The Visual Grid is a handy visualization and editing tool that shows you and allows you to edit the dimensions of your Streamable Grid, as well as which Cells on the Grid are Enabled or Disabled.
Every Streamable Cell on the Streamable Grid does not need to be associated with Asset Chunks. In fact, for very large worlds, it's likely that most of your Cells will not have Asset Chunks associated with them!
In order to avoid attempts to load Asset Chunks that do not exist, it's necessary to mark all Streamable Cells on the Streamable Grid as either having or not having Asset Chunks. In the terms used by the Streamable Assets Manager, you need to mark whether each Cell is Enabled (has chunks) or Disabled (does not have chunks).
By default, the Streamable Grid starts out with 2D XZ Axes of 4 Rows and 4 Columns (and of course, because it's 2D, 1 Layer), with every Cell marked as Enabled. You can confirm this by looking at the small visual grid shown in the Global Main Settings tab of the Streamable Grid asset.
By default, Enabled Cells are marked in Blue while Disabled Cells are marked in Red, although you can change this color scheme via the GlobalEditorSettings asset found in the Assets/Editor Default Resources/Deep Space Labs/SAM/ScriptableAssets folder.
In order to change a Disabled Cell to Enabled using the Visual Grid, simply left click on it. To change it from Enabled to Disabled, right click on it.
In addition, you can change multiple Cells at once by holding the shift button on your keyboard and either left clicking (To Enable) or right clicking (To Disable) one of the buttons that surround the visual grid. For example, shift left clicking the R1 button will Enable all Cells on Row 1.
Finally, take note of the Update (Enable New Cells) and Update (Disable New Cells) buttons that sit below the fields for setting the number of Rows, Columns, and Layers.
When expanding the number of Rows, Columns, or Layers, new cells need to be added to the Streamable Grid. In order to reduce your workload in having to change the state of these Cells after they've been added, you can use either button according to which state you want the new Cells to be in.
Generally speaking, it's advisable to only Enable new Cells if you know for a fact that they will have Asset Chunks associated with them. In all other cases, you should leave new Cells in a Disabled state, then either manually Enable them later on, or allow the World Designer Tool to do so automatically when making use of it.
--Upgrade Note--
Previously, the enabling/disabling behavior worked slightly different. Please familiarize yourself with the new way things work in order to avoid any confusion.
The visual grid found under Global Main Settings is also the way in which you will modify the length of Rows, width of Columns, and height of Layers. Doing so is both simple and intuitive; you merely need to click (any mouse button will do) any of the buttons that surround the visual grid (with no modifier keys, such as shift, held down), and a new small popup window will appear allowing you to set the dimension of Cells in that category. These buttons include:
1) RX - Set the length of that Row, where X corresponds to the Row Number.
2) CX - Set the width of that Columns, where X corresponds to the Column Number.
3) LX - Set the height of that Layer, where X corresponds to the Layer Number.
4) All Rows - Set the length of every Row in the Grid to the same value.
5) All Columns - Set the width of every Column in the Grid to the same value.
6) All Layers - Set the height of every Layer in the Grid to the same value.
7) Everything - Set the length of every Row, width of every Column, and height of every Layer in the Grid to the same value.
--Special Note--
The popup window is configured so that the cursor is automatically on the input field when it opens, so you do not need to click on the field before entering a dimension. You can also press Enter on your keyboard to commit the changes.
--Upgrade Note--
If you are an older user of the Terrain Slicing & Dynamic Loading Kit, you may remember the old methods of setting this same data (as well as the Enabled/Disabled state of the Cells). Those methods are still available, however the new system should be easier to use in 99% of cases. You can hover over the tooltips for options under Old Data Set Methods to see more information about those options, if you feel inclined to use them.
For performance and optimal viewing, the visual grid is limited to showing at maximum 4 rows, 4 columns, and 1 layer. For larger Grids, this restriction may make enabling/disabling cells difficult, in which case you can opt to use the World Designer Tool instead.
However, the dimensions of the Grid can only be set via this Visual Grid!