Unity Multiplayer Games

Unity Multiplayer Games

By : Alan R. Stagner

Buy this Book

Unity Multiplayer Games

By: Alan R. Stagner

Buy this Book

Overview of this book

Unity is a game development engine that is fully integrated with a complete set of intuitive tools and rapid workflows used to create interactive 3D content. Multiplayer games have long been a staple of video games, and online multiplayer games have seen an explosion in popularity in recent years. Unity provides a unique platform for independent developers to create the most in-demand multiplayer experiences, from relaxing social MMOs to adrenaline-pumping competitive shooters. A practical guide to writing a variety of online multiplayer games with the Unity game engine, using a multitude of networking middleware from player-hosted games to standalone dedicated servers to cloud multiplayer technology. You can create a wide variety of online games with the Unity 4 as well as Unity 3 Engine. You will learn all the skills needed to make any multiplayer game you can think of using this practical guide. We break down complex multiplayer games into basic components, for different kinds of games, whether they be large multi-user environments or small 8-player action games. You will get started by learning networking technologies for a variety of situations with a Pong game, and also host a game server and learn to connect to it.Then, we will show you how to structure your game logic to work in a multiplayer environment. We will cover how to implement client-side game logic for player-hosted games and server-side game logic for MMO-style games, as well as how to deal with network latency, unreliability, and security. You will then gain an understanding of the Photon Server while creating a star collector game; and later, the Player.IO by creating a multiplayer RTS prototype game. You will also learn using PubNub with Unity by creating a chatbox application. Unity Multiplayer Games will help you learn how to use the most popular networking middleware available for Unity, from peer-oriented setups to dedicated server technology.

Unity Multiplayer Games

Credits

About the Author

About the Reviewers

www.PacktPub.com

Preface

Free Chapter

Unity Networking – The Pong Game

Introducing multiplayer games

Introducing UDP communication

Setting up the Master Server

NetworkViews and state serialization

Writing a custom state serializer

Using RPCs

Initializing a server

Connecting to a server

Connecting to the Master Server

Registering a server with the Master Server

Browsing available servers

Setting up a dedicated server model

Loading networked levels

Creating a multiplayer Pong game

Summary

Photon Unity Networking – The Chat Client

Differences between PUN and Unity Networking

Setting up PUN with Photon Cloud

Using PhotonViews

Connecting to Photon and getting a list of rooms

Creating and joining rooms

Filtering results by user preference

Automatic matchmaking

Finding friends

Syncing a level between players

Creating a chat client

Summary

Photon Server – Star Collector

Dedicated servers

Getting the Photon Server

Creating a server application

Connecting from Unity and passing messages

Creating a game logic class

Assigning player IDs

Building a star collector game

Summary

Player.IO – Bot Wars

Player.IO versus the Photon Server

Getting and setting up a development server

Setting up the Unity client SDK

Connecting to Player.IO

Getting a list of rooms

Creating rooms

Random matchmaking

Sending/receiving messages

Working with BigDB

Creating a simple RTS prototype

Summary

PubNub – The Global Chatbox

Overview of PubNub

Getting started

How PubNub works

Parsing JSON from PubNub

Building a PubNub interface

Creating a global chatbox application

Summary

Entity Interpolation and Prediction

Entity interpolation

The client-side prediction

Rigidbody simulation

Creating a networked object

Adding naive interpolation

Improving interpolation

Preparing for server authoritative movement

Implementing server authoritative movement

Notes on hacking

Summary

Server-side Hit Detection

Client-side versus server-side hit detection

Creating a testbed

Moving hit detection to the server

Entity rewinding

Summary

Index

Customer Reviews

5 star

4 star

3 star

2 star

1 star

Implementing server authoritative movement

Now that we have our script structured the way we need, we can go ahead and implement the rest. First, we'll create a structure to hold move commands:

// represents a move command sent to the server
private struct move
{
  public float HorizontalAxis;
  public float VerticalAxis;
  public double Timestamp;

  public move( float horiz, float vert, double timestamp )
  {
    this.HorizontalAxis = horiz;
    this.VerticalAxis = vert;
    this.Timestamp = timestamp;
  }
}

On the server, we'll store a buffer of move states sent from the client. We'll also keep a reference to our Player script for the client and server:

// a history of move states sent from client to server
List<move> moveHistory = new List<move>();

// a reference to the Player script attached to the game object.
Player playerScript;

// get the Player component
void Start()
{
  playerScript = GetComponent<Player>();
}

Now, in FixedUpdate we'll grab the current move state...

Unity Multiplayer Games

By : Alan R. Stagner

Unity Multiplayer Games

By: Alan R. Stagner

Overview of this book

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Unity Multiplayer Games

Implementing server authoritative movement