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Addressable System - Overview

Addressables are Unity's upgrade for the old Asset Bundle system. While the new system is definitely an upgrade over that old system, fair warning! It is still fairly complicated to work with Addressables, and as such, we recommend thoroughly researching the topic and trying to gain a decent understanding of it before trying to build a complete game using Addressables in the SAM system.

If you feel you are up to the task, great! Addressables are truly the way to go if you can, as it grants you flexibility in how you deploy your streaming assets (locally on the users computer or remotely on a server).

If you aren't sure, don't worry! It is relatively simple to upgrade from using Prefabs or Scenes to using Addressables, so for now, start with using one (or both) of those systems first.

Understanding Addressables

As stated, Addressables are complicated. We do not provide general assistance in understanding the Addressables System, as Unity has already provided documentation for this purpose, in addition to the many tutorial videos you can find online on the subject.

When we discuss Addressables in relation to the Streamable Assets Manager, therefore, we will assume you have a decent understanding of the underly Addressables system. The remainder of this Section will give you an overview of how the Streamable Assets Manager can aid you in working with Addressables.

Creating Addressables

The World Designer tool is a tool that can aid you in fleshing out your game world. One advanced feature of it is the ability to hook up Asset Creators, which can automatically generate new assets so that you can add new things to your world. Fortunately, the default Asset Creator included with the Streamable Assets Manager is configured to work with Addressables!

There are also default systems in place for managing Addressable Assets in other ways, such as destroying them and saving changes to them.

Loading Addressables

SAM includes default Chunk Streamers that allow you to stream in Addressable Prefabs and Scenes. These streamers should serve you in 99% of cases, however if they don't, you can use the source code as a jumping off point for designing your own custom Chunk Streamers. You can learn more about these Chunk Streamers using the following two links.

Addressable Prefab Streamers

Addressable Scene Streamers