BlackBox (Lite) - Prefab encapsulation, control Overrides
Ciro Continisio
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Turn any Prefab into a "black box": hide its components and child GameObjects. No more unwanted overrides or a cluttered hierarchy, saving time for the whole team.Note: this is a free Lite version of BlackBox, and it doesn't contain all the functionality of the full version.With all the options that Unity's Prefab system offers, even for an expert user it can be easy to make a modification by mistake on a Prefab instance and leave it as an override in the scene. This can become a source of bugs that are pretty hard to track down.With BlackBox it's possible to prevent overrides to any Prefab just by adding one component. This is something often referred to as "turning a Prefab into a black box", or "encapsulating", "collapsing" or "locking" it (there is no official name).Ever since Nested Prefabs were introduced in 2018, users have been asking to make encapsulation a part of regular Prefab workflows. BlackBox enables just that, with a single component.📦 LOCKING 📦Once you add the BlackBox component, any Prefab with a number of children GameObjects and components appears as a single object in the Scene hierarchy. The user can only change Transform properties, and enable/disable the entire object. All other properties can be modified by simply opening it in Prefab mode as usual.More features in the full version:The full version of BlackBox includes even more safety and productivity tools. Specifically:📦 REVEAL PROPERTIES (full only) 📦If you have an important property that needs to be shown in the scene, you can add them to a list of revealed properties. These special properties are going to show up on the Prefab root even when the Prefab is locked! (see images) ✨ All property types are supported out of the box!This is also useful if you have a Prefab with tons of children, with a deeply-nested property that you need to tweak constantly!📦 PREVENT APPLY (full only) 📦You can take it one step further and prevent the Prefab user from Applying any override, while they can still Revert them. This enables extra safety for now it's impossible for the user to mess with the original Prefab asset in any way.This video shows all the incredible workflows improvements enabled by the full version of BlackBox.DocumentationYou can preview the documentation and learn all about the functionality, but remember that this free version only includes Prefab locking.FeedbackIf there is a workflow BlackBox doesn't cover, I'd like to hear from you how I can make BlackBox better. You can write to buoybase@gmail.com and we can assess if it can be added to the asset. Or hop on my Discord to have a chat.No impact on the gameThe BlackBox component is an editor-only component, so it won't end up in your builds, meaning it has no impact on the game.You can easily add, remove or readd the BlackBox component, with no consequence or changes to how your Prefabs behave at runtime.Compatible with all Prefab types and workflowsThe BlackBox workflow is compatible with Variants and nesting, so you can have a locked Prefab within an unlocked Prefab, or viceversa.Version compatibilityPlease note that BlackBox is only compatible with Unity 2022 and later (including Unity 6).
