Sebastian SchönerNov 22, 2024
I wrote some words (with an example!) about how to write custom async on-demand importers in Unity: https://blog.s-schoener.com/2024-11-22-unity-async-imports/
Unity Async On-Demand Imports

Hey! You can find me on Mastodon, Bluesky, or Twitter! For a while now, Unity has had a neat little feature: async, on-demand imports. It’s not widely used or implemented, but it exists. This blog post is going to point you in the general direction of how to implement such...

Show threadAras PranckevičiusNov 22, 2024
@sschoener oh wow, that is pretty cool! I’m wondering how many of “yeah this is actually possible” workflows are possible, just Unity does not clearly tell people about them
Show threadAras PranckevičiusNov 22, 2024
@sschoener like, even the whole asset dependencies concept I feel like is not known about widely enough
Show threadSebastian SchönerNov 22, 2024

@aras Importers are under-documented, which is a shame because they are inherently hard to get right. Even Unity's own scripted importers are somewhat broken.

Maybe some friction to stop people from shooting themselves into their feet unless they actually put in the work is intentional?

Show threadherbst

@sschoener @aras I think one problem with the "async import" thing is that it's getting harder and harder to build real-world importers...

Like, need a material while importing the thing? And that's a Shader Graph?

Good luck doing the GatherDependencies thing and hoping that on a first project import things will actually work...

Nov 22, 2024 at 2:11pmWeb
Show threadRyan CNov 23, 2024
@herbst @sschoener @aras importers have import ordering to define which ones run first. So in your example if you knew you needed the results from another importer in your importer, set yours to run after the one you need. Setting up proper import ordering is pretty often overlooked even in Unity's own packages.
Show threadherbstNov 23, 2024
@rcalt2vt With proper dependency tracking import ordering should not be needed at all! It's only relevant for the "first import pass" where the importer should collect dependencies and then ensure that these dependencies run first before running the actual importer.
Show threadRyan CNov 23, 2024
@herbst true enough when the pipeline is designed with that in mind. Unity's is not.
Show threadJonas DrewsenNov 23, 2024
@herbst @rcalt2vt import ordering is an optimization right now and will go away in favor of proper dependency tracking.
Show threadRyan CNov 23, 2024
@jdrewsen @herbst I wasn't about to leak anything coming so I didn't want to say it. =D
Show threadAras PranckevičiusNov 24, 2024
@rcalt2vt @jdrewsen @herbst it’s not a leak, it is revealing design thinking! Please “leak” more! ;)
Show threadJonas DrewsenNov 25, 2024
@aras @rcalt2vt @herbst On the design front I can add that we are actively working on moving it out of experimental namespace and also towards a more standard c# Task based API with improved failure semantics.
Show threadSander van Rossen🇺🇦Nov 25, 2024
@jdrewsen @aras @rcalt2vt @herbst so am I correct to assume that this would, eventually, get rid of the import popups that make you wait? if so, can't wait!
Show threadJonas DrewsenNov 25, 2024
@logicalerror @aras @rcalt2vt @herbst That is orthogonal to the non-primary imports that @sschoener describes in the blog post. But you should pop by one day and have a peek at what we are up to on that front ;)
Show threadSander van Rossen🇺🇦Nov 25, 2024
@jdrewsen @aras @rcalt2vt @herbst @sschoener If I'm ever in copenhagen I'm sure to pop by :)