Game Data Editor: The Visual Data Editor [Released]

I'll PM you a patch. Give me a minute.

 

Hi Steve,

Will the patch form part of the next release later?

 

No. To make the system robust, we would need to take full control over item IDs. Taking item ID out of the spreadsheet format, and not allow ID renaming in the GDE Editors. That would affect the playmaker/icode users since they need to enter item IDs in the actions. Maybe sometime later when those actions get an overhaul, we can revisit this.

 

Works great Steve, thanks for the awesome support.

 

Quick status update, I'm going to punt on Sprite support. Unity does not have a great way to load packed sprites from scripts. All is not lost though. You will be able to get the same effect by creating prefabs and linking those in GDE.

New types will include GameObject, Texture2D, and Material. Starting in on AudioClip now.

 

@Celestipoo,

How goes it with the next release?

Did you manage to find and squash that bug with color?

 

I did I've done a decent amount of bug squashing with this update. I'm working on documentation and an iCode sample scene now. Then testing and if all is well, submit. Oh yeah, I was going to look at the runtime cloning methods. I better write that down before I forget

 

Great. By sounds of it, it's going to be a BIG update.... .

 

It's a pretty decent update. The price will go up, so for anyone lurking grab it now

 

wow, it's sound awesome, im really looking to the update , I'm working with my new quite-big project with ur asset

 

@Celestipoo ,

Sorry to ask but when do you anticipate putting to the Asset Store for approval?

 

I'd like to be code complete early next week. Then I'll go into a testing/bug fixing cycle. Most likely submit in the later half of July.

 

Is that still compatible if im using the recent version update to the next version ?

 

Yup. Just backup your data before updating.

 

Hi Celeste! Thanks so much for a great product. I just bought and started using it last week.

I've been reading about the coming update, and I just have a quick question. I've got a couple of use cases for images in my project, and I'm trying to figure out if your next update will allow me to store the image references in GDE. I know you said you're not going to support sprite objects right now, so I'm just checking if the following cases will still be possible:

1) I have a dynamic list of buttons in the Unity UI; each button has an image and text. I'd like to store the image reference and the text together in a GDE schema (along with some other text fields) from which to populate the list.
2) I have a number of documents which are stored as images and will be accessible through a document interface (again in Unity UI). I'd like to store these with IDs and some text fields (name, description, etc) in a GDE schema so I can organize them.

Can you let me know if these and other similar cases will be possible with the next update? Otherwise, I'll look for alternate ways to store the image references.

Thanks so much!

--Joe

 

Hi Joe,

You will be able to link your images with the new update. If you can use the images as a Texture2D, there's no extra work you need to do. GDE will have support for Texture2D right out of the box. If you need the images as Sprites, then you can create prefabs that contain a Sprite component. Then you can link the prefabs to the rest of the data. During runtime, you can access the linked prefab, grab the Sprite component, then populate your buttons or documents.

 

Excellent! Thanks.

 

Had a few interruptions this week, but I'm wrapping up iCode sample scenes today. I'm so close to done I can taste it. A few features on the cutting block:

Runtime Clone methods
Runtime values window

I can't get to those with this update. I will keep them high on the feature list and will get to them soon.

 

Just remind us and whet the appetite, what gameobjects etc now supported? Texture2d? Vector2, Vector3? etc?

 

GameObject (which is so freakin' awesome with this you can do anything!
Texture2D
Material
AudioClip

Vector2 & Vector3 are already supported

 

Whoops (re Vector2/3).

With GameObject are you going to update the demos/code (think you have said you might above?).

Can we put pretty much anything we like as a component to a GameObject and then lift that variable or sub-whatever from the GameObject later? Will there be some handy Playmaker stuff for that?

p.s. excellent - can't wait.

 

Yup, all sample scenes have been updated with the new types. New playmaker actions have been added for those types and playmaker sample scenes have been updated as well.

YESSSSSS! Once you load the GameObject with GDE, you'll need to do the lifting yourself with GetComponent<> or Instantiate() if that's what you want to do. If you think of some handy Playmaker actions let me know and I'll add them to the wish list.

 

Great - thanks once again. Will be monitoring my downloads page....

 

GDE v2.5 has entered testing this morning! Woo getting close I expect some bug squashing, then submitting this week. Stay tuned.

 

https://twitter.com/stevebu56/status/623162140275437569

This morning I started testing the update and flushed out some bugs. No showstoppers so that's a plus.

 

Great! Bring it on!

 

Just thought... Will there be support to pull in GameObjects from their string references (path n name) in playmaker?

 

awesome, imagine how much thing i can do with this, so convenient, it's not just a regular data editor, really can't wait for the next update

 

@Celestipoo ,

Hope this makes sense. I'm wondering how to store some RPG-esque data with GDE. I've looked at 2d lists and not sure that's the way to go.

I'll give you a scenario and perhaps you can suggest how best to work with GDE to achieve it.

Let's say your RPG has various Races and Classes but let's say the Classes have various minimum Attribute (Strength, Intelligence, Dexterity etc requirements).

So I've defined a series of Attributes and I am now defining each Class. For each Class I want a list of required Attributes and for each Attribute a minimum required level. For example for my Class 'Warrior' I might want Strength with min required level 4, Intelligence min required level 2, Dexterity min required level 3, and so on.

It would be great if I could record those requirements with the required Attribute and then required min level for that Attribute together so, using the above example, Strength,4 Intelligence,2 Dexterity,3 - rather than having to do a list of all the required Attribtues:- Strength, Intelligence, Dexterity followed by a separate list for their required levels 4,2,3...

What's the best way to tackle this with GDE?

 

How about a list of attributes in your Attributes schema, and a separate class for minimum values where you use the Attributes schema and just populate it with values?

 

No, ideally, I'd like to have the attributes and their required min level (or whatever score) in a single list for convenience...

 

Sorry for the late response. I haven't gotten any notifs from the unity forums since last week.

Yes, there will be support for all the new types (GameObject, Texture2D, Material, & AudioClip) in Playmaker & iCode.

 

Can you put the required min level in the Attribute schema? Each class will have a single list of attributes. In the attributes, the min level will be alongside the rest of the attribute data.

 

Another GDE Update.. Update

We hit a snag with importing/exporting to Google Drive. We got into a state where export would hang for what seemed like *forever.* We couldn't figure out what caused the hang - whether it was something in GDE or some outside factor like our terrible ISP. We are implementing a better timeout so if the underlying connection fails it won't block the editor for half an hour.

The bug bashing continues! GDE v2.5 (because this update is way more than a .1 version bump will get submitted in the next week.

 

@ Celestipoo,

No can do - because different classes or whatever may require say Strength with a different min score/level... Or say different Races may get different bonuses or modifiers to different Attributes and so on...

So in attached screenshot, I'd be wanting to add specific scores or required levels to the right of the named attributes, if you see what I mean (another integer column)....

 

I don't see any problem with GDE, you should find the best solution for the system ur making, and this is not because of GDE can't do. You should take more time to understand how this GDE really works and it's own potential for you to work with. So far, anything relate to the data for unity with GDE, nothing i can't do, so yeah, give urself sometime of thinking. Meanwhile Stay at Home dev are really busy to make GDE become better, so at least, at this time, i think you should spend more time to look for the solution urself, it's all the matter of programming skill, Cheers !

 

https://twitter.com/stevebu56/status/624240927800954880

Churning through the bug list for the next update. Nothing super terrible just work so that's good.

 

I see. You want to be able to override data there. You could use a spreadsheet and define all the different attributes and values for the different classes. So you'd have Strength_Warrior, Strength_Mage, Strength_Warlock, etc. Or, you can create a RequiredAttribute schema that contains an Attribute and whatever fields you'd like to override and any requirements. It could look like:

RequiredAttribute
- Attribute attribute
- int minLevel
- int minScore
- float bonus1
- float bonus2

You'd still need to create a RequiredAttribute for each class, but this way you have your shared attribute data linked and the attribute meta data in one place.

In your Class schema, add a List<RequiredAttribute> instead of List<Attribute>.

 

@Celestipoo ,

Thanks - really appreciate your help on this...

 

No problem! Did my suggestion work for you?

 

I think so yes

 

Awesome

 

Found another place where you're assuming I haven't moved GDE out of the top-level Assets folder. I'm transitioning from defining my data in the editor to defining it in a Google spreadsheet so that it's easier for my partner to access (partner is also my husband, like you!). Anyway, when I tried to import the spreadsheet it failed because it wants to put it in Assets/GameDataEditor/Editor/ExcelImport and that doesn't exist. Easy enough to create those folders so that it can import, but it'd be even easier if I didn't have to do that every time. Is there a file where I can edit that path like there was with the generated code? Also wanted to verify that once the JSON data file has been updated, the imported spreadsheet is no longer needed, correct? Actually, that makes me wonder if you could import the spreadsheet into Temp...

 

Hah ok, I actually just found the file (I did spend some time looking before I asked the question, I swear!). GameDataEditor/Editor/ExcelImport/GDEDriveHelper.cs where the DownloadPath property is defined. That should get me by for now, since I understand you're probably past the point where you're going to get anything else into the upcoming update.

 

No the imported spreadsheet is no longer needed. Every time you would import it would pull a new copy.

We fixed a bunch of issues with moving GDE around the assets folder. Those fixes are coming with the new update.

 

We did move the excel download to the Temp directory so this issue should be resolved in the update.

And Wife/Husband teams rock!

 

Awesome, thanks guys!

Another thing I've been running into, since moving from Unity editor to Google spreadsheet: it'd be really nice to have a quick way of clearing/resetting the JSON data file. I think this has been brought up before? We have one giant spreadsheet and we keep updating it, so when we re-import we want all the existing data to be replaced, not appended to. So either having a data file reset button somewhere, or asking whether we're appending or replacing whenever we import a spreadsheet, I think would help a lot.

 

Importing (and exporting) replaces the data. When importing, your data file will get replaced with whatever is in the spreadsheet. If exporting, the data file will replace whatever data is in the spreadsheet.

If your data is not getting replaced, then there's a bug somewhere. Do you have solid steps to reproduce the issue?

 

Ah, you are correct, my bad! I had a ton of problems the first time I tried importing and may have been a bit overeager in forming the list of steps I had to follow to get it to work correctly. In trying to find reasons for the failure, I combed through this thread and saw someone complaining that the data file would be appended to during import rather than replaced in what must have been an earlier version of GDE. Realized I wasn't clearing the file first and thought maybe at least part of my problem was duplicate IDs. Completely reset my project and tried again... and yay, it worked! But when you "fix" a bunch of different things and then it works I guess you can't really say for sure that all those "fixes" were necessary, eh? Anyway, sorry about the false alarm

 

No worries. Did you figure out what was wrong? I mean, did you figure out what was causing the issues?