Unity DOTS case study in production

[starikcetin]

I have been seeing you a lot in this forum, helping fellow developers. Thank you for your efforts.

Also, I am a big fan of low-poly flat-shaded design. Your game looks amazing with that. Congratulations.

[zephyr831125]

Great post! Thanks for your shares!
(I apologize in advance for my English too:roll_eyes:)

My project currently woking on is coincidentally a bit similar to yours;). And I am reafactoring it from Entitas to Unity ECS from last week. So I actually have learned things from your work. And I have 2 things want to discuss.

First, I think, your component CitizenData is a bit too big. In my project I separate the term “Citizen” to several parts, such as Mover, Eater, Transporter, Builder. so there are same amounts of ComponentData to contain different datas for each part. A citizen is initially have some of the components, but he/she can be add/removed components from it at runtime, for example, if a citizen was appointed to be a farmer, he will lose TransporterComponent and BuilderComponent, and added FarmerComponent. I think it’s similar to Composite Pattern in OOP patterns, also it will be better to design the Systems in ECS, by keeping the Single Responsibility Principle.

Second, you said there are Reactive System now, do you mean the SetFilterChange() function of ComponentGroup? I come from Entitas which has ReactiveSystem, but in Unity ECS, the most similar thing I found is that SetFilterChange(), nothing else.

Thank you again, and looking forward to more sharing!

[eizenhorn]

@zephyr831125

Second, you said there are Reactive System now, do you mean the SetFilterChange() function of ComponentGroup? I come from Entitas which has ReactiveSystem, but in Unity ECS, the most similar thing I found is that SetFilterChange(), nothing else.

ISystemStateComponent, DidChange/DidAddOrChange on chunks.

@zephyr831125

First, I think, your component CitizenData is a bit too big. In my project I separate the term “Citizen” to several parts, such as Mover, Eater, Transporter, Builder. so there are same amounts of ComponentData to contain different datas for each part. A citizen is initially have some of the components, but he/she can be add/removed components from it at runtime, for example, if a citizen was appointed to be a farmer, he will lose TransporterComponent and BuilderComponent, and added FarmerComponent. I think it’s similar to Composite Pattern in OOP patterns, also it will be better to design the Systems in ECS, by keeping the Single Responsibility Principle.

It’s old hybrid version as i describe in post, and it’s only workaround for some things which not was implemented, now it’s less of course, and I say about splitting large component datas, but I still not use components as tag for citizens, and use field in component which describe citizen type, this prevents offen structural changes, and chunks moving and it’s more performant. ECS is data driven pattern, by Date Oriented Design, and you must forget about OOP here, it’s absolutley different way;)
And if you understand russian, you can watch my talk from latest DevGAMM 2018 Minsk:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IsJmBiRWBj8

[zephyr831125]

@eizenhorn

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IsJmBiRWBj8

ISystemStateComponent, DidChange/DidAddOrChange on chunks.

It’s old hybrid version as i describe in post, and it’s only workaround for some things whinc not was implemented, now it’s less of course, and I say about splitting large component datas, but I still not use components as tag for citizens, and use field in component which describe citizen type, this prevents offen structural changes, and chunks moving and it’s more performant. ECS is data driven pattern, by Date Oriented Design, and you must forget about OOP here, it’s absolutley different way;)
And if you understand russian, you can watch my talk from latest DevGAMM 2018 Minsk:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IsJmBiRWBj8

Yes! Chunks moving is expansive, so I actually changed some of my components from empty tag to have on/off switch in it to prevent chunks moving.

And thanks for the ISystemStateComponent, DidChange/DidAddOrChange, It’s what I needed.

[Held0fTheWelt]

@eizenhorn

I

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IsJmBiRWBj8

Is there someone out there, who invests 2 hours in making subtitles for this ?
I am really interested, and can see, what is shown, but i would really be interested in what’s said !

[eizenhorn]

We had 2 bags of entities, 75 pellets of components, 5 sheets of high-powered systems, a saltshaker half-full of determinism, a whole galaxy of multi-colored meshes, textures, animations… Also, a quart of sounds, a quart of shaders, a case of tasks, a pint of raw coffe, and two dozen burst. Not that we needed all that for the trip, but once you get locked into a serious Data Oriented Design, the tendency is to push it as far as you can. The only thing that really worried me was the physics. There is nothing in the world more helpless and irresponsible and depraved than a man in the depths of an physics binge, and I knew we’d get into that rotten stuff pretty soon.

[starikcetin]

@eizenhorn

We had 2 bags of entities, 75 pellets of components, 5 sheets of high-powered systems, a saltshaker half-full of determinism, a whole galaxy of multi-colored meshes, textures, animations… Also, a quart of sounds, a quart of shaders, a case of tasks, a pint of raw coffe, and two dozen burst. Not that we needed all that for the trip, but once you get locked into a serious Data Oriented Design, the tendency is to push it as far as you can. The only thing that really worried me was the physics. There is nothing in the world more helpless and irresponsible and depraved than a man in the depths of an physics binge, and I knew we’d get into that rotten stuff pretty soon.

Dude, your game looks amazing. Is there a dev blog or something where I can follow the development?

[Held0fTheWelt]

I even would love to participate ^^

[eizenhorn]

@starikcetin

Dude, your game looks amazing. Is there a dev blog or something where I can follow the development?

Intersting question You can look at russian VKontakte page or on FB
https://vk.com/elinorgame
https://www.facebook.com/ElinorDefense/
But actual “dev log” of current stage of progect you can see in this playlist
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLLjxduedQBqGKN4zZ_ATt1Yoatr1pF9dP

( @hippocoder if this post violates the rules (after all some offtopic) then please delete it without a ban please )

[Held0fTheWelt]

I tried to look what you talked, but i cannot understand russian ^^

[eizenhorn]

@Held0fTheWelt

I tried to look what you talked, but i cannot understand russian ^^

Oh it’s obvoius, untill you not drink vodka, and untill you have home bear

[starikcetin]

@eizenhorn

Intersting question You can look at russian VKontakte page or on FB
https://vk.com/elinorgame
https://www.facebook.com/ElinorDefense/
But actual “dev log” of current stage of progect you can see in this playlist
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLLjxduedQBqGKN4zZ_ATt1Yoatr1pF9dP

( @hippocoder if this post violates the rules (after all some offtopic) then please delete it without a ban please )

Aw, I don’t speak Russian
Anyway, let us know when you release the game so we can try it out!
Best of luck.

[Held0fTheWelt]

Maybe i try again, watching it muted !
It really looks good !

[Antypodish]

Guys, you can select subtitles translation in youtube, of the video talk

[hippocoder]

@eizenhorn

( @hippocoder if this post violates the rules (after all some offtopic) then please delete it without a ban please )

Banned

Please don’t worry, a user like you isn’t ever going to be on our radar lol

[Artaani]

That looks interesting.
Do you plan to release a video with demonstration of a lot of units?
You said about:

@eizenhorn

Dozens, even hundreds of thousands of units

But there is just a 100-400 units on the video, this can be handled by standard, non-ECS developing approach without any issues.
Would be interesting to look at real possibilities and benefits of ECS in production.
Thanks.

[eizenhorn]

@Artaani

That looks interesting.
Do you plan to release a video with demonstration of a lot of units?
You said about:

But there is just a 100-400 units on the video, this can be handled by standard, non-ECS developing approach without any issues.
Would be interesting to look at real possibilities and benefits of ECS in production.
Thanks.

Of course. Army logic now in active development (custom physics, custom croud pathfinding, battle logic) but anyway you can see power of DOTS now, because here >50k trees, because every resource it’s real separate mesh. (And here 1k units without citizens) We’ll show battle somewhere around 15 May at Unity Developer Day 2019 Moscow and DevGAMM 2019 Moscow, and I show it here

[hippocoder]

@Artaani

But there is just a 100-400 units on the video, this can be handled by standard, non-ECS developing approach without any issues.

1. you can’t network that without any issue in non-ecs
2. if you did, it would cost too much and fall apart on different cpus while ecs would cost nothing really
3. 400 units for 60fps on mono would burn through mobile battery life. Ecs? nothing
4. you might make 400 units perform well, but with ECS they have no impact.

Why wouldn’t you want a free lunch? It’s not about thousands of things, it’s more efficient from 1 thing up. Granted, it’s early, you will need to wrestle the source sometimes but I think it’s worth a look now.

[eizenhorn]

Hey just small snapshot of current state of our crowd pathfinding and movement (in progress) (and new UI )

Door 407. Diplomacy is Not an Option. Crowd pathfinding and movement 1 (in progress)

Door 407. Diplomacy is Not an Option. Crowd pathfinding and movement 2 (in progress)

[Antypodish]

Nice looking ants

But a bit weird looking movement around castle. Seams some avoid castle, other walk through. I don’t mean just perimeters of castle, but like literally through. Is that something, you are going to work on, to further improve?