Expansion pack/DLC

[Seiryu33]

This is a topic I haven't really seen being discussed. How would I go about making expansion packs and DLC? My game is an episodic game so how would I create additional content that can be added to the game? I imagine it involves a fair amount of coding.

[djaydino]

Hi.
Indeed.

I think AssetBundle is the way to go.

There are a few actions only on the Ecosystem

But definitely something to look into.

I will see if i can make some actions for this and also make a tutorial, but it might take a couple of weeks ( a lot of work at the moment )

i have bookmarked it.
Can you bump this in a few weeks so i wont forget about it 

Meanwhile, important is not to use global variables for this assetbundles.
unless maybe if the globals are already in the main game ( i have to test this )
as they will not be included in the bundle.

[tcmeric]

Hi,

I have some actions that are recent and tested for the asset bundle. You can find them here on github: https://github.com/dumbgamedev/playmaker_assetbundle

AssetBundleUnityWebRequest is the action you most likely if you want to download the bundle from the web (not AssetBundleLoadFromCacheOrDownload, unless you are using unity 5.3 or before).

Once you have your bundle, you can use this action to make sure it has what you want "CheckBundleContainsObject.".

Then you can load the gameobject using "LoadAssetGameObject" into your current scene (as a playmaker variable).

[tcmeric]

I also suggest watching these presentations on the asset bundle brower tool for unity (to make your asset bundles). This is a very helpful and easy way to do it (after you watch the boring videos). You dont need to do any coding, just learn how to use this tool to make the bundles, and then use playmaker to get and open the bundles.

Here is the documentation: https://docs.unity3d.com/Manual/AssetBundles-Browser.html

Github to download the tool: https://github.com/Unity-Technologies/AssetBundles-Browser

[Seiryu33]

Mind you that this relates to UWP.  Will the tutorials work for UWP?

[tcmeric]

Asset bundles are unity wide. However, the last action gets the game object variable into playmaker (which you then need to instantiate into the scene). How that works with UWP is up to you.

[Seiryu33]

My specific situation is bundling scenes. Since it's an episodic game, that would mean adding the new Episodes as Scene Asset bundles but I'm not clear on how to go about doing that in Playmaker. The tutorials I've seen mention coding, which is frankly confusing to me.  I know you can't use Global variables because they would be over written. What if it's the same variable? Like I use a Global GameObject variable so enemies can identify the player. Would it cause any issues?

[tcmeric]

Hi, I think you need to try and see what happens. I am not sure about the globals. But you cannot package globals with a scene.

Watch from around here:

You will need to learn how to use this asset bundle manager (from github).

Then you can use the playmaker actions to load the bundle scene, using the scene action.

[Seiryu33]

I guess ultimately I'm not sure how to use the available actions. Like which actions to use on the Asset bundles and which actions to use in the Main game so that when the game is downloaded it gets added to the game. Creating the Asset bundles seems simple enough, it's just the programming that I'm confused by. So far as I've seen, tutorials available specifically use traditional coding, which is where I typically get lost.

[tcmeric]

Hi, no problem. I will make a video about how to use them. It might have to wait a day or two however.

[tcmeric]

Oh boy. I recorded the entire video, but recorded the wrong resolution! 

I will do another recording, but maybe not this week. The resolution is bad, but you can still follow along because I say exactly what I am doing at each step.

So if you cannot wait for a new video, there it is.

I updated the actions a tiny bit, so you might want to download a fresh copy.

[Seiryu33]

So couple of questions about AssetBundles:

1. Since this is for UWP targeting, I am using the WSA targeting when building the bundle right?

2. When using the WWW action, since it'll be downloaded from the Xbox/Windows store and not the local machine, wouldn't I use my store URL to load the bundle or would it have to be the exact url of the Bundle?

[Seiryu33]

Bump

I mostly need help in building and loading AssetBundles for UWP since it's my target platform.

[tcmeric]

You may not find the answer here. This isn't a playmaker specific question. You would need to check with UWP if they have a place to store DLC files or if you have to have your own server to serve that content.

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/uwp/packaging/packaging-uwp-apps