[Released] Bolt, The new generation of networking solution for unity!

Purchased Thanks for the support so far, now to find some time to play with this

 

Thank you for your purchase, if you need any further assistance please contact us on support@boltengine.com, http://feedback.boltengine.com or you can find me personally on irc at #unity3d @ irc.freenode.net

 

The next update is already in the pipe-line, 0.2.0.4. Its looking like local LAN session discovery will make it into that one. Also a few more bug fixes and tweaked DR and Interpolation algorithms.

 

Yessir, this is precisely my request. It looks to be the one feature of uLink that Bolt is missing at the moment. I'm sure you've played with uLink before, but basically you set up a connectors between peers (scenes) that handles handing over the network view (with additional data), with scriptable serializing/deserializing on your object data, and a few other bells.

Yes, I'm trying to make a 'light' MMO, where players travel in between Unity scenes as the 'zones'. I'm pretty sure this is the largest thing missing from Bolt that suits my desires. I could shoehorn in some solution of writing to a local mysql or file (ugh), and read in the next scene but that doesn't account for the network connection transfer.

 

Ok, then I understood you correct. You know it's a very interesting feature, and maybe it would be possible to use Bolt for an "MMO" with that type of tech. It's not something we are currently planning to build, since we are focusing on getting all our missing "core" features out of the door first.

 

Also, if you have more general support questions, or questions from a technical/architecture side of things - it's better to post them in the Multiplayer Networking forum here on the unity forums: http://forum.unity3d.com/forums/multiplayer-networking.26/

Just tag the post with [BoltEngine] and I will see it

 

Hey fholm,

Definitely looks like Bolt is a really nice solution, I really like the fact that you take some of the grunt work away from replicating basic MP features most games need, but other network solutions don't do (interpolation, mecanim sync, etc).

I was wondering for my particular use case (I'm not actively working on Multiplayer atm but look to doing it in the future) if Bolt would be a good solution for us. Basically we're looking at doing a few things different from your standard multiplayer shooter:

1) Procedural levels - They'd probably be akin to starting a map, which creates itself on the fly. I imagine then we'd need some mechanism for clients to get all the level data once they join said map. Could we have this idea of "servers within a server", or perhaps, multiple Unity scene running on the same server? I'm unsure as to how we could handle this, really.

2) The ability for clients to "map hop" so for example have one server with one large land area, then have other maps that players can essentially enter (after a load screen) where they would sync only with other clients in the same map. Think of it mostly like you would see Instances in an MMO, except really for a small scale game (less than 30 players). Sort of tied to #1 I think.

3) AI actors & Physics combat - Some of the combat in our game uses physics, for example, weapons hitting a player/enemy. My main question is, can bolt support these two ideas reasonably, where for example an authoritative server may own the AIs and replicate their data back to the clients (mostly only their transform/animation/health quite likely). Do you think Bolt would be able to handle games where AI actors are part of the picture too? Lots of them (a hundred maybe)?

4) Areas of Interest - Have you thought about perhaps implementing something like that to Bolt? Essentially, the idea that certain data is more important based on your location in the game world. Thus for example, you perhaps only get 1 update every minute for a player across the world from you (or never) but for clients closer to you, you get one every second. The idea is to provide developers with the ability to both optimize and increase the scale of their games by letting them decide how much priority data should get based on your world position. For our use case it would probably involve doing optimization type things like only sync AI/Player data to players in certain areas. This one is probably not as important as the other questions, but I've seen some network solutions with similar ideas which I thought were pretty neat.

 

1) Procedural levels could be seeded with a deterministic random number generator, and then you would only have to sync one single 4 byte int to get the same level on all computers.

2) This is the exact same thing that Yukichu asked for, bolt does not have built-in support for this at the moment. It is not terribly difficult to handle, but there needs to be some type of arbiter component which can handle serialization/etc. of players and avatars.

3) I do think bolt would be able to handle this, of course when you are talking about the sale of hundreds/thousands of actors on a single map, you need to do interest management (your point #4).

4) Bolt actually supports this, or well - bolt has two callbacks on each entity called "InScope" and "CalculatePriority", which can be used to provide custom interest management. This can be completely custom, and each type of actor (entity in bolt) can have its own algorithm.

 

Maybe interessting for people just reading but not having Bolt right now. There is a 12 houre 30% Discount (45$) on the Developer page. Thanks for that!
http://forum.unity3d.com/threads/bolt-networking-engine-30-discount-12-hours.249931/
http://www.boltengine.com/Buy.aspx?CODE=RMNEX2LQCU5S6

I am very interessted in your plugin. One question about buying from your page. How long de we get updates? Do I have to monitor this thread regards updates, or do you send emails. Just asking because I like the asset updates via the Assetstore. But 30% off is a good argument.

 

red2blue: You get updates forever, I email out when I release a new version. You also get updates the same day they are released, while the asset store takes a week or more.

 

I completely understand wanting to work / complete / fine tune all of the core features first.

Honestly, I'll just use some hack to get between scenes until (hopefully) something is implemented in the future. I presume this will be enough of a desired feature it will get added eventually.

Well, I learned a lot with uLink, but... so long, and thanks for all the fish. I sit here thinking, oh hey, use uLink for login/scene transfers then use Bolt on another port for everything else... but that just sounds annoying and crazy. Crazy enough I'll try it at least.

Random Questions:
- Is this 1 license per project, or per seat, or just 1 license per... forever.
- Do you plan on having a 'pro' super expensive version in the future holding back features?
- Any plans on limiting CCU and charging more/less based on that (it's dirt cheap already!)
- Any plans on implementing monthly recurring costs... or would buying this now say, "You're covered, don't worry."
- Any sort of roadmap/Trello/etc. we can see for upcoming features?

As you can see, licensing scares me. I know regardless of the answers, everything can change, so I guess just your best thoughts on it would be wonderful.

Regardless, I'm sold. I can do art, logic, programming, game ideas, database stuff, and a ton of other things... but networking, interpolation, and well all these features you have are what I hate and apparently don't have the experience, understanding, or frankly, the time to tackle. About time someone made a networking package these items in it. I know even UNet is around the corner, but I feel it's going to be another bare-boned setup where you have to write all the stuff you've already done yourself

Oh, which comes to another question... wait it involved using UNet in Bolt, which is frankly like way too far in the future.

If my VPN lets me, I'm off to purchase.

 

Hi fholm,
thanks for your very quick answere. That sounds very cool! I will have a deeper look at your site. But it already start itching in my fingers......

 

Well I chose the right day to buy... 30% off, nice!

 

Yukichu: It's once license per legal entity, so if you are a company or small indie team you only need to buy it once, that's it. No per-seat bullshit.

On the "PRO"-topic, there might be a cloud version in the future - which will be a separate product on a subscription model (like how Photon Cloud is on a subscription model, and Photon Server is a separate product), but Bolt will always be Bolt and I will not hold back anything.

The price will go up when I'm out of beta, looking at ~100USD when out of beta.

If you buy it now you are covered for all current and future releases of Bolt yes. The "Cloud" thing will be separate (again how Photon does it).

I can post a road-map later today if you want.

 

No hurry on a road-map. Whenever you're bored and looking for something to do. I'd rather have product features instead of a road-map.

 

The roadmap looks something like this, in order:

1. Lan Discovery
2. Linux Support
3. PlayMaker Integration
4. NAT Punch Through
5. Windows Phone 8 Support
6. Enable variable tick-rate for clients

This should all be done by mid-august. LAN Discovery is coming soon (few days hopefully).

 

Hi fholm,

since I am not an expert on Multiplayer so far, I have one or two questions about Bolt befor buying. I read, that Bolt is the outcome of the former "FPS Networking Kit". Is that right? Does this mean, that Bolt is more focusing on FPS kind of games? I have a game that I want to start with, that is a kind of strategy / Manager game (Tabels, and TopDown 2.5D) which should have a Multiplayer component. Would Bolt also be an advantage for that kind of game (Not much animation, more date / number replication)?

I read in this thread, that Bolt supports up to 128 Players per server. Is there a server application limit per physical server (May be due to IP Adress conflicts)? Or can I run multiple instances of my game server parallel?


Thanks again!

Cheers
red2blue!

 

redblue: Originally Bolt was the "generic networking" part of the FPS Networking Kit (which will not be released), I decided that instead of doing an "FPS Networking" thing, to take the part of the whole thing that turned out best: Bolt. And turn that into a generic networking solution. There is nothing fps specific about bolt.

I see no reason you would not get good usage out of bolt with a top-down game, there are some features which are targeted at moving humanoid characters around - but other then that you should be fine

There is no limit on players per server in Bolt now, when people ask how many players Bolt can handle I usually say it's tuned for about max 128 players, but that's not saying you cant run more players if you want to, or run several instances with 128 players each, etc.

All of this is very game specific of course.

 

SOLD! Thanks for the quick answere! This service and the good Tutorial / Website beside the cool technic convinced me to buy it. Hopefully it will work well for my game. Looking forward for the coming features.

An additional question. Do I get a confirmation Mail from your site aswell, or just the one from PayPal?

 

There should be one from my site, but its been getting lost for almost everyone, i'm looking over the provider i have for it and see whats wrong, you only need the confirmation from paypal though so dont sweat it

If you have an issues, just contact me

 

0.2.0.2 is up on the asset store now, submitting 0.2.0.3 to the store later today.

 

I took your offer, too good to let it pass.
I probably can't use it right now, so I will have to wait for playmaker support, but anyway, your dedication to your product is awesome, the features are cool. Thanks!

 

Skyfly: Playmaker support will be done in a few weeks!

 

Purchased today in your sale!

 

The sale is over for this time!

 

I just want to highlight that those of you that have bought through the Asset Store can contact us on support@boltengine.com to receive faster updates directly from us than the asset store provides, this offer only stands in the beginning when updates are frequents to fix any bugs which pop up.

 

nice to see other networking alternatives,
I am trying to see if this is for me before i purchase, so many alternatives now adays and i want to know what can i compare to so i know what i can do with it or can not, feature wise i mean.

1.- photon and smartfox is ruled out, since bolt runs within a unity instance, and sfs and photon are standalone, right

2.-So, the only solutions i know of and used that i can compare to are:
-unity networking
-uLink
-Tnet

3.- you mentioned Bolt can handle from 2 to 128 players so gameplay wont suffer, right? meaning this is not a Bolt restriction but a unity instance since unity is a single threaded that the max players it can handle without maxing up a single cpu may be between the limit of 128 players, so the same happens with unity networking, Tnet and uLink,

4.- unity networking as we all know really sucks, due of this cap restriction of max players a single instance can hold, and currently there is no solution for it to overcome this barrier, hence unity is working on a new Unet solution that will overcome this issue, but not any time soon , maybe in 3 to 5 years, so back to square 1 if you want a solution now. hence nobody uses the current unity networking for any serious multiplayer game.

5.- uLink has overcome this unity instance barrier max player cap, by building a unitylike networking solution with a couple of superb features that makes it very superior to the others networking solutions which are:
a)- player handovers between unity game server instances running ulink, meaning: one can have a zoned mmo by running several unity instances servers and have players jump to other instances/zones hence game servers communicating eachothers making a true mmo game.
b)-game sessions, meaning one can have multiple rooms in a single unity game server instance, altho limiting again a max of 128 players per instance, so one can have around 12 rooms with 10 players each room per game instance, cool feature.
c)-game server instances automation, with uZone, you can fire up unity game server instance on demand, lets say zone1 game server is maxed up with 128 players, hen uZone will spinup a new zone1 game server instance using the cpu setafinity to another available cpu core from hardware.
and holding another 128 players in an instance of same zone 1.

6.-Tnet uses similar approaches, to run inside unity instances, but Tnet can not run as a truly authoritative server, just as listen server with a master server as relay(standalone server) more like a photon cloud kinda deal.

Now, I havent used Bolt yet, but as per my readings in the main site and in this thread, I am not sure which is the closest to compare with, not sure with ulink because bolt does not support any of the main ulink attractions as previously mentioned above in points a,b and c.

so more like unity stock networking with a few nice highlevel features that makes it simple to work with when i comes to creating a multiplayer game?
but still the nasty max player cap due of the unity instance single threaded issue.

so did other research so i could understand better Bolt approach or understanding and i found other asset called Multionline, which pretty much uses unity networking but solves the being stucked in one instance cap if max 128 players in the game instance by adding a few highlevel features like:
- Works with a simple web hosting
- Lobby with the list of the open games : players can join it without enter the host's IP
- Game sorting by game name, hostname, map, ping...
- Game search by game name or by hostname
- Players online account
- Waiting room with players list, map preview and chat
- Host can exculde and blacklist players from his game
- Manageable blacklist with sort and search
- In-game chat
- Host migration management



Now, i am not sure what bolt is exactly and or what fholm intended for.

maybe if he can state what kind of game can one be able to achieve with bolt or what can it compare with when it comes to other networking solution, that way we all can have a better understanding of the pros and cons when i comes to alternatives like Bolt.

-will appreciate if he can elaborate and help me decide on the purchase.
like, why should i buy Bolt instead uLink, or Tnet or Multionline which pretty much are within the same neighborhood

since there is no trial, one is pretty much blind and want to just read and ask away what exactly one can achieve with it before investing money in a new product.

one thing for sure i have learned is the fhold mentioned that Bolt is not for creating large scale multiplayer games, so no mmo capable.

maybe just a casual game? like minigames? since only can hold 128 max players per instance if one wants to do a dedicated setup, is there a lobby server included this way we can have multiple dedicated servers in the same game to route new players to other same game servers instances with less player for load balance instances?

will really appreciate you elaborated input to help me decide to purchase your product over other alternatives.

thanks in advance keep up the good work.

BTW, is bolt based out of Lidgren networking library? since i know you are a fan of it by your previous work done. or is it a new built our from scratch?

 

First off... wow, that is a long post - hopefully I manage to address all your questions, so without no further adieu...

Correct, Bolt does not really compare to SmartFox or Photon as it runs inside Unity and these two do not.

Correct these three plus Bolt are the only solutions I know about that runs inside Unity.

Correct, it's mostly a unity single-thread limitation. Same as the others.

Correct, unity networking is not very good. UNET might be good, it might not be good, it doesn't exist today so no way to tell.

I am aware of this uLink setup, and it is a very nice setup (albeit a bit expensive for hobbyists/small indies). On the topic of point a we are not really aiming Bolt for MMO games, because we don't consider it realistic for most hobby/indie developers to be able to ever build one (i'm sure there are a few exceptions).

This is my understanding of TNet also.

As a single server I would say Bolt compares/surpasses uLink, but obviously if you looking at clustering/instance pooling/etc. uLink wins out.

I suppose, I wouldn't dismiss all of the heavy lifting bolt does for you "as a few high level features" though, it solves a lot of things which are really really hard to learn and get right.

Well yes, but I honestly don't see 128 player as a "low" or "nasty" cap, for anything but an MMO it's more then enough.

I have never seen or heard of Multionline so can't comment on this, sorry.

I would say that Bolt is targeted at any type of game, except MMOs.

Well uLink is considerably more expensive (especially if you want all those features you talked about), Bolt also - like I mentioned - solves a lot of complex tasks for you automatically. TNet offers very little in my opinion, and has a weird architecture with a TCP+UDP combo.

I have been thinking about a trial, but right now you'd be correc,t there is none.

Like you've read this is correct, bolt is not targeted at MMOs.

I would like to argue that there are more games type of games than MMO or causal mini games. FPS, TPS, RTS, ARPG, etc. bolt will do all of those fine.

We are looking into creating some type of system to assist with this, currently this is up to you.

Bolt is not based on Lidgren, it is based on my own udp socket library called UdpKit, which you can find here: https://github.com/fholm/udpkit

 

thanks for clarifying all my questions,

i think ill wait for when you implement some sort of lobby/load balancing app for bolt, since i dont really like to mess with low level server structure dev, i just want to focus on game play dev for now. and not in low level pailful networking stuff.

to be able to use several dedicated instances of bolt within the same game, since i would really like to be able to host more than 128 players in the same game in an authoritative dedicated server setup.
or when you add some sort of player handovers between server instances something similar to ulink.

I just hope this is in your wish list and short term.

multionline asset for unity uses unity networking and found a nice setup and workaround the unity cap of 128 players in a game using some sort of mysql setup games data storage that detects server around the same game network so players can join, some sort of master server that will store all instances running in the same game to join, i like his approach to load balance players among unity instances servers in a client listener setup.

thanks again.

 

Completely understandable, I know a lot of people don't want to touch the low level stuff when it comes to networking, which is why I'm doing it ;p

It is a very interesting concept, and I would love to do this - but right now it's not realistic to promise this within the foreseeable future.

 

Im a tnet user, and i really want to migrate to bolt,
but as long as there is no lobby/room system included, Its not something i could use.
i will wait you add these features. on tnet we use a server.exe.
can you bring other alternative on bolt? like using a sql database or a website would be less expensive than a server application for a lobby as we cant run a lobby 24/7 for free on amazon ec2 without paying few dollars each month

 

A lobby/room system is coming, as soon as we can crank one out.The thing we are not planning to do is the uLink-Sharded-Server structure.

 

Looks very nice. What was that about a sale? Did I miss it?

 

Version 0.2.0.3 is now on the asset store, enjoy!

 

Does this work with the Unity Web Player?

 

Yes it does, but like every other platform you can not host servers in the webplayer.

 

Hi fholm,

I'm reading through Unity Network alternatives now for two month and already started to implement networking based on Unity's build in solution.

Was also looking into udpkit but found it too lowlevel. But here you are representing a really nice middleware for it. Thanks! Was also lucky to catch the sale

But there are a few issues I had while going through the tutorial.
(I'm using Unity free)

• What first struck me was the config (the one you can set in the map launcher) was set to the teleport demo config. Even if I changed it it jumped back to it on pressing "start editor". I then removed the whole samples folder and now it will be set to null whenever I press "start editor". When I build it works. If i press "start editor" and after that drag'n drop my config in there it works too. But it's annoying to do so every time.

• Next a really really annoying thing: Whenever starting through "start editor" all unsaved changes to my map are lost. Without warning...!

• What would be nice is a indicator that bold (or some asset) is/are awaiting compilation. Esp. when building.

• About events: When doing the global-event-rain-toggle thing I discovered that I can fire the event from the server or the client. It seems the sender options have no effect. Or I don't understand the usage. Both enabled, or disabled gives me the same result -> everyone can fire the event. The receivers options seems to have an effect though.

• And the Rain leads me to my last question: Buffered RPCs can't be reproduced with events currently? How should this be handled? Atm. it's quite easy to get the rain out of sync if a player joins later.

Regards!

 

This issue is a relic from the "previous" Map Launcher system (which was never public) that I have forgotten to fix and remove. There is not supposed to be a config selector on the Map Launcher, you instead set the config each map should use directly on the Map asset itself (if you select a map asset and check the inspector for it, there is a slot where you can drag a config).

We are aware of this issue, thought it was fixed in 0.2.0.3 but still a few cases where it happens. Hopefully the new fix we have implemented will take care of this once and for all (it will be in the upcoming 0.2.0.4 which hopefully drops today)

Good idea, I will make sure there is one (however, Bolt should build itself automatically if there are any unbuilt-assets, but to make it 100% clear I will add an indicator)

It's possible we have a bug here, I will investigate it and get back to you.

So, there is no way to buffer events in bolt, and there never will be for one simple reason: Buffering events (or RPCs in the case of Unity) leads to a highly tangled mess of buffered object and their internal order. Plus it's a ton of data to send every time someone connects.

The way to solve this in bolt, is to use a bolt state asset on a prefab which isn't part of the direct game, but just an empty game object. You then set the values you want as sort of "global data" for the level on this object, and bolt will make sure to replicate it.

 

Bolt 0.2.0.4 is out, you can find the patch notes here: http://www.boltengine.com/Releases.aspx#Beta_0_2_0_4 and also, here:

Fixed: Bolt now properly asks you if you want to save the current scene before launching through the Map Launcher window.
Fixed: The Map Launcher should now work properly on Unity 4.5 on OS X
Fixed: Debugging with breakpoints from Unity-MonoDevelop should now work properly, without either client or server crashing and with no timeouts. Tested on Unity 4.3.4f1 and 4.5.0 on both Windows and OS X. Note: If you hare having problems with the editor or locking/crashing when you start with the debugger attached, try to attach the debugger from Mono Develop after the editor has started play mode completely.

Removed: BoltMecanimAnimator.CopyProperties has been removed as it served no purpose.
Removed: The configuration setting from the Map Launcher has been removed, if you want a specific configuration to your maps you should set it on the map asset itself instead.

Changed: The default connection timeout in debug mode is now 600 seconds (10 minutes), giving you a lot more time to debug before the client/server disconnects when one side is paused.
Changed: The origin of an entity is now replicated to all proxies also.
Changed: BoltEntity objects placed in the scene now attach in Start() instead of Awake() on the server
Changed: The BoltNetwork class now correctly exposes Attach(BoltEntity entity) and Detach(BoltEntity entity) for manually attaching/detaching an object from Bolt
Changed: The 'invoking [event]' message will now only be raised if the event is actually being received
Changed: Reduced the size of the package by converting textures from .tga to .jpeg

Feature: A new property type was added: Byte Array, this type can only be selected on events and allows you to send a normal byte array through an event, max length of array is 256.
Feature: The current version of Bolt is now displayed at the top of the Map Launcher window.
Feature: The current amount of assets requiring compilation is now displayed at the top of the Map Launcher window, with a 'Compile' button next to it
Feature: Linux support is now official, Bolt will now run properly in both normal and headless mode under Linux.
Feature: The BoltEntity component now has a setting called 'Controller Prediction' which should be on if you are using a controlling scheme which allows client side prediction and off if you're not using client side prediction in your controller script. Note that this setting does not enable or disable client side prediction, it simply tells Bolt if this entity is or isn't using client side prediction so that Bolt can adjust it's internal state accordingly.
Feature: New sample with a third person character that can run around, get into cars, drive the cars and then get out of them. Other players can also stand on the cars while they drive around.

 

What is differente from Bolt with Photon?
Thanks.

 

Depends on if you are talking about Photon Server and Photon Cloud, but here's a quick recap. Bolt run inside Unity, Photon does not. Bolt supports dedicated servers which can be hosted by your players (or yourself), Photon Cloud doesn't. Bolt can do automatic synchronization of transforms, animations (mecanim) and state you define yourself (zero networking code for you to write, it will "just work").

 

Released a quick hotfix for 0.2.0.4: http://www.boltengine.com/Releases.aspx#Beta_0_2_0_4_hotfix

Beta 0.2.0.4-hotfix

Fixed: Byte arrays now serialize properly.

Changed: The default space in the name of a new asset, 'New State' for example, has been removed.

Feature: You can now see the port the Map Launcher will try to use, and press "refresh" to get a new random port number

 

Thanks for answering me.

Another question, Bolt has own executable file to the server?
Example: I click on the executable file and opens the server (console or form). Will have messages like: Server started ...

Sorry for my question, my English is not very good.

 

Well, Bolt runs from inside Unity - so starting the server is a simple case of doing BoltNetwork.InitializeServer() to start the server inside Unity, check out our tutorial for a proper guide to how bolt works and what it can do: http://www.boltengine.com/Tutorial.aspx

 

Thanks.

I'm looking for some network system that works exactly like this:

 

Litwin, sorry I do not know of any system which gives you all of these components... I think the closest you will come is Photon Server.

 

Unfortunately Photon Server is very limited and no source.

There is KBEngine which is open source, server core written in C++, but the server works only on linux.
http://kbengine.org/

Thanks for responding.

 

Where can we find the sample of "Feature: New sample with a third person character that can run around, get into cars, drive the cars and then get out of them. Other players can also stand on the cars while they drive around." ?

 

Glentved: bolt/samples/vehicles

 

Hi Fholm, have you tried this with the UMA avatar system.
An example showing UMA using mecanim over the network would be excellent.