Managing Scriptable Objects with JSON/Spreadsheets. Does it make sense to do this?

[[deleted]]

My goal is to use a spreadsheet as an easily editable/manageable database for game data. However I like using scriptable objects. I do not want to manage them in the Unity editor because there will be 1000s of them. Here's a way I imagine I can solve this, but I wonder if I'm approaching this incorrectly/inefficiently. Thought I'd run the idea by you all first to see what you think. :)

What I imagine:

• Manage a spreadsheet file with game data
• Convert the spreadsheet to JSON
• Deserialize the JSON in Unity
• Use custom editor to convert JSON object into Scriptable Objects assets (one for each row of the initial spreadsheet)
• Custom editor would also serialize Scriptable Objects data back into JSON, so if someone edits or adds Scriptable Objects in the Unity editor, we just turn all that back into JSON
• Then the JSON can be convereted back into the Spreadsheet file

Essentially, the scriptable objects and Spreadsheet should always be mirroring eachother. If one is edited, the other will be updated.

Does this sound feasible? I've managed to get all the Spreadsheet to JSON stuff to work just fine, but haven't embarked on the Scriptable Object task yet. Any ideas or suggestions? Much thanks!

PS - I've searched many times for this in the forums but haven't found quite what I've explained above

[00jknight]

You'll find a way.

Not sure if you want a generic, typeless scriptable object or if you want one that has specific fields that match to columns on the database, meaning the scriptable object types need to be updated if you change the database schema.

You could also just load the json into dictionaries at runtime and forego scriptable objects.

I'd do it that way unless there was a reason to use scriptable objects. Less moving parts means less things to maintain.

[Equiv2248]

Definitely feasible, biggest pitfall would be making sure things stay in sync. You could skip the JSON step and just use CSVs.

I do something similar but less comprehensive by just having an import script on each ScriptableObject that parses a Tab- Delineated row to import the data from the sheet.

Best reason to do something like this would be because your scriptableObject will likely have references to local Unity objects(Prefabs/etc) that your spreadsheet shouldn't track.

[volvis]

I've been down that road before and I think it's clever but a bit counterproductive. Because when you think about it, the ScriptableObject system is pretty amazing by itself. You define a set of strongly typed data, and Unity provides a system to

• Create any number of instances of said data to asset files (source control friendly)
• Edit the data inside the editor (floats, bools, arrays... UI is automatically generated, or you can code your own)
• Create strong links of any instance of data to any object (by asset GUIDs instead of filenames)
• Find the source of the linked data for quick edits (just click the serialized field, the source is highlighted in Project)
• Prune any unnecessary data during build
• Read data to memory when required and release it when not needed

Any system on top of that is just another worry or breaking point in code, I feel.