Serialized / public fields in Unity are initialized as a cascade of possible values, each subsequent value (if present) overwriting the previous value:
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what the class constructor makes (either default(T) or else field initializers, eg “what’s in your code”)
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what may be saved with the prefab
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what may be saved with the prefab override(s)/variant(s)
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what may be saved in the scene and not applied to the prefab
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what may be changed in the scene and not yet saved to disk
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what may be changed in OnEnable(), Awake(), Start(), or even later
Make sure you only initialize things at ONE of the above levels, or if necessary, at levels that you specifically understand in your use case. Otherwise errors will seem very mysterious.
Here’s the official discussion: https://blog.unity.com/technology/serialization-in-unity
If you must initialize fields, then do so in the void Reset()
method, which ONLY runs in the UnityEditor.
Field initializers versus using Reset() function and Unity serialization:
https://discussions.unity.com/t/829681/2
https://discussions.unity.com/t/846251/8
To avoid complexity in your prefabs / scenes, I recommend NEVER using the FormerlySerializedAsAttribute
If that’s not it then it is…
Time to start debugging!
By debugging you can find out exactly what your program is doing so you can fix it.
Here is how you can begin your exciting new debugging adventures:
You must find a way to get the information you need in order to reason about what the problem is.
Once you understand what the problem is, you may begin to reason about a solution to the problem.
What is often happening in these cases is one of the following:
- the code you think is executing is not actually executing at all
- the code is executing far EARLIER or LATER than you think
- the code is executing far LESS OFTEN than you think
- the code is executing far MORE OFTEN than you think
- the code is executing on another GameObject than you think it is
- you’re getting an error or warning and you haven’t noticed it in the console window
To help gain more insight into your problem, I recommend liberally sprinkling Debug.Log()
statements through your code to display information in realtime.
Doing this should help you answer these types of questions:
- is this code even running? which parts are running? how often does it run? what order does it run in?
- what are the names of the GameObjects or Components involved?
- what are the values of the variables involved? Are they initialized? Are the values reasonable?
- are you meeting ALL the requirements to receive callbacks such as triggers / colliders (review the documentation)
Knowing this information will help you reason about the behavior you are seeing.
You can also supply a second argument to Debug.Log() and when you click the message, it will highlight the object in scene, such as Debug.Log("Problem!",this);
If your problem would benefit from in-scene or in-game visualization, Debug.DrawRay() or Debug.DrawLine() can help you visualize things like rays (used in raycasting) or distances.
You can also call Debug.Break() to pause the Editor when certain interesting pieces of code run, and then study the scene manually, looking for all the parts, where they are, what scripts are on them, etc.
You can also call GameObject.CreatePrimitive() to emplace debug-marker-ish objects in the scene at runtime.
You could also just display various important quantities in UI Text elements to watch them change as you play the game.
Visit Google for how to see console output from builds. If you are running a mobile device you can also view the console output. Google for how on your particular mobile target, such as this answer for iOS: https://discussions.unity.com/t/700551 or this answer for Android: https://discussions.unity.com/t/699654
If you are working in VR, it might be useful to make your on onscreen log output, or integrate one from the asset store, so you can see what is happening as you operate your software.
Another useful approach is to temporarily strip out everything besides what is necessary to prove your issue. This can simplify and isolate compounding effects of other items in your scene or prefab.
If your problem is with OnCollision-type functions, print the name of what is passed in!
Here’s an example of putting in a laser-focused Debug.Log() and how that can save you a TON of time wallowing around speculating what might be going wrong:
https://discussions.unity.com/t/839300/3
If you are looking for how to attach an actual debugger to Unity: https://docs.unity3d.com/2021.1/Documentation/Manual/ManagedCodeDebugging.html
“When in doubt, print it out!™” - Kurt Dekker (and many others)
Note: the print()
function is an alias for Debug.Log() provided by the MonoBehaviour class.