Create a prefab in editor from children objects of a model without alter scene

Questions & Answers
1

I have a model (modified with a custom postprocessor), and I want to modify it saving just some of the children of the object as prefabs. This works and in particular the following is the code:

        static void OnPostprocessAllAssets(string[] importedAssets, string[] deletedAssets, string[] movedAssets, string[] movedFromAssetPaths)
{
    foreach (var importedAsset in importedAssets)
    {
        var rootPrefab = AssetDatabase.LoadAssetAtPath<GameObject>(importedAsset);

        if (rootPrefab == null)
            break;

        if (rootPrefab.GetComponentsInChildren<GenerateClothes>().Count() == 0)
            break;

        var unpackedPrefab = PrefabUtility.InstantiatePrefab(rootPrefab) as GameObject;
        PrefabUtility.UnpackPrefabInstance(unpackedPrefab, PrefabUnpackMode.Completely, InteractionMode.AutomatedAction);

        var dirName = Path.GetDirectoryName(importedAsset) + "/" + "Clothes";
        Directory.CreateDirectory(dirName);

        var generateClothes = unpackedPrefab.GetComponentsInChildren<GenerateClothes>().Where(d => d != null).ToList();

        for (int i = 0; i < generateClothes.Count; i++)
        {
            var gameObject = generateClothes*.gameObject;*

UnityEngine.Object.DestroyImmediate(generateClothes*);*
PrefabUtility.SaveAsPrefabAsset(gameObject, dirName + “/” + gameObject.name + “.prefab”);
}
UnityEngine.Object.DestroyImmediate(unpackedPrefab);
}
}
The problem is that I need to instantiate the prefab to manipulate and save it, but doing this the script alters the scene. It removes the changes it made in the scene with a DestroyImmediate, but there are some caveats doing this. The first one is that if the script, for any reason, fails the scene will be altered. Surely I could surround anything with a try-catch clause but it doesn’t seem an optimal solution.
The second one is even worse, the scene will result as altered (or in the case I undo the changes I’d loss the ones in the undo stack after the point I’m editing).
Is there a way to resolve this problem, maybe manipulating a prefab in memory somehow but without creating it in scene?
EDIT:
After I wrote the question I found the function PrefabUtility.LoadPrefabContents, that would do exactly what I need, but it is not usable with fbx, but just with prefabs, so it is not useful in this very case.

2

A workaround to be able use PrefabUtility.LoadPrefabContents with fbx files is to first load the fbx file using AssetDatabase.LoadAssetAtPath and save it as a temporary prefab using PrefabUtility.SaveAsPrefabAsset, then load its contents, modify it and save the children as prefabs, and afterwards delete the temporary prefab again.

Example:

var prefab = (GameObject) AssetDatabase.LoadAssetAtPath(assetPath, typeof(GameObject));
PrefabUtility.SaveAsPrefabAsset(prefab, tempPath);
var go = PrefabUtility.LoadPrefabContents(tempPath);

// Modify and save children as prefabs using PrefabUtility.SaveAsPrefabAsset here

PrefabUtility.UnloadPrefabContents(go);
AssetDatabase.DeleteAsset(tempPath);

Prefab linking also seems to work without issue using this approach.