RTS Entity Studio: working authoring and test workflow

Open Tools > RTS Entity Studio for the guided dashboard. The existing Character Workspace, equipment tools and animation assets remain available; Tools > RTS > Entity Studio is the preserved advanced equipment window.

Configure URP in Graphics and Quality settings before testing. Use the Forward+ rendering path on its Universal Renderer for Entities Graphics; the packaged sample renderer is configured this way. A Forward renderer can produce Unity's Entities Graphics compatibility warning.

Try it without a character pack

1. In Create Unit, choose Create reusable sample unit — no character pack required and select an Assets folder. This creates a small saved rig, mesh, material, three clips/actions, linked profiles, GPU bake and an equipment attachment. These are reusable project assets.
2. Review the saved definition, then choose Review and generate / update authoring. The review describes the managed fields. Confirm to create member simulation prefabs and a registry prefab.
3. Open Test Units, select the saved unit, optionally choose test columns/spacing, and choose Create editable test scene. Unity prompts you to save any Untitled scene first; cancel leaves it open. These are placement settings for that scene only.
4. Choose Open saved test scene, save your current scene if prompted, then press Unity's Play button. Wait for the SubScene to bake/load. Inspect Game view and the Test Units live counts.
5. Use the Idle, Walk, Attack and Death animation buttons to exercise presentation. Reset presentation clears the death latch. These controls do not implement attacks, damage, orders or navigation.
6. Exit Play mode before changing source assets. Change a quantity or role, generate/update authoring again, and replay the saved test scene. Existing test scenes remain editable and are not overwritten.

The sample is deliberately simple geometry. Verify your own rig, clips, materials and equipment before relying on its results for those assets.

Use your assets

Save a unit definition, assign saved model/prefab sources per active role, and assign appearance and animation actor profiles. If no animation profile exists, Create linked appearance and animation assets makes the editable profile chain. Use the animation window to add clips to the Library and map semantic actions in the Set; assign Idle and Death (and optional actions) on the actor profile. Review / build linked visual outputs builds GPU data and equipment modules. Shared assets affect every definition that references them.

Generation uses empty simulation prefabs for GPU actors; source renderers stay on the original model. It attaches the installed actor and equipment authoring and registers the member prefabs with their effective quantities. Individual units use one member; groups use role quantities; supporting roles participate only when enabled. No fixed overall member cap is imposed by the creator. Runtime rendering allocates batches of 16 within a 256 MiB world buffer budget; performance and available GPU memory depend on your content. The low-level 65,535 dispatch dimension is not a total army limit.

GPU materials use the included opaque diffuse shader: base texture, tint, ambient/main-light lighting and shadow/depth passes. Baking copies the source base texture and color. Normal/metallic maps, emission, transparency and full URP Lit material-property preservation are not implemented; custom material behavior requires shader/baker integration. Verify the resulting baked materials for your own assets.

The built-in equipment adapter supports unrestricted Soldier/Role visual pools, slot compatibility, facts, overrides, child pools and the existing selector. Shared army/campaign quotas, Unit-scope bearer allocation and equipment-specific animation profiles require a host adapter; generation reports these requirements instead of silently ignoring them. Facts and overrides can be supplied by your ECS systems. This tool does not provide combat-stat consumers.

Custom components and formations

Custom Components attaches compatible scripts to generated registry/member prefab copies. After generation, Inspect existing component fields selects the actual component for its normal Inspector. Existing serialized values and manually added components are preserved across repeated setup. A MonoBehaviour requires its own Baker or host bridge to affect an ECS entity. Companion/external-object plans require manual integration.

There is no gameplay formation constraint. Columns, rows and spacing are optional test placement; developers may attach their own formation, movement or group-command integration. No movement, health, selection, combat, transport or crew engine is bundled. Relationship and behavior notes remain design notes.

Asset ownership and checks

Generated prefabs carry a definition ownership label. Updating a definition preserves their GUIDs, labels and custom components; it refuses to overwrite another definition's assets. Duplicating a definition clears generated references, so its setup is independent. Removing or disabling an existing generated capability requires explicitly removing its authoring component; setup preserves the component and reports the mismatch. Static source copies are editable snapshots: edit their generated prefab or create a fresh role when changing source models.

Validate checks configuration only. Generate additionally checks installed module prerequisites. Play-mode counts report actual ECS members, GPU registration failures and missing required equipment. GPU registration alone does not establish visible pixels: inspect Game view. Console errors provide the failing asset/entity. After correcting and rebaking, regenerate authoring; use renderer retry for transient registration failures.

Development regression checks cover configuration persistence, baking, roster spawning, equipment assignment, resource ownership and GPU deformation. Development tests and third-party verification fixtures are excluded from the customer package. Consult the release report for the tests completed against this candidate.

Unity 6.6 editor shutdown warning

In the verified Unity 6000.6.4f1 / Entities 6.6.0 configuration, opening a SubScene can cause Unity to report two unclosed preview scenes when the Editor exits. These are Unity Entities' CompanionScene and CompanionSceneLiveConversion; the installed package closes them on assembly reload. Repeated RTS Entities preview open/refresh/dispose checks return to baseline, and runtime member/renderer cleanup passes. No third-party package patch or global scene-closing workaround is included. This is an editor shutdown diagnostic, not a claim that the tool's GPU preview or runtime actors remain allocated after their tested cleanup.

Character Workspace editing

Appearance, Armor and Weapons provide named pool shortcuts; Equipment Pools lists every pool. Role-scoped pools expose their Role key beside Scope. Unit-scope allocation still needs a host adapter. Zero-weight candidates are excluded; a pool with no positive total weight reports a validation warning above the source fallback preview.

Materials & Colors edits module tints and rebuilds existing configured GPU modules so the preview reflects the change. Undo restores the prior tint and its output. Modules can be shared across profiles; a shared module's tint affects every reference to it. Safe Duplicate copies the profile's pool lists and gives them new identities, while equipment modules, skeletons and animation remain shared. Use separate module assets when independent material edits are required.

Use Save All before reopening an edited setup. Build Equipment Data rebuilds configured visual modules and checks the resulting catalog. New or unconfigured modules still need their source, skeleton and pose references supplied before building. Smaller windows can scroll the workspace horizontally to reach all controls; maximize the window for the clearest overview.