Synchronization

Synchronization in MassiveNet refers to the periodic transmission of changes in a NetView’s state to all in-scope connections.

The most common example of this in real-time multiplayer games is synchronization of position. Most games have objects that move non-deterministically, that is, their position changes in a way that cannot be determined given the information that is currently known. Given that, there must be a method to keep everyone up to date without using too much bandwidth and computational power.

MassiveNet’s solution to synchronization is NetSync, which is an event that is fired by a NetView at intervals defined by the SyncsPerSecond parameter of the ViewManager component. Here’s an example of a Monobehaviour making use of the NetSync event to write position synchronization to the provided stream:

void Start()
{
  netView = GetComponent<NetView>();
  netView.OnNetSync += NetSync;
  controller = GetComponent<CharacterController>();
}

void NetSync(NetStream syncStream)
{
  syncStream.WriteVector3(rigidbody.position);
  syncStream.WriteQuaternion(rigidbody.rotation);
  syncStream.WriteVector2(new Vector2(inputX, inputZ));
  netView.SendSync("PlayerMove", RpcTarget.Server);
}

The receiving end might look like this:

[NetRPC]
void PlayerMove(Vector3 position, Quaternion rotation, Vector2 velocity)
{
  rigidbody.position = position;
  rigidbody.rotation = rotation;
  lastVel = velocity;
}