How do I retrieve an engine reference on each frame?

[nii236]

From the latest updates:

🗑️ Automatic Frame-Based Memory Management, use it or lose it!
Engine references must be 'used' every frame in order to remain alive, otherwise
they will automatically be garbage collected each frame. You shouldn't have to
worry about any memory management as long as you keep Engine references inside an
extension class and don't hold onto references across frames. If you get an
"expired pointer" error, it means either the reference has outlived its frame and
has not been used since or the ownership of the value was transferred to the engine.

I'm fine with this workflow, but how do I actually do it? With this I basically can no longer use struct fields. Or can I?

How do I access engine references for each frame?

For example I have this:

type SurfaceNet struct {
	classdb.Extension[SurfaceNet, MeshInstance3D.Instance]

	FastNoiseLite FastNoiseLite.Instance
}

In my func (s *SurfaceNet) Process, I can't use s.FastNoiseLite. So how do I get the reference to it?

[Splizard]

I would like to implement this automatically for classdb. Extension struct fields. In the meantime, if you call Object.Use on the noise every frame (ie. Inside process) that should keep it alive.

[nii236]

Thanks! Unfortunately I can not find Object.Use or func (*FastNoiseLite) Use(...) or anything .Use anywhere in the entire gd repo. Where is it?

[Splizard]

ah, yes! sorry not there yet, must have been something I was planing to add, well I've just added this to the Object package. So you'll be able to find it there now 😃