Best way to handle common GameObjects

[Omoshu]

I currently have different scenes for different maps. In those scenes, there are a lot of common GameObjects, like input, camera, player, etc. I currently have a prefab with all of those objects in it and then add the prefab to each scene. This doesn’t seem to be the ideal way of handling it as it requires reloading all of those objects every time the scene changes.

I was looking at using additive scenes, where there will be one scene with all the common objects and then a different scene for each map. There seems to be a few issues with this approach as well. Having all the common objects active while it transition scenes won’t work since it will cause problems if player input is still active, or the game clock is still running. It would also have the issue of accessing GameObjects between the common scene and the map scenes.

Is there any recommendations on the best way to handle this situation?

[Kurt-Dekker]

Additive scene loading is one possible solution:

Right way for performance, divide scene?

I always favor breaking the scenes up and loading additively. reduces overall memory consumption lets multiple team members trample on each other less often ensures clean “reset” of all objects in a fresh loaded scene I’m working on a game now where we each have our own “content” level, the level we’re working on. the content scene has all the lighting baked in. Just press play and that level has one script that additively loads: music scene (just an audiosource on autoplay) the …

Right way for performance, divide scene?

Glad you asked… going this route definitely requires slightly-higher awareness of what scene is what. In no particular order, responding to you questions, When the game or level is over, I try to go to a fresh “end level” scene (not additively!) and clear everything else out (except overall ongoing game manager obviously, as a singleton) when the game gets paused I stop time and bring up a pause scene that sorts above all else, then unload it and restart the time. OR if you quit, I just …

Problem with canvas & UI prefabs

There are underlying reasons this happened and you can track it down by examining everything about each scene’s canvas setup and scaling that are different from the other. But keep in mind it might not be super-easily to address it in the general case, especially if you start partitioning your UI into chunks. An alternate workflow is to put chunks of your UI into separate scenes and then load those scenes additively. For instance you might have the following scenes, all loaded additively: c…

A multi-scene loader thingy:

Unity additive scene loading example - Pastebin.com

My typical Scene Loader:

https://gist.github.com/kurtdekker/862da3bc22ee13aff61a7606ece6fdd3

Other notes on additive scene loading:

Removing Duplicates on Load Scene

Why not remove the player from ALL your scenes, put him in his own separate scene, then load scenes additively? That way you don’t even need a Player prefab at all, just have a Player scene and load him additively. I tend to break up all my games into partial scenes, all additively loaded by the game manager: UI player enemy manager other stuff? and then finally I load the content scene. The first batch of screens all have scripts that do nothing until the content scene appears and they kn…

Timing of scene loading:

Function called from preloader script doesn't change parent of gameobject (in the second scene)

If line 8 relies on something being present from the scene load in line 7 (in GameController), it won’t be: scenes are loaded at the end of frame and would never be available until the next frame, at the very earliest. You can trivially make void Start() into a coroutine by declaring it to return an IEnumerator, then put a while loop (with a yield return null; in it!!!) to wait until the scene loads and you find the “Trains” object, then proceed. Obviously you would need to interlock other thi…

Also, if something exists only once in one scene, DO NOT MAKE A PREFAB out of it. It’s a waste of time and needlessly splits your work between two files, the prefab and the scene, leading to many possible errors and edge cases.

Two similar examples of checking if everything is ready to go:

Daily Events and content changes

I think multiple scenes are definitely worth chasing. You need to make everything in your game tolerant of perhaps not having stuff ready at the same time, and you have to track things that you need only ONE of: Camera (Main) Audio Listener EventSystem I like to put all of those in the BASE scene if possible, then load other scenes like UI and pause and the level itself, etc. You have to sort of figure out which works for you. You can actually make Start() be a coroutine too, such as lookin…

Unit scripts calling Start function before other scripts

Indeed. I like to use a lot of additively-loaded scenes, so I tend to code my individual item controllers (including the player controller) so that they are happy to wait around if other stuff isn’t ready yet. You can make Start() into a coroutine, which is a super-easy way to get this kind of lazy-sloppy startup that is extremely tolerant of late loading and uneven loading. // typical base framework for all entities bool ready; IEnumerator Start () { // don't proceed unt…

[spiney199]

Additive scene definitely is the way to go. Additionally, for things where you will only ever need one, such as the camera (particularly when using Cinemachine), its helps to have them as DontDestroyOnLoad game objects, and they can just sit there for the entirety of the application’s lifetime.

@Omoshu

There seems to be a few issues with this approach as well. Having all the common objects active while it transition scenes won’t work since it will cause problems if player input is still active,

Can just disable the player’s input while a transition is underway. With the newer input system this is easier to do.