StaticBatchingUtility.Combine Broken in Unity 5

It seems calling StaticBatchingUtility.Combine() inside of Start() or Awake() methods will not allow the models to be static batched.

I read in a forum post that static batching is now only called once when the scene loads so that the information is only sent to the gpu once, however my game uses a Custom Map Builder on a mobile device. I relied on calling static batching at run time after the players level information has finished downloading and all objects have been instantiated.

I vertex color these objects in an Awake based on users predefined choices, then i call static batching utility to combine in a Start method when the map is ready to play inside of.

is StaticBatchingUtility.Combine() no longer supported in Unity 5? or is this something that needs additional steps on my end to fix? Perhaps its just a bug?

Also i did test with just setting the objects to static in the inspector, and that works just fine. its only when i try to do it in code that theres a problem.

 

Anyone else tried this and had success batching from code in unity 5?

 

i got the same issue

 

So there seems to be a change in the order of operations if you instantiate or setactive to an object from an awake, it will force the new objects awake AND start, before the original script even calls its Start.

Thats probably why they announced last week, that they are changing the order of operations in the future to something more sane.

in order to get around this issue, i use an Event, and i have a coroutine, basically after ive instantiated all objects, i then call the coroutine which uses an ienumerator and i do "Wait for (5) seconds" at which point, then call the event, and thats when my script for batching is listening to the event. you can do this with just a method call but i have other things attached thats why i used an event

 

StaticBatchingUtility.Combine isn't doing anything for me either, at any point (I've even set it to trigger onKeyDown space).. Manually placed instances batch just fine. tripknotix, are you saying you're able to combine fine, just not in start / awake?

 

Pretty much, i call an event instead of calling it in the start/awake, some scenes dont have these custom objects, so i have designed it to accept a bool that will batch immediately in the start, since everything is done in the awake of the other objects.

 

Hmm, so ran as simple a test as I could think of:

Code (CSharp):

1. using UnityEngine;
2. using System.Collections;
3. using System.Collections.Generic;
4.  
5. public class TempMove : MonoBehaviour {
6.  
7.     private Transform parent;
8.  
9.     // Use this for initialization
10.     void Start () {
11.         Debug.Log("start");
12.         parent = new GameObject().transform;
13.         parent.position = Vector3.zero;
14.         List<GameObject> objectPrefabs = new List<GameObject>();
15.         Transform tiles_parent = GameObject.Find("_terrainTiles").transform;
16.         foreach (Transform child in tiles_parent)
17.         {
18.             objectPrefabs.Add(child.gameObject);
19.         }
20.  
21.         for (int i = 0; i < 50; i++)
22.         {
23.             Transform newTile = Instantiate(objectPrefabs[Random.Range(0, objectPrefabs.Count)].transform);
24.             Vector3 temp = Vector3.zero;
25.             temp.x = Random.Range(-10, 10);
26.             temp.z = Random.Range(-10, 10);
27.             newTile.position = temp;
28.             newTile.parent = parent;
29.             newTile.gameObject.SetActive(true);
30.         }
31.     }
32.  
33.     // Update is called once per frame
34.     void Update() {
35.         if (Input.GetKeyDown(KeyCode.Space))
36.         {
37.             Debug.Log("batching");
38.             GameObject[] gos = new GameObject[parent.childCount];
39.             for (int i = 0; i < gos.Length; i++)
40.             {
41.                 gos[i] = parent.GetChild(i).gameObject;
42.             }
43.             StaticBatchingUtility.Combine(gos, parent.gameObject);
44.         }
45.     }
46. }
47.  

This doesn't work. Hitting space I can see the spike in the profiler and the call to the combine function, but nothing actually happens - nothing gets combined, and the meshes remain un-batched.

• Arranging un-instanced meshes in the scene results in them being batched, so there's no issues with materials etc.
• The source prefabs are all parented under an empty game object, and set to inactive
• If I set the source prefabs to active, the source objects are all batched AND the newly instantiated game objects get batched immediately (i.e. not user triggered with the space bar) but they any transform information (makes sense I guess, since they're instantiating an something already batched, and therefore immovable object?)

Any one have any pointers as to what I'm doing wrong here?

Cheers,

Jules

 

on line 41, add a debug.log for each object, with their gameobject.name to make sure its actually trying to batchin children

 

Thanks for getting back, yep - reproting the cloned object:

Not entirely sure what else to try...

 

If anyone fancies a repro, I've attached a package..

 

Hi Jordi,

Please delete the TileControl.cs file, it should run then, Apologies.

 

Oh, wow. Has it always been like this or is this some temporary limitation?
In any case this should really be added to the documentation. Also the part about "Read/Write Enabled" flag. Neither the "Draw Call Batching" docu nor the StaticBatchingUtility.Combine() docu contain that info, and at least for me this is not how I thought it works.

Edit: judging by the "Batches" statistic and the assigned batch name, I might have misunderstood that sentence. Calling Combine() on MeshA, then calling it later on MeshA + MeshB seems to result in 1 batch.

 

Hi Jordi, thanks very much for looking into this. Looking though your code, I see that you batching the parent of the children that I wanted to batch on start, which works, but isn't what I wanted to achieve: I need to be able to batch groups of randomly chosen objects as and when they are instantiated. Interestingly it got me thinking about the fact that you submit the parent to the combine function, not an array of individual items. Turns out this works. As a code example, from what I posted earlier, changing this:

Code (CSharp):

1.     // Update is called once per frame
2.     void Update() {
3.         if (Input.GetKeyDown(KeyCode.Space))
4.         {
5.             Debug.Log("batching");
6.             GameObject[] gos = new GameObject[parent.childCount];
7.             for (int i = 0; i < gos.Length; i++)
8.             {
9.                 gos[i] = parent.GetChild(i).gameObject;
10.             }
11.             StaticBatchingUtility.Combine(gos, parent.gameObject);
12.         }
13.     }

to just this:

Code (CSharp):

1.         if (Input.GetKeyDown(KeyCode.Space))
2.         {
3.             Debug.Log("batching");
4.             StaticBatchingUtility.Combine(parent.gameObject);
5.         }

Works. Which strikes me as very odd, since according to the docs it should be ok to pass an array of GO to the function. Is this a bug?

Full code:

Code (CSharp):

1. using UnityEngine;
2. using System.Collections;
3. using System.Collections.Generic;
4.  
5. public class TempMove : MonoBehaviour
6. {
7.  
8.     private Transform parent;
9.  
10.     // Use this for initialization
11.     void Start()
12.     {
13.         Debug.Log("start");
14.         parent = new GameObject().transform;
15.         parent.position = Vector3.zero;
16.         List<GameObject> objectPrefabs = new List<GameObject>();
17.         Transform tiles_parent = GameObject.Find("_terrainTiles").transform;
18.         foreach (Transform child in tiles_parent)
19.         {
20.             objectPrefabs.Add(child.gameObject);
21.         }
22.  
23.         for (int i = 0; i < 50; i++)
24.         {
25.             Transform newTile = Instantiate(objectPrefabs[Random.Range(0, objectPrefabs.Count)].transform);
26.             Vector3 temp = Vector3.zero;
27.             temp.x = Random.Range(-10, 10);
28.             temp.z = Random.Range(-10, 10);
29.             newTile.position = temp;
30.             newTile.parent = parent;
31.             newTile.gameObject.SetActive(true);
32.         }
33.     }
34.  
35.     // Update is called once per frame
36.     void Update()
37.     {
38.         if (Input.GetKeyDown(KeyCode.Space))
39.         {
40.             Debug.Log("batching");
41.             StaticBatchingUtility.Combine(parent.gameObject);
42.         }
43.     }
44. }

Cheers, Jules.

 

a massive DOH! from me, thanks Jordi, that would almost certainly be the root of the problem I've had all along.

 

does StaticBatchingUtility.Combine() not support in mobile?
I use this code in assetbundle

Code (csharp):

1.  
2. public class StaticBatching : MonoBehaviour {
3.  
4.   public GameObject[] gos;
5.  
6.   void Start()
7.   {
8.   if (gos == null || gos.Length == 0)
9.   {
10.   StaticBatchingUtility.Combine(this.gameObject);
11.   }
12.   else
13.   {
14.   StaticBatchingUtility.Combine(gos,this.gameObject);
15.   }
16.   }
17. }
18.  

it workd in editor but in both iphone or android the staticbatching fail.

 

I'm still having trouble with static batching.

I call Combine on Start to combine a bunch of the same mesh into a single mesh. Nothing complicated. In the editor at runtime the mesh filters say they are combined but they are still a single draw call each which strikes me as odd...

 

Follow up:

I've noticed that static batching works for some things in my game but not others. I can't seem to pinpoint why. Is there a vert limit to static batching or any other kind of requirement or limitation to the meshes i'm not aware of? All the import settings for the meshes that work and the meshes that do not are the same...

 

Follow up 2:

You can see in the frame debugger that there are 4 static batches. I would have thought all the objects would all be static batched at once but they seem to be static batching in pairs...

 

I hope this clears it up for you.

http://docs.unity3d.com/Manual/DrawCallBatching.html

Ps: Love your game Mini Golf MatchUp

 

Oh ok, thanks a bunch.

Cheers for playing Mini Golf.

 

How is using the StaticBatchingUtility any different than just marking the gameobjects as Batching Static in the editor?
Or is this only useful after instantiating objects at runtime which are static?

 

It is for anything that can not be set to static inside the editor for one reason or another.
Procedural levels or runtime generated content and models loaded from assetbundles can this way be batched.
For any objects that are set to static inside the editor, this is not needed.

 

I used it for editing vertex colors of my houses, so that its the same prefab, with different color roofs, carpet and walls

 

I don't know i this is still the case but making things static at edit time use to combine the meshes at build time creating copies of the mesh data in each scene and as a result blowout your build size which was a problem for mobile. I haven't checked if this is still the case.

 

yes unity still creates copies, that does still happen, so that would definitely help to batch at run time for that reason

 

+1
This must be documented IMO too.

 

I do think so. @Jordi-Bonastre
nothing about this on doc still

https://docs.unity3d.com/ScriptReference/StaticBatchingUtility.Combine.html

 

"Read/Write Enabled" is not a requirement in 2017.1.1f1, at least, not on Windows.

 

In 2018.1.1f1 it is.
Just fixed the issues by clicking the toggle.
Thanks Jordi.