Photon Bolt Sample Pack

The Photon Bolt Sample Pack is now available on the Unity Asset Store. You can get it here: http://u3d.as/Mgm



I am currently working on a sample pack for Photon Bolt with the most requested examples of networking, authoritative and non authoritative.

So far I have completed samples for clients sharing control of a unit owned by the host, a fully authoritative simple 2D platformer with client side prediction, and Motion Controller movement and animations non authoritative.

I've also made an example of authoritative Unity rigidbody players with client side prediction, this means you can have vehicles, rolling balls, and other physics based movement in players without input lag.

You can see the other things I'm working on with Trello, such as voice chat, host migration, SteamVR, authoritative inventory, and a resource system for trees, ore, and other static objects in your game that need to be networked.

Feel free to vote on your favorite ideas and post your own

https://trello.com/b/1hELo6C9/bolt-sample-pack

 

Hello,

Is it still in progress?

 

Yes, will probably be released in a month or two.

 

This looks helpful, any release yet?

 

It will be released after the free version of Photon Bolt.

 

Hi Stanchion

Is this easy to integrate van a non programmer ?do you need a special server for this?

Norby

 

They are all quite simple, Photon Bolt does not require any low level networking knowledge. Nothing special is needed for it.

 

This is the only source I could find about a free version of Bolt coming out. Any more information on that?

Awesome thing you're doing, I'll definitely get on the trello. More authoritative VR content would be nice, maybe a simple VR FPS would be awesome.

I'm not too familiar with Bolt and just learning about networking as a whole over the last few weeks. but it's more or less peer to peer right? With a relay server for fall back on missed connections. So how you go about having authoritative control?

 

The free version will be released in the coming weeks. Bolt is server-client networking, it supports "p2p" in the sense of letting a player act as the host or "master client" as well as dedicated servers.

 

Is it released yet?

 

We are in a situation choosing PUN/Bolt/Thunder... We have bit experience in Unity Networking (old) and UNet so we probably stick with PUN or Thunder...

Photon has a article clearly saying Bolt doesn't support host migration, neither does Thunder.

In your Trello you said you've completed host migration, I am really interested on how you make it! In the case this is possible, we may choose Bolt for our project..

 

Any news about the free version?

 

I sent them a mail asking about the Free Version with 20 CCU and their reply was there is NO Free Tier in photon BOLT.

 

Photon Bolt is currently a paid asset and comes with a free 100 CCU coupon. You can make unlimited 20 CCU apps in addition.

 

@Stanchion My company recently purchased a license for Photon Bolt on Asset Store, But when I imported The samples from the welcome screen, there were only a handful like the Advanced Tutorial, ClickToMove, ThirdPersonController, NEW-PhotonCloud, and NEW-ServerMonitor. Where can I find the examples for Host Migration, photonMenu Example, LAN Broadasting Example and other samples mentioned in the in the trello page?

 

Email us with your invoice

 

@proepke We submitted Bolt free to asset store yesterday by the way

 

Since Bolt 100 CCU is no longer available in the Asset Store, is there a way to get the sample pack since we can't show any invoice as a proof of purchase?

Thanks.

 

The sample pack will be available on the asset store soon. You will not need to purchase a 100 CCU license before, you can use "Bolt FREE."

 

I am also extremely curious how bolt handles host migration.
To repeat others from elsewhere:
https://doc.photonengine.com/en-us/pun/current/reference/pun-vs-bolt seems to say it's not possible,
https://forum.photonengine.com/discussion/8100/bolt-host-migration seems to say it's possible but requires extra work,
and https://trello.com/c/skMiQdkv/5-host-migration-simple-example seems to say it's been done, and there's a sample of that somewhere.

I'm not finding any sample of migration using bolt, but if there were, that would probably clinch it for me (Since it seems nothing outside of bolt is a workable solution with p2p options).

 

Email me and I'll send you a sample
stanchion.g@gmail.com

 

The Photon Bolt Sample Pack is now available on the Unity Asset Store. You can get it here: http://u3d.as/Mgm

 

On the asset store this sample pack lists host migration sample, however in the trello voting it is instead under future upgrades with one of the checklists being 'fix'. Does that mean it's not in yet, or it's not working correctly, or?

 

It works but has some minor issues like players spawning in the same place and not dealing with duplicate player ID properly.

 

Thanks for the response and clarification.
With the fix planned then, this does mean that fully functional host migration is possible, just that the example isn't quite complete yet?

 

It has always been possible with Bolt, the Host migration sample just shows how it can be done and will grow to show how it is done with more complex and larger games

 

Well I kept seeing everywhere like the pun vs bolt comparison on the site that it wasn't possible (especially when it lists PUN as 'not built-in' and Bolt as 'x'). Maybe you should update that page?
Well knowing it's properly possible I'll be able to be more comfortable now preparing to work with it for my project, thanks again for the info and responses, looking forward to the samples coming updates.

 

Any examples of Bolt LAN Broadcast out there?

 

Why wont you make this package free?

 

Hello, I purchased this tonight but I cannot get any of them working, there are no errors it just doesn't do anything, I have tried all the usual suspects making sure the ID is correct, BOLT > Compile assembly etc but nothing I am using Unity 2018.3.11f1 but have tried other versions with no joy

 

Can you join our Discord? We can do a quick back and forth to narrow down the issue.

I recommend going through the getting started first so you understand the more important parts of Bolt.

 

Which is the server?

 

Discord? You can join here. https://discord.gg/0ya6ZpOvnShSCtbb

 

A new large sample I'm working on: https://forum.unity.com/threads/unity-gamelift-sample.686341/

 

Hi,
Photon bolt is not supposed to be used with persistent servers?
Otherwise, we might as well use PUN, right?

 

Bolt and PUN are very different. PUN does not have "persistent servers" with authoritative state that persists as players jump in and out. Bolt can be used with "listen server" or allow you to host "dedicated servers".

 

Are you talking about bolt pro or bolt free?

 

My last post applies to both.

 

Thank you for your answer.
Photon Bolt is for Dedicated Server, but in samplepack, there is no example for that...
Why didn't you do it with Photon Server, it's not compatible?
What's extra with Photon Bolt Pro? A tutorial or something?

 

We have samples for headless server.
https://doc.photonengine.com/en-us/bolt/current/demos-and-tutorials/headless-server
https://github.com/BoltEngine/Bolt-Sample/tree/master/HeadlessServer

Photon Server is completely different to Photon Bolt. They do different things.
Bolt Pro has extra features requested by large studios.

 

Thanks.
But now, if I want to host my server online, so not on my PC, how do I do it?
Hosting with zeuz, only?? How do I proceed to transfer the server to zeuz?
Or steam, it's cool :

"For game server binaries, please create a Steam utility application. Make sure correct platform is selected (windows/linux) - depends on game server binary, not client.

When developing the game, you deploy your dedicated server builds only to this repository and rest is automatically synchronized. Contact zeuz team directly for details and attach Steam CDkey for the server application."

 

You can use AWS EC2, GameLift, Azure, Digital Ocean, or whatever cloud provider.
Follow these docs then run the headless build on your virtual server.
https://doc.photonengine.com/en-us/bolt/current/demos-and-tutorials/headless-server
https://github.com/BoltEngine/Bolt-Sample/tree/master/HeadlessServer

 

You already sent me, sorry but I didn't realize it was a tutorial...
Great thanks!
So players can create servers on the platform I would use?

 

Yes

 

So Bolt is free but if we want to see how those features work / are to be implemented we need to purchase the examples. That's a bit... odd.

Shouldn't this stuff be in the tutorials and documentation?

 

Hi, the Sample Pack doesn't go over core Bolt concepts like events or lag compensation, these are all covered in the included documentation and samples. Instead advanced and more specific topics are covered, such as host migration or syncing thousands of trees.

 

Are more samples going to be added to this? We've just started using bolt and few of us have a whole lot of experience w/ networking. A lot of what is in there is handy, and I like that you have a trello board to vote for new samples, but I am concerned that it hasn't been updated since mid 2019

 

@TheAmazingB74 Currently adding samples to here so they can each be tested separately while working on an overhaul. https://trello.com/b/1hELo6C9/bolt-sample-pack