Automating Mass Object Labeling in Unity

As game projects grow in complexity, efficient workflows become crucial. This post explores an advanced method for automating the labeling of game objects in Unity, aimed at reducing manual effort and optimizing development time.

The Need for Automation in Pre-Processing

Game development often involves a meticulous setup phase where objects must be categorized and labeled according to various attributes such as theme, render settings, and size. Traditionally handled manually—often in tools like Excel—this process is not only tedious but also error-prone and inconsistent, which can delay development timelines and affect overall project quality.

Automated Object Labeling: A Detailed Walkthrough

To streamline this aspect of game development, I developed a specialized automation tool that interfaces with Unity, enhancing the efficiency of importing and applying labels to game objects. Here’s a step-by-step breakdown of the process:

1. Initial Tagging in Excel

Manually tag game objects in an Excel spreadsheet, allowing for a structured and visual method of organizing object attributes before they are introduced into the game environment.

Objects can be classified by required attributes such as group, theme, render, and size.

2. Exporting Tags to CSV

Purpose: Facilitates the transfer of organized data into a scriptable format that can be manipulated programmatically.

Process: The Excel file is exported as a CSV file, which serves as an intermediary data format that can be easily read by scripts.

3. Scraping and Storing Labels from CSV

• Purpose: Automates the extraction of labels from the CSV, reducing manual input errors and saving development time.

• Process: Custom scripts read the CSV file and extract the necessary labels for each object.

4. Applying Labels to Unity Meta Files:

• Purpose: Integrates the scraped labels directly into Unity's asset management framework, ensuring that each object’s metadata includes its respective label.

• Process: The labels are written into the meta files of each object's icon in Unity. These metafiles store important asset data and help maintain the consistency and retrievability of asset information.

Detailed Pseudocode for Label Scraping and Meta File Updating

Dictionary<string, string> ReadCSV(string csvFilePath)
{
    Dictionary<string, string> labelData = new Dictionary<string, string>();
    foreach (string line in File.ReadAllLines(csvFilePath))
    {
        string[] parts = line.Trim().Split(',');
        if (!labelData.ContainsKey(parts[0]))
        {
            labelData.Add(parts[0], parts[1]);
        }
    }
    return labelData;
}

void ApplyLabelsToMetaFiles(Dictionary<string, string> labelData, string unityProjectPath)
{
    foreach (KeyValuePair<string, string> entry in labelData)
    {
        string metaFilePath = Path.Combine(unityProjectPath, entry.Key + ".meta");
        try
        {
            string content = File.ReadAllText(metaFilePath);

            if (content.Contains("label:"))
            {
                int index = content.IndexOf("label:");
                int endIndex = content.IndexOf("\n", index);
                string oldLabel = content.Substring(index, endIndex - index);
                content = content.Replace(oldLabel, "label:" + entry.Value);
            }
            else
            {
                content += "\nlabel:" + entry.Value;
            }
            File.WriteAllText(metaFilePath, content);
        }
        catch (Exception e)
        {
            Debug.LogError("Error updating meta file for " + entry.Key + ": " + e.Message);
        }
    }
    Debug.Log("Meta files updated successfully.");
}

Benefits of This Automation

This automation process offers significant efficiency gains by reducing manual data entry, minimizing errors, and allowing scalability across larger datasets or different types of game development projects.

Future Applications

The system can also support automatic level generation and analytics, utilizing labeled data to programmatically analyze level composition or automate testing scenarios.

Conclusion

The integration of automated object labeling in Unity streamlines asset management and pre-processing, enhancing workflow efficiency and freeing creative resources for more critical aspects of game development.