How to Use Dynamic Buffers in Unity ECS - DOTS Tutorial [ECS Ver. 0.17]

❗❗ Caution: This video was made with an older version of ECS. See pinned comment for further Details ❗❗
📌 Download the project files from this video: tmg.dev/DynamicBuffers 📌
👨‍💻 Code used in this video: tmg.dev/DynamicBuffers-Code 👨‍💻
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ECS Random Tutorial Video: • Generate RANDOM VALUES...
Email Fishing Game: • Ludum Dare 41 Postmort...
👇 See below for time stamps 👇
- 0:00 - Dynamic Buffers
- 1:19 - What is a Dynamic Buffer?
- 2:13 - Internal Buffer Capacity
- 4:44 - [Tutorial] Project Overview
- 5:24 - [Tutorial] Defining Buffer Elements
- 7:45 - [Tutorial] Setting the Internal Buffer Capacity
- 8:49 - [Tutorial] Adding Dynamic Buffers to Entities
- 10:37 - [Tutorial] Adding Data to Dynamic Buffers
- 12:01 - [Tutorial] Adding to Dynamic Buffers Demonstration
- 12:41 - [Tutorial] A Cleaner Way to Add Data
- 13:48 - [Tutorial] Printing the Length of All Caught Fish
- 15:06 - Final Demonstration and Wrap up
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Music by: Joakim Karud / joakimkarud
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[@TurboMakesGames]

❗❗ *Caution:* This video was made using an older version of Unity ECS. While the core concepts remain the same, some of the API and workflows have changed as of ECS version 1.0. I would recommend checking out my ECS 1.0 tutorial video for a good overview of the latest standards for Unity’s DOTS: kzbin.info/www/bejne/f4CZkGmPlL6Imqc Once again, the theory behind the concepts of this video are still relevant, however the API has changed. Stay tuned for further updated videos on this subject. Please let me know if you have any questions either here or in our Discord community: tmg.dev/Discord

[@seyedmortezakamali2597]

every fisherman should learn Dynamic Buffers

[@TurboMakesGames]

Haha yes indeed!!

[@rockyshark3281]

You can always "hack" that limitation of having only one value by using custom struct. For example: using System; using Unity.Entities; [GenerateAuthoringComponent] public struct DynBufferComponent : IbufferElementData { public Workaround valuesSet; } [Serializable] public struct Workaround { public int valueInt; public char valueChar; } I very appreciate your content - in addition to next DOTS feature I was able to learn about custom operators for implicit and explicit conversions. Without it, I didn't even know that something like that exists! :D

[@TurboMakesGames]

That's a cool workaround, just tried it out, works as intended. Thanks for sharing! 👍 Also yeah making custom operators is a cool C# language feature you can use to clean up your code a bit 😊

[@wasteurtime5677]

REALLY COOL HACK! I was using a float3x3 data type for my buffer element and it was getting very annoying. I'm still wrapping my head around the theory of chunk utilization and structural changes. Is valueint and valuechar stored in the same chunk as valueSet?

[@rockyshark3281]

@@TurboMakesGames You're welcome - in return you can share some video about System State Components ;D

[@rockyshark3281]

@@wasteurtime5677 In the way I suppose you understand - the answer is "yes". Both values inside struct are together in memory, one near one. Or at least I understand this that way. Chunk in ecs is like a box made from colorized paper. Box is the chunk, color is archetype, stuff inside box (steel balls, made from elements, which are components) are entities, capacity of the box is size of chunk - if you have too much entities, you need another box/chunk to store more. Something like that, hope that's helpful and is NOT DOTS-heresy ;D

[@user-ng6xz3uo9c]

I've been waiting for this subject

[@TurboMakesGames]

Awesome, yeah they are super useful 😀

[@TheMasterAram]

Thanks, I needed this

[@TurboMakesGames]

You're welcome, it is a super useful feature!

[@wlsmdltn]

Oh. Thanks for video ~ :)

[@TurboMakesGames]

Oh. You're welcome 😁😁

[@GoodNewsJim]

Yo Turbo, is there a way to test if an entity has a IBufferElementData attached to it?

[@gavinfuchs]

I would be interested if using the DynamicBuffer in a "IJobEntityBatchWithIndex" would be usable and how it's done :D Maybe you can make a tutorial about that @Turbo

[@TurboMakesGames]

Good to know you'd be interested in something like that! Is this something you've been having issues with? If so what? Also, what's your use case for using them in and IJobEntityBatchWithIndex specifically? Thanks!

[@seyedmortezakamali2597]

What is the difference between NativeList and DynamicBuffers?

[@TurboMakesGames]

Great question! They have many similarities, however there are situations where it makes sense to use DynamicBuffers over Native collections. DynamicBuffers are best used for "per-entity" storage as the data can live in the chunk for fast memory access inside jobs. They also have helper functions to convert them to NativeArrays if you ever need to store/access the data in a native collection anyways

[@GiMiat]

Sorry to ask this noob question, but ECS still only works in Unity 2020.x and not in 2021 right? or did I miss something

[@DecentralisedGames]

I believe it is problematic with 2021.x best stay on early LTS of 2020.x

[@TurboMakesGames]

That is correct. Check out my video from a few months ago called "ECS Does NOT Work with Unity 2021" to learn about why this is 😊

[@funlightfactory6031]

You're adorable.

[@TurboMakesGames]

Just out here having fun 😀