Rebuilding only changed assets

Unity Engine
,
1

We do custom processing in addressable builds, something like:

protected override string ProcessGroup(AddressableAssetGroup assetGroup, AddressableAssetsBuildContext aaContext)
{
    try
    {
        if (assetGroup.HasSchema<BundledAssetGroupSchema>() && assetGroup.GetSchema<BundledAssetGroupSchema>().IncludeInBuild)
        {
            var platformSchema = assetGroup.HasSchema<FilterAddressablesSchema>() ? assetGroup.GetSchema<FilterAddressablesSchema>() : null;
            if (platformSchema && !platformSchema.Matches(m_Target))
            {
                m_ReEnable.Add(assetGroup);
                assetGroup.GetSchema<BundledAssetGroupSchema>().IncludeInBuild = false;
                Debug.Log($"Skipped asset group: {assetGroup.Name}");
                return "";
            }
            foreach (var entry in assetGroup.entries.ToList()) // Make it a list such that we get a new collection, otherwise we can't add / remove to entries
            {
                if (entry.IsScene)
                {
                    Debug.Log($"Begin scene: {entry.AssetPath}");
                    var newScene = entry.AssetPath.Replace("Assets/", "Assets/Generated/");
                    System.IO.Directory.CreateDirectory(System.IO.Path.GetDirectoryName(newScene));
                    AssetDatabase.CopyAsset(entry.AssetPath, newScene);
                    BuildManager.CompileScene(newScene, m_Target);
                    var newGUID = AssetDatabase.AssetPathToGUID(newScene);
                    var newAsset = aaContext.Settings.CreateOrMoveEntry(newGUID, assetGroup);
                    AssignAssetEntry(newAsset, entry);
                    assetGroup.RemoveAssetEntry(entry);
                    m_RestoreScenes.Add(Tuple.Create(assetGroup, entry, newAsset));
                    Debug.Log($"Fixed scene: {entry.AssetPath}");
                }
            }
        }
    }
    catch (System.Exception e)
    {
        Debug.LogError($"Exception thrown during asset build: {e.Message}\n trace: {e.StackTrace}");
    }
    return base.ProcessGroup(assetGroup, aaContext);
}

In a BuildScriptPackedMode. CompileScene in this case does processing on the scene to be able to have build matrix specific overrides. To do a full game build this takes about 3 & ½ hours on my machine, add in another ~20 minutes to actually build the player and we’re looking at around 4 hours. Now imagine I run this build on the target platform & realize that there’s some kind of bug which is data related & suddenly I have to fix that, and then rebuild everything for another 4 hour turn around time, yet only a very small subset of the assets have actually changed. Perhaps I’m going about this the wrong way from the get go?

2

Building addressables is agony. I’d love to know what the solution is.

3

I have been agony by Addressables too. It’s better to use Resources or AssetBundle.

4

Yeah we’ve found no good solution to this, the API is pretty crap overall & it seems like Addressables are added to a long list of already abandoned projects in Unity. I wouldn’t be surprised if we get a new data delivery format in the future, 4th time the charm perhaps.

5

I read your codes again, I think you can speed up if not use Linq in foreach.

Rather than this

foreach (var entry in assetGroup.entries.ToList())

Use this instead

var entires = assetGroup.entries.ToList()
foreach (var entry in entires)

Also you can use AssetDatabase.StartAssetEditing() and AssetDatabase.StopAssetEditing(). Your code overall would like this.

            AssetDatabase.StartAssetEditing()
            var entires = assetGroup.entries.ToList()
            foreach (var entry in entires) // Make it a list such that we get a new collection, otherwise we can't add / remove to entries
            {
                if (entry.IsScene)
                {
                    Debug.Log($"Begin scene: {entry.AssetPath}");
                    var newScene = entry.AssetPath.Replace("Assets/", "Assets/Generated/");
                    System.IO.Directory.CreateDirectory(System.IO.Path.GetDirectoryName(newScene));
                    AssetDatabase.CopyAsset(entry.AssetPath, newScene);
                    BuildManager.CompileScene(newScene, m_Target);
                    var newGUID = AssetDatabase.AssetPathToGUID(newScene);
                    var newAsset = aaContext.Settings.CreateOrMoveEntry(newGUID, assetGroup);
                    AssignAssetEntry(newAsset, entry);
                    assetGroup.RemoveAssetEntry(entry);
                    m_RestoreScenes.Add(Tuple.Create(assetGroup, entry, newAsset));
                    Debug.Log($"Fixed scene: {entry.AssetPath}");
                }
            }
            AssetDatabase.StopAssetEditing()

Let me know if it speed up building process.