment
    Post-Apocalyptic Music Pack
    Surforge
    Free SciFi Fighter
    Human LowRes SpaceShips
    Sci-Fi / Alien Fighter
    SciFi Army / Human SpaceShips 01
    SciFi Army / Human SpaceShips 02
    SciFi Base - Props Pack 02
    SciFi Base / Defense Tower - FREE Pack 03
    SciFi Base Pack 01
    SciFi Fighter MG4
    SciFi Fighters Pack
    SciFi Fighters S4-S6
    SciFi Racing Ships
    SciFi Spaceships Fleet
    Archimatix
    Magic Explosions
    Orbital Beam Laser
    Black Hole Free
    Particle Playground
    Better Trails
    Omega Weapons
    Energy Hard Rock Pack
    Mega Game Music Collection
    Universal Music Collection
    Pirate Fleet Mega Pack II
     
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  23. tsibiski

    tsibiski

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    I wonder if the Asset Store has an exposed, public api. It's possible, if not unlikely, but someone might be able to create an external app that just gets the data on Assets, and grants you a ton of extra sorting, filtering, and searching options that they have not gotten around to adding (with simply direct links to the actual project page in the store). Probably not worth it if they intend to add these features soon, but just spitballing.
     
  24. dadude123

    dadude123

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    Finding assets in the store could be better, yes, but in my opinion the workflow inside the editor is much more troublesome.

    For example I'm working on particle systems, it would be great to be able to filter assets by folder. Having libraries like in the windows explorer, ...
    But all that is not there. Instead when you open the material selector it shows ALL materials. Even things that are not even using the correct shaders.

    I want it only to show materials using a specific shader. And I want it to do that always (so I don't have to click something whenever I want to change the particle systems material). Also filtering by folders.

    Same thing goes for (just an example) terrain textures. Don't show me hundreds materials that have to do with all sorts of particle systems. Instead show me "Materials/Surfaces/Environment" or something when the material picker is opened from this specific component (terrain in this case).

    Same with models, prefabs, audio, ...
    Folders, Fav Folders, Auto-Filter by folders based on what component is requesting the "Select Material" dialog.
     
  25. Rod-Galvao

    Rod-Galvao

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    I agree.
    To my knowledge there is no such openness, you can't automate the store. I can understand that, but at least they could give us a decent UX.
    Once you download the assets you can manage (to a certain degree, automatically) using Grab Yer Assets. But this tool has exactly the limitations you said. You can import assets in batch for instance. Or create a group of related assets.
    The spreadsheet I mentioned above is exported from GYA and I try to create groups of assets generating JSONs from this spreadsheet back to GYA. What a pain.
    GYA is the first asset I import on a project. After that it is bearable to navigate and manage the *downloaded* assets, because the Asset Store is extremely slow and has no filter (for one's assets).

    Since we are also talking about productivity, an *official* package dependency controller would be useful because:

    * Asset Store's sellers could develop integrated assets on top of existing forth-party assets
    * You could install say, Behavior Designer - Tactical Pack, and Unity would also install Behavior Designer (core)
    * It would be easier to automate things like expansions and add-ons. Like those here:
    http://opsive.com/assets/BehaviorDesigner/samples.php
    so you could buy/download and activate/install them only if you already had the original package
    * It would be easier to create a connected collection of packages to create game genres. Like a true game kit, which each asset is connected and correctly configured. You can think about that as a way to expand Unity from a general game development tool to a thematic tool. Like a kit from the asset store where UFPS+Behavior Designer+AStar Pro+etc are installed and interconnected so you would have an "Unity for FPS" now. There would be some combinations of these lists. This would save many hours of assets integrations and it would work. Instead of that RPG kit where the creator tries to build every thing inside, like minimap, inventory etc.

    This kind of asset workflow standardization won't happen without an official solution.

    Anyway, I'm looking for a productive workaround to what I think is a common problem. What I found so far:

    https://github.com/modesttree/Projeny
    https://github.com/shadowmint/unity-package-template/blob/master/docs/npm.md

    They have their limitations as well.

    Come on UT, it is not that hard to fix these things...
     
    Last edited: Apr 13, 2018
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  26. Rod-Galvao

    Rod-Galvao

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  27. Rod-Galvao

    Rod-Galvao

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    @Xeir
    Is GYA planning features like the above (install/uninstall, package dependency etc)?
     
  28. one_one

    one_one

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    While definitely requiring some changes to your organisation (especially on the version control side of things), Projeny is perfect for the issue you described. Another great thing is that it allows you to explicitly declare dependencies of packages, which really helps keeping things organized. I found that it also helps with keeping your own code base more modular by reinforcing the concept of packages.
     
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  29. frosted

    frosted

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    You actually use 3 different terrain shaders or is that just stuff that you haven't gotten around to cleaning up yet?

    I still also have RTP in project despite moving to microsplat. RTP has some minor tools I still use from time to time, but I should really clean that up, it's mostly just clutter.

    After really getting into it, I don't think finalIK/puppetmaster is great. If manpower allows, I would go for a custom implementation every time.
     
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  30. AndersMalmgren

    AndersMalmgren

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    We have tried all 3, but we will probably end up with Megasplat thanks to its texture aray support. Right now we use vanulla terrain in production version :D

    We are a VR game and writing a custom VR Avatar without Final IK would take all our resources yeah :D
     
  31. Lostlogic

    Lostlogic

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    The store UI sucks and the new one is even worse. I didn't think it was even possible. Why the store has to update every single time I sneeze is beyond me (hello, caching anyone?) I love Unity but the Asset Store interface seems like it was designed by 10 year old's who can't code. I bet you can find some 10 year olds who could do a better job.
     
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  32. Xeir

    Xeir

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    Rod-

    I started reading this the other day then suffered a hardware/system crash that I think I've finally recovered from and I've finally had time to finish reading thru it.

    Seems like everyone has already covered a lot of good points and issues, so I’ll try not to re-hash those.

    • Install -- Currently supported: Individual, Interactive, To Folder, Multi-selected, Entire Group
    • Uninstall -- this has been looked into in the past, but I saw the problems with it pretty quickly. There exists one package that does just that and it works but it has the same limitations that I found when researching it. You have to have the correct version of a package to be able to uninstall it as it references the package internals to determine what is to be uninstalled. There is some grey area here in that if a package hasn’t changed too drastically, you might get away with using a near enough version.
    • Package Dependency -- This is partly addressed in a basic way with the groups feature as you can create a group for a 'project/set of assets' and import the entire group at one time.
    While this may not be fully realized with what Unity offers natively, that is why an enhanced search exists in GYA which can be accessed by clicking on the magnifier in the search field. I think there are almost 20 search options currently. Also, as you're probably aware, the Categories/Publishers drop-downs can be used to instantly see all relevant packages.

    Yes indeed, it would be wonderful as it would open up a lot of options.

    Just for reference, these are the available data sources for packages info that I know of:
    1. The embedded JSON in the asset packages (Main source of info used by GYA)
    2. The data shown by the Unity Downloads page, referred to as the Personal Assets List (PAL) in GYA. This provides a few extra tidbits of data that might be useful to some. Such as: is it Deprecated, Search by: Purchased, Created, Updated.
    3. The last option, per asset web requests/scraping, this would provide the missing info such as: package contents, description, notes, latest asset version
    I do agree it's probably best done with an external app as the last thing any of us would want is for Unity to turn into a 3D web-scraper. Also, wonder what Unity's view on an asset scraping the site for thousands of assets would be?

    As to the ’extra sorting, filtering, and searching options’, available as covered above, excluding the data that is only available from the assets webpage.

    I still use the old site myself, the new one just doesn’t feel right, thought it was just me.

    But yes, there are a number of things they could do to vastly improve it as there is absolutely no reason to download the entire purchased list every time you visit the downloads page. There's a reason GYA downloads that data in the background if enabled.

    Anyway, hope that wasn't too long winded, probably should have advised grabbing some popcorn first.
    In any case, have a great weekend!