Custom Inspector : List with several type of Class

Hi,

I'm looking for some help with the custom inspector.

I have those classes : SpellEffect / SpellEffectSpeed / SpellEffectLife / SpellEffectLifeOverTime

SpellEffect is the parent of the 3 others and it's [System.Serializable]. Then I have a List<SpellEffect> that can contains all of those 3 children.

And I can't have a custom inspector that allow me to add from the editor one of them. The only thing that I can, it's add a SpellEffect.

Thx for any solutions !

 

This is because you have a list of Spell Effects. Polymorphism is not supported with serialization.

 

From a practical perspective BMayne is correct. Technically serialization of polymorphic objects is supported, if the classes derive from GameObject (ScriptableObject?), but I don't think that's going to help your in this case. Without serious work an inspector is certainly going to choke on a polymorphic list, so your problem remains.

A couple of options would be to compress your classes down to a single SpellData and maybe include an enum flag that says how to interpret the data, or possibly re-work your classes in Components and use a GameObject as your list container. Both of these sound messy.

Are the contents of your Spell* classes directly affecting game engine objects or are they largely data classes? If the latter, the maybe the GO/Inspector approach isn't the best way to go??

 

For now I can use an enum to differenciate my Spells but I will probably upgrade each of them later and I wanted a system that don't make me rewrite the code that manage the spell effects.

So I was thinking of a simple editor tool with button for each kind of spell effect I have and will have later. When I click on one those buttons, I can params the spell effect and add it to the List.

And for the inspector, I just need to see what there are in the List, no matter if I can't add directly a spell effect on it.

 

I'm a little confused. I have this code in my custom inspector :

Code (csharp):

1.  
2. foreach (SpellEffect se in mySpellBehavior.effects)
3. {
4.       Debug.Log(se.GetType());
5. }
6.  
7. type = (SpellEffectType)EditorGUILayout.EnumPopup("Effect", type);
8. if (GUILayout.Button("Add New Effect"))
9. {
10.       switch (type)
11.       {
12.                 case SpellEffectType.SpellEffectLife:
13.                     mySpellBehavior.effects.Add(new SpellEffectLife(0));
14.                     break;
15.                 case SpellEffectType.SpellEffectLifeOverTime:
16.                     mySpellBehavior.effects.Add(new SpellEffectLifeOverTime(0, 0.0f));
17.                     break;
18.      }
19. }
20.  

It works fine, the log(se.GetType()) display the right type. But once I launch the game and I back to edit, the log(se.GetType()) doesn't work anymore, it log SpellEffect only...

 

Well I find my answers in this http://forum.unity3d.com/threads/serialization-best-practices-megapost.155352/

Actually the both things I needed were to create inheritance between ScriptableObject and SpellEffect then instead of "Add(new SpellEffectLifeOverTime)" on my list, I use "Add(CreateInstance(SpellEffectLifeOverTime))"