🎱Object Pooling

v1.0

The Projectile Pool Manager prefab should be brought into your scene.

You can turn on the Debug Logs option to see messages from the Projectile Pool Manager

This system maintains a ConcurrentDictionary<GameObject, Queue<GameObject>> which holds all of the pooled Projectiles, as well as a ConcurrentDictionary<string, Queue<GameObject>> which holds other GameObjects returned to the pool.

Putting Objects Into the Pool

Behaviors will automatically attempt to use the pool unless the Projectile has this feature toggled off.

DestroyBehavior.cs

Any Behavior created that is intended to destroy the Projectile should inherit from DestroyBehavior. This has a built in method that will either put the object back into the pool, or destroy it, depending on the Projectile settings, called automatically when the DoDestroy event fires.

In the example below, the AreaDamageOnDestroy behavior overrides DoDestroy(), and causes some area at the position of the projectile, before calling base.DoDestroy(projectile), which will trigger the default behavior -- putting the Projectile back into the pool.

public override void DoDestroy(Projectile projectile)
{
     CauseDamageAtPosition(projectile, projectile.transform.position);
     base.DoDestroy(projectile); // This will put the projectile back into the pool
}

protected virtual void CauseDamageAtPosition(Projectile basicProjectile, Vector3 position)
{
     // Check the code for this example, removed here for brevity
}

ProjectilePowerDestroy.cs

The Projectile Power Destroy component can be added to objects that are spawned by Projectiles, such as impact particles. Many of the demo Projectiles make use of this pattern. The projectile will spawn an impact particle prefab whenever it collides. This means we probably want to use the Object Pool on those objects as well, since they'll be used repeatedly.

Destroy or Pool Object

Direct to the Pool

There are two methods to put Projectiles or GameObjects back into the pool. Both methods have an optional float delay which will delay the operation that actually puts the object back into the pool.

public void PutBackProjectile(Projectile basicProjectile, float delay)
public void PutBackGameObject(GameObject objectToPutBack, float delay)

If you plan on making use of the Object Pool for GameObjects that are not Projectiles, then you can use the PutBackGameObject() method, which will work with any object you'd like to use.

The key for the GameObject pool is the name of the GameObject. The " (Clone)" that Unity automatically adds to object names will be removed from the name. This means that you should ensure your objects which you'll be putting into the pool, and taking back out, have unique names from other objects.

Getting Objects From the Pool

Spawn Behavior

The Spawn Behavior will automatically attempt to pull objects from the pool before instantiating new instances, in the SpawnProjectile() method.

// Grab the object from the pool, using the ProjectilePrefab (GameObject) as the key.
projectileObject = ProjectilePoolManager.instance.GetProjectile(ProjectilePrefab);

// If the pool returned null, we Instantiate instead
if (projectileObject == null)
     projectileObject = InstantiateNewProjectile(ProjectilePrefab, LaunchPosition(angleX, angleY), Quaternion.identity);
else
{
     // See the script for this code, removed for brevity
}

Direct from the Pool

There are two methods to get Projectiles or GameObjects from the pool. The GetProjectile() method will first search for the Projectile based on the objectToGet provided. If it is not found, it will fallback to the GetGameObject() option.

public GameObject GetProjectile(GameObject objectToGet)
public GameObject GetGameObject(GameObject objectToGet)

If you plan on making use of the Object Pool for GameObjects that are not Projectiles, then you can use the GetGameObject() method, which will work with any object you'd like to use.

Debug Messages

The Object Pool has a built-in debug logger which you can turn on to see more details about objects going into and out of the pool. The frame number is included as well, which may help illustrate the order of things.

Lots of messages!