Bind data to Scriptable Object

[janooba]

Hey there! I know this is currently not possible, but I’d really like to just throw my hat in the ring as a user who would benefit from binding data to Scriptable Objects immensely.

Storing design-time data for NPCs inside a Scriptable Object is a pretty standard process for developers, and currently the only way to make this work is to rewrite every single node to access a blackboard variable of said Scriptable Object and the needed variable within. This is a massive timesink and really pigeonholes the user into writing niche specific nodes that can’t be used elsewhere. In addition, if you were to use the blackboard to store all your design-time variables, designers are in direct conflict with developers because they both have to modify the same prefabs. It also means you have to make the same change to multiple prefabs if you have a few different variations of the same NPC.

If anyone can think of a quick hack to get around this I’d really love to hear it.

Thanks!

[janooba]

Ahh well I went ahead and implemented it myself. I posted videos in the discord. It was definitely a process, but I don’t think it’s “hacky”. I just added a separate list of Scriptable Objects to the blackboard that can be referenced when binding variables.

[janooba]

Alright, I managed to implement it myself. It was no small task, but I managed to do it in about the 8 or so hours between now and the last post. What I’ve done is added a separate list for the user to define Scriptable Objects that can be bound to, then updated all the binding code to also allow binding to them. I’d love to outline exactly how I did this, but I had to modify so much code that its out of scope for here. My hope is to get the developer’s attention so that they may implement this officially.

Here’s a few links to videos of it in action.

[Gavalakis]

This look like a nice change being able to add non-variable scriptable objects only for the purpose of binding properties to them. It makes the whole workflow/UI a bit more complex, but maybe the benefits are worth it. I have noted this down and will look into making it official (in this or a similar way).

Thank you for your suggestion! 🙂

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