Update Prime Tween Inside Custom Tick

[sergiyha]

Hi.
I am developing the game utilizing custom ECS engine and have my own tick. I do not have any unity Update() event functions in my project and I want to be confident about the execution order. The question is next: can I invoke the global Prime update inside my tick, it would be a separate system for doing it. Thanks.

[PalliativeX]

It would also be great to be able to update manually not the whole tween manager, but separately stored tweens, because for UI it's ok that tweens are updated automatically, but when using tweens for the camera and other game logic it's important to control the execution order.

[KyryloKuzyk]

Hi!

I'm afraid PrimeTween wasn't designed with this use case in mind and there is currently no way to update PrimeTween manually. I'm not sure if adding this functionality will benefit a broader audience, but PrimeTween comes with full source code so adding this feature yourself should be relatively easy.

But maybe knowing the details of how PrimeTween updates its animation can work as an alternative solution for you so you can be confident when things happen:

• PrimeTween updates all its animations in Update() with the script execution order of -2000. So any script with a higher execution order than -2000 can safely assume that all PrimeTween animations are already updated.
• Also, animations with specified startValue receive their first update in the LateUpdate() after they are created. This guarantees that all animations are displayed at their startValue when the frame is rendered. So, if an animation is created before PrimeTween's LateUpdate(), your ECS system can be sure that it will receive its first update before the frame is rendered.

[TylerTemp]

Hi, I'm also interested in this topic. I don't care whether I need to update the Manager or individual Tween, but can you point a direction that how can I manually tick it? Like, if the tweenManager has a Update function that read Time.time? If so I may find a way to init the manager then use reflection or so to change time and update it

[KyryloKuzyk]

@TylerTemp Because PrimeTween comes with the full source code, I would say the easiest way to support custom tick is to modify the PrimeTweenManager class.

To modify the source code, first embed PrimeTween into your project: https://discussions.unity.com/t/how-to-locally-modify-source-code-in-a-package/919965

There are 3 methods in which PrimeTween updates all its animations: Update(), LateUpdate(), and FixedUpdate(). Just rename those methods (so Unity doesn't call them in its event loop) and make them public. Then call these methods at appropriate times for your game.

You might also want to add custom support for float deltaTime, float unscaledDeltaTime parameters if your game doesn't use Unity's time.

[KyryloKuzyk]

Hey @sergiyha @TylerTemp, good news!

I added an experimental feature that lets you update tweens manually. To enable it, add the PRIME_TWEEN_EXPERIMENTAL to the ‘Project Settings / Player / Scripting Define Symbols’.

Then you'll be able to manually update PrimeTweenManager from a script:

void Update() => PrimeTweenConfig.ManualUpdate(UpdateType.Update);

void LateUpdate() {
    PrimeTweenConfig.ManualUpdate(UpdateType.LateUpdate);
    PrimeTweenConfig.ManualUpdateApplyStartValues(UpdateType.Update);
    PrimeTweenConfig.ManualUpdateApplyStartValues(UpdateType.LateUpdate);
}

void FixedUpdate() => PrimeTweenConfig.ManualUpdate(UpdateType.FixedUpdate);

You can also provide custom deltaTime and unscaledDeltaTime to the PrimeTweenConfig.ManualUpdate() method if you have your project doesn't rely on Unity's time.

@PalliativeX Good news for you too 😀
I added a new UpdateType parameter to TweenSettings, so you can choose to update tweens in LateUpdate. Will that help you with your execution order request?

[nscimerical]

Hi, can the update settings be applied per Tween instead of a global config? Use case is for multiplayer networked games. In netcode, usually the simulation is done in a separate update mode, the network ticks, which can be configured to any arbitrary tick rate like 30 or 60. The UI, of course, runs in Update as it doesn't need to be networked.

Rollback happens in predicted netcode too, so it also important to be able to revert to a previous time. I currently use LitMotion which supports directly setting the progress, manually step the tween, whether it be forwards or backwards.

[KyryloKuzyk]

@nscimerical PrimeTween has Tween.progress and Tween.elapsedTime properties, which you can modify manually. Do you think that would help?

[nscimerical]

Oh yes, that actually does. I apologize, I completely missed that one