I have the following class
using System.Collections;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using UnityEngine;
public class PixelSystem
{
public GameObject pixelPrefab;
public Texture2D[] style;
public List<Chunk> chunks;
public GameObject mGameObject;
public PixelSystem(GameObject _mGameObject)
{
mGameObject = _mGameObject;
chunks = new List<Chunk>();
}
}
Chunk
and Pixel
are structs but I don't think they are relevant.
I would like pixelPrefab
and style
to be serialized but cannot seem to be able to make that work. This script is not attatched to a GameObject.
I have looked into getting the assets at runtime with Resources
or Addressables
but I would like to be able to set these fields from the editor.
I have tried making the class inherit from MonoBehaviour
and having [SerializeField] public GameObject pixelPrefab;
and [SerializeField] public Texture2D[] style;
, but the result of this is that pixelPrefab
is settable from the editor but instead of showing style
it shows mGameObject
, for some reason... ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Edit: Turns out that the [SerializeFields]
do nothing here, the result is the same without them.
I've also tried puting [System.Serializable]
before the class, but as far as I can tell this does nothing at all.
Someone plz help.
Edit:
Due to some misunerstandings I would like to clarify a few things:
- I have the prefab asset already, it is in my assets folder not in my scene, creating the assets is not the problem.
pixelPrefab
would work fine as astatic
property, however,style
would not.- Style only needs serializing for a default value and so is not a priority.
- This code is very incomplete, the constructor is incomplete, I want an answer to this qusetion before I spend time writing code that may be unusable.
- I want to select the assets in the editior
- I do not want to have a function that must be called before the classes are used, so that the assets are loaded
- I do not want to load the assets each time they are referenced, so no
get {load();}
This is what I want to see in the editor when I select my script:
And this is the closest thing to what I want so far:
Which I get by setting the class to inherit from MonoBehaviour
, I'd rather not inherit from anything, and idk if you are meant to have MonoBehaviour
classes that aren't attatched to gameObjects, but if this is necessary then so be it.
A few things here. I'm going to assume this point is the most important:
So, in order to be able to do this, every field you want to see has to be able to be serialized by Unity and also Unity needs to be able to draw the GUI for that thing. You said,
and again here I'm taking "serialized" to really mean that you just want those fields exposed in the Editor so you can stick things into them. So when you give me the following snippet I immediately see several issues:
The first is that
PixelSystem
itself isn't serialized. You either need to tag the class with[System.Serializable]
to use Unity's serializer or you need to inherit from something that Unity already knows should be serialized, likeComponent
orMonoBehaviour
(MonoBehaviour
inheritsComponent
). The issue withComponent
and subclasses is that they need to exist on a GameObject, so you can'tnew
aComponent
, you have to.AddComponent<YourComponent>()
.Now as you've discovered, when you have your script inherit
MonoBehaviour
, you seeAnd the reason it's showing
mGameObject
can be seen in your class' member variables:You can see that
pixelPrefab
is apublic GameObject
. Great! (1) your class is inheritingMonoBehaviour
, so Unity knows to serialize it, (2)pixelPrefab
ispublic
, so the Editor knows to show it, andGameObject
is itself a serializable object that Unity knows how to draw, so the end result is that Unity addspixelPrefab
to the Editor GUI for your class.Then you get to
style
, which ispublic
, so the Editor knows it should show it, but it's an array and Unity doesn't know how to draw the Editor GUI for an array. It's an array ofTexture2D
, which it does know how to draw, but it doesn't know how to handle the array aspect, so it doesn't addstyle
to your GUI.Then you get to
chunks
, which ispublic
, so the Editor knows it should show it, and it's aList
, which Unity does know how to handle, but it's a List ofChunk
, which I'm betting is not inheritingMonoBehaviour
and is also not tagged with[System.Serializable]
, so Unity doesn't know that it's supposed to be serializingChunk
. This means that it does know it's supposed to be drawing a list, but it think it's not supposed to be drawing any contents for the list, so it skips the list completely.Finally you get to
public GameObject mGameObject
, which gets drawn for all the same reasons thatpixelPrefab
gets drawn, and finally you get what you see in the Editor in your last screenshot: OnlypixelPrefab
andmGameObject
are drawn in your class GUI:So, what to do if you want to view your class in an Editor pane and you also want to see
pixelPrefab
andstyle
?MonoBehavior
, hold a reference toPixelSystem
OR havePixelSystem
inheritMonoBehavior
.PixelSystem
is not aMonoBehavior
then it needs to have[System.Serializable]
on the line abovepublic class PixelSystem
.public GameObject pixelPrefab
.style
from an array to a list so Unity knows how to draw it.You should wind up with the following:
You can also have
Chunk
be serialized and shown in your Editor pane if you tag that class with[System.Serializable]
, and you only need the[SerializeField]
tag for fields that aren't alreadypublic
. You can still add that tag to public fields just like you can add[System.Serializable]
to aMonoBehaviour
but it's redundant. Not required.