Magic of Addressable Assets and Why You Should be Using Them! [Unity3d]

Over the course of the last year, I'd repeatedly heard about the incredible power that is Addressable Assets. I knew I needed them in my projects. I tried learning this feature and was met with only overwhelming frustration. I've broken down the entire process into easy to follow sections, start with what Addressables are and go all the way to using them with any of the three major cloud services! There are a lot of benefits that come with implementing this system, here are a few highlights. If you don't enjoy reading check out the video.

Awesome Advantages of Addressable Assets!

But wait, There's more!

In addition to all the awesome, it’s built on the Scriptable BuildPipeline, which has its own set of unique and powerful benefits!

I also appreciated that the programmers made the code asynchronous. Without going into too much detail it gives the ability to wait for the assets to complete their process before moving on. Avoid headache-inducing race conditions easily. 

Installing

Now that you have a solid idea of why making your assets addressable is great let's jump on in. If you've had enough reading, check out my video tutorial instead. 

Add the package via the Package Manager.


Install the package, while in Package manager hit the “In Project” drop-down and choose “All Packages”. In the search bar write Addressables, highlight the newly populated Addressables Asset Package. On the bottom left hit the Add button and kick your feet up during install.

The last step will be to build Addressables into your project. Bring up the addressables via Window → Asset Management → Addressables → Groups. In the new window choose to Create Addressable Settings.

After a few seconds, the window will populate & new folders will be added to your project.

Check out your new addressable information within The Assets folder, AddressableAssetData

Great Job! Next blog I'll go over some Basics, Tips, and Tricks. If you already know your way around the Addressables UI feel free to check out my videos on how to use Asset References or loading with IResource locations. I hope you enjoyed this post and found it useful!