First, I’m seeing a minor, though annoying, .NET issue. The Radical and Serialization scripts use default values, which seem to be only acceptable if my target framework is .NET 4.0. So, I set the target framework for the five projects in my solution to .NET 4.0.
Unity changes them back to 3.5 every time it detects a change.
If there is a convenient way of getting around this, I’m unaware of it, and click through those several dialogs quite frequently.

Thus far, I’m only trying to persist two of my object hierarchies: my player, and an object he can carry around.
They look like this:
– 3rd Person Controller
– Main Camera
– Camera Point Light
– Camera Point Light
– Overhead Camera Point Light
– Overview Camera
– Self
– Body – Hand
– Body – Finger – Index
– Body – Finger – Middle
– Body – Finger – Pinkie
– Body – Finger – Ring
– Body – Finger – Thumb
– Slot – Back
and
– Key – Cube
I’ve marked the 3rd Person Controller + Children with Store Information, and Key – Cube with Store Information. Both exist throughout the scene (being neither created nor destroyed).
I noticed that the player’s hierarchy in Angry Bots is significantly different… Perhaps that yields a clue?

I’m getting a dozen or so ” was null” messages on Load.
I’ve found and enabled the “using Radical.Logging()” in the save and load functions, and was preparing to send you excerpts…
…I noticed that the first errors are coming out of UIToolkit’s scripts. (I recently integrated that for providing a nice GUI.) They seem to be reacting badly to multiple Awake() calls.
(I’m not sure of this; it’s late here, so I’ll have to pick up there in my next session.)
I also noticed that, besides the complaints in the console, my scene had visible flaws (e.g., default (pink) material showing), that *varied* between different loads of the same serialization.
I’ll investigate further… after I get some sleep! 🙂

Mulling over what I’d written last night (about UIToolkit), and suspecting some sort of friction between your software and theirs, I resolved to eliminate every warning message, regardless of how insignificant it seemed. This led me to clean up my 3rdPersonController settings (with the added benefit of *that* working much better. That effort has made my serialization errors much easier to isolate.
1. My main camera has a deserialization glitch. The skybox, originally “Sunny1 Skybox” loads to “bark_4.”
2. I’m getting a message on load, “No Audio Listener in Scene.” I believe this is transitory.
3. “Actor::setLinearVelocity: Actor must be (non-kinematic) dynamic!” from somewhere within RunDeferredActions. (Another paired with it, but “setAngularVelocity”.) I have not determined which objects this relates to.
4. UIToolkit also provides a “Easing” class. Perhaps a namespace?
—
The above issues exist in my “simple” test case – i.e., no PrefabIdentifiers. Other than what is noted, Save/Load works.
I get into deeper trouble, though, when I introduce PrefabIdentifiers. Load is deleting all of my “built from prefab” objects, even though they should have been saved. (I haven’t yet checked the log in detail enough to determine whether they were actually saved.) After this, an exception is thrown:
Missing Reference Exception: The object of type ‘GameObject’ has been destroyed but you are still trying to reference it. …
LevelLoader+c__Iterator1.MoveNext() at … : 72
—
Besides my “player” (object plus children marked with Store Information), and “Key – Cube” (marked with Store Information), I’m working with a small number of objects, and I believe I’m following the basic rules… I’ll show what I’m doing, though, in case I’m misunderstanding.
“Sphere Vendor” – exists in scene; marked with Store Information; conditionally spawns a Sphere (possibly multiples).
“Cube Lock 2” -exists in scene; marked with Store Information; always spawns a “Key – Cube”.
“Sphere Lock 3” – exists in scene; marked with Store Information; always spawns a Sphere.
“Sphere Lock 5” – exists in scene; marked with Store Information; always spawns a Sphere.
“Key – Cube.prefab” – marked with Prefab Identifier.
“Sphere.prefab” – marked with Prefab Identifier.

I’ve installed 0.8. Fewer errors. Errors remain in these files:
Radical.System.Curves.cs:
Radical.System.Loom.cs: QueueOnMainThread( time)
Radical.System.Radical.cs: GUIArea( area), LogWarning( context), LogError( context), Instantiate( parent), SetParent( setScale) (three prototypes), FixTo( type)
Radical.System.RadicalRoutine.cs: WaitForAnimation( time, weight), WaitForAnimation( time), WaitForAnimationWeight( weight), Run( methodName, target) (two prototypes), Execute( complete)
Serialization.LevelSerializer.cs: SerializeLevel( urgent)
Serialization.UnitySerializationExtensions.cs: ProvideAttributes( …allSimple)
Serialization.UnitySerializer.cs: RegisterSerializationAssembly( assembly), ScanAllTypesForAttribute( attribute), Deserialize( instance), OldDeserializeObject( itemType, instance), Serialize( forDeserializeInto) (two prototypes), SerializeObject( first)

Breakthrough!
For some reason, LevelSerializer.AllPrefabs[] contains some nulls.
I’ve modified the second loop of LevelLoader.Load() as follows:
using( new Radical.Logging()) //Next we need to instantiate any items that are needed by the stored scene
foreach(var sto in Data.StoredObjectNames.Where(c=>UniqueIdentifier.GetByName(c.Name) == null && !string.IsNullOrEmpty(c.ClassId) ))
{
var pf = LevelSerializer.AllPrefabs[sto.ClassId];
if( pf == null)
{
Radical.LogNow ("Casting AllPrefabs[" + sto.ClassId + "], " + pf.ToString() + ", to GameObject... Skipping...");
continue;
}
sto.GameObject = Instantiate(pf) as GameObject;
...

Initial tests (with prefabs) are looking good! 😀

Mike,
I’ve been away a while, but now I’m back, and ready to get my game saving!
I’ve updated to Unity 3.5.3f3, and I’m on Unity Serializer 0.84.
I’m still having trouble with prefabs. I’ve been “tuning” debug statements (mostly in LevelSerializer.SerializeLevel() and LevelLoader.Load()) to get a clearer idea of what’s really happening…
Above, I reported finding nulls in AllPrefabs, and you modified the code with:

allPrefabs = allPrefabs.Where(p=>p.Value).ToDictionary(p=>p.Key, p=>p.Value);

Perhaps you could shed some light on this? I find it confusing on a number of levels…
– First, if we are holding a reference to the gameObjects (in the allPrefabs dictionary), how does Unity “spirit them away”?
– Second, they’re *prefabs*, and thus non-level-objects, so *why* would they be spirited away?
It is the prefabs that I have marked with PrefabIdentifier that are “vanishing”. When they can’t be found, the level objects derived from them aren’t deserialized, of course.
Thanks,
Phil

Mike,
0.941 is looking good! It fixed my “decal” objects, so I’m looking into the lesser evils…
– My player’s rigidbody HAD been marked kinematic, and something called during Load was giving two errors – ala “Actor must be (non-kinematic) dynamic.” The player would position correctly, but his rotation would be off. I’ve just made it non-kinematic, and I’m happy with that.
– My game has a “cape”, a gameObject with an interactive cloth, initially laying on its “buckle” (a scaled cube), both laying on a table (another cube). The interactive cloth has the buckle as its one attached collider. (In gameplay, the player picks up the cape and wears it.) At runtime, an empty child of the player (on his back) parents the buckle and the cape moves with it. This all seems to Serialize fine, but on Load, whether worn or still in its initial position, it flips up from its *initial* position and drifts down to the ground. All *settings* seem to be loaded correctly… perhaps this object has some private state members? (It’s not of great concern, but I thought you’d like to know.)

Mike,
0.951 looks better than ever.
I still have one set of objects that do not appear to deserialize correctly. They are gates – gameObjects with Rigidbody and Hinge Joint components. On a trigger, I set the HingeJoint’s useMotor to true. I have these marked with StoreInformation. These are deserializing to their original closed position, regardless of whether they were open at Serialize time.

I should have included in my last post…
My ‘Main Camera’ is attached to a ‘3rd Person Controller’, which is marked Don’t Destroy.