resources folder, post build

Unity Engine
1

hello everyone,

Please correct me if im wrong. This is what happens to your project folders when you build:

when you use the resources folder it goes into resources.assets
when you use any other folder it goes into sharedassets#.assets
‘unity default resources’ is in the resources folder, along with some build specific files
‘mainData’ is generated, is an index to everything in your project, including converting paths to those .assets files

Now wouldnt it be lovely if unity had an option to export .prefab or maybe even a .bakedprefab in the same resource folder hierarchy instead of those compressed .assets? Im sure it would be alot of work for coders outside of u3d, and I know the way unity handles assets now is very good.

I am not asking to lose that workflow at all. But if we could set an option in player or something, “modding support”- builds with .prefabs in resources folders.

The most interesting part to me if we could somehow could do this, is the deep modding support it would bring. If prefabs were loaded every time the app opened, and was sophisticated enough to read any unity component, just imagine the possibilities. I could replace a “hero” prefab with my own animated model and include a custom pathfinding script.

I have read quite a bit about this topic and started work using system.io and I have a unity pro license, so please dont suggest asset bundles. what modding community has an entry requirement of a $1,500 editor?

2

bump for modding justice

3

Unity has this option.
Its called AssetBundles and a Unity Pro feature.

For modding though you wouldn’t want to use anything like that. Instead you would write a system that reads ‘configuration files’ and sets up the game objects accordingly at runtime. Reason is that no assets unity exports will be changeable on the outside. Nor can the user mod a precompiled game without you handing them over the whole code anyway (aside of graphics).

4

“I have read quite a bit about this topic and started work using system.io and I have a unity pro license, so please dont suggest asset bundles. what modding community has an entry requirement of a $1,500 editor?”

it was actually your post in another modding thread that got me started with system.io

here i am basically asking the impossible i know; u3d make us a way to load .prefabs at runtime