Will an instantiated object ever exist before the next line of code in the object that creates it?

Unity Engine
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1

Lets say I have code like this

  GameObject instantiatedEnemyObject = Instantiate(gameObject) as GameObject;
  BadGuyScript script = instantiatedEnemyObject.GetComponent<BadGuyScript>();
  script.isThisInstantiated = true;

My question is - will there ever be a situation where the instantiatedEnemyObject will ever begin to run the code in BadGuyScript before i am able to tell it that it is instantiated?

(I know there are ways to tell dynamically if an object is instantiated but I’m just asking for other situations.)

2

Core parts of Unity like that are single-threaded. The object will be completely instantiated and integrated before the method returns.

3

This is true and yet… I think it answers OP’s question, but OP is asking it from the opposite side:

OP asked:

… so I think the answer to OP is actually that YES, when you call Instantiate, other code can run (code in Awake() and OnEnable() for example) before the reference to the newly-instantiated thing comes back.

3 Likes
4

I think this is real. I was able to have some code for my enemy to instantiate itself, but I was telling it to not do that by accessing its script and changing the isThisInstantiated boolean. They then instantiaed themselves in a daisy-chain and my unity ran out of memory and crashed in about a minute.

5

Put that sorta code in Start().

Here’s why:

Anything in Awake / OnEnable runs BEFORE the Instantiate returns to you, as I said above.