Learn more about template machines and what you can use them for.
Template machines are Unity components that are added to game objects. They’re used to add machine components that are set up as templates in the Makinom editor (Templates > Machine Templates).
A template machine component can be added through the components menu (Makinom > Machines > Template Machine) or the scene wizard (Add Machine > Template Machine). A game object with a template machine is represented in the Unity scene view by this gizmo icon:
You can learn more about machine components in general and their basic settings in this how-to.
When to use Templates
Machine templates can be useful if you often use the same machine component with identical settings on different game objects, i.e. using a prefab is not possible.
You can create machine templates in the Makinom editor in Templates > Machine Templates. The templates are set up as you’d set up an actual machine component on a game object.
Example
A tagged event that spawns an explosion particle effect prefab and plays an explosion audio clip, started by the tag explode, will often be used on different game objects (e.g. different barrels, electronic devices, etc.).
Instead of setting up the tagged event on each game object individually, setting it up as a template allows reusing it by just selecting the template. Later adjustments to the template will naturally be used wherever the template is used, since the template machine will add the actual machine component based on the template’s settings.