[Released] Llama Chat - The Social Platform for your Unity Game

-->GET IT HERE<--

Video Tutorials here.

Requires Text Mesh Pro from the Package Manager.
Optionally, use Mirror instead of UNET.

Forum Thread (you are here) | Llama Software Support Email | Online API Documentation

Llama Chat is more than just a chat system. It's a feature rich social platform for your Unity UNET or Mirror game.


Is Llama Chat for you?
Do you need dynamic chat channels? Regional/Zoned Chat Channels? World Space Chat Bubbles? Persistent Chat Channels across sessions? Private Messaging? Friends List? Guilds? Block Lists? Word Filters? Chat Commands? One or more of the above?
Then yes! To provide all of these features Llama Chat ships with an sqlite3 database sample. Any Identity manager will work, however storing chat channel information, friends, etc.. requires a database of some kind. Abstract Interface provided for Database integration for easy database swapping.


Llama Chat provides extensive inspector integration to allow you to customize your chat channels.


✔ 100% Unity/UNET - no external networking library
✔ Mirror Support
✔ Tying users to an account
✔ Server driven, dynamic channels
✔ Global chat channels
✔ Smart Multi-threading - free up the main Unity thread to do other important work when expensive operations are being performed
✔ Chat retained on scene change
✔ "Regional" Chat channels - only show some chat channel if players are within some area
✔ Private chat channels - such as "Guild chat" - you don't want other people spying on your guild chat
✔ User channels persisted on Server
✔ "Friends" List
✔ Friend Online/Offline Status
✔ Persists across sessions
✔ Direct player messaging / whisper
✔ World Space Chat bubbles - e.g. so you type in "Say" channel "hello!" and you get "hello!" above your head and others see it there too
✔ Customizable Player Context Menu on right click
Demo Includes:
✔ Whisper
✔ Add Friend
✔ Mute/Ignore
✔ Extensible to more
✔ Customizable Language Filter
✔ Customizable chat format - modify the order/hide any
✔ Timestamp
✔ Channel
✔ Sender Name
✔ Message
✔ Custom text color per channel
✔ Chat Commands
✔ Dynamic joining/leaving channels
✔ Editor Integration
All of these are showcased in demo scenes!

Supports Unity 2018.4 LTS and Unity 2019 LTS.

-->GET IT HERE<--

 

Is there any support for uMMORPG or an integration guide?

 

Hey Hawkadium!
Since uMMORPG uses UNET (or.. maybe Mirror now?) for its networking- there should be no issue using them together.
However I must confess I do not have uMMORPG and have not integrated with it myself.

In terms of Integration, on page 10 of the documentation linked above I outline in broad strokes what you will need to do to integrate into an existing project. If you need some additional help integrating you can always send an email to support@llama.software and I would be happy to help you with any questions.

 

Hi friend, server side is php? will it work with my mysql/php server?

 

Hi yomanx! No the server side is C# integrated into Unity. If you have a MySQL database of users you can integrate with that for your login and identity system for your game, but that would be the extent of the integration.
You would not be able to have chat show on your website or something like that.

 

When I follow the tutorial videos or just open the demo scene in a fresh project, I get the error "NetworkClient Send with no connection". I cannot figure out what or where to add information to stop this error. Any help would be appreciated. I will try to figure out a solution until then.

 

That's usually because the network client has not been connected properly. Make sure you've pressed StartHost on at least one instance of the demo (Unity Editor is fine too). StartClient must be pressed on any other clients connecting.
If you still have issues, can you post some screenshots? That would help understand better what is going on

 

Will this work with mirror networking using webgl client over websockets?

 

I haven't tested Mirror's websocket capabilities but Llama Chat uses Commands and SyncVars to work which work consistently regardless of transport. I have used it with a WebGL client connecting to a server and that was working.

 

Thank you for the fast response! That is what I was hoping to hear I bought the asset and seems like it should work but I am having an issue running the mirror demo scene with the default transport. When I try to login it presents me with this error:


*(Edit: image of the error is not displaying)

Disconnecting connId=0 to prevent exploits from an Exception in MessageHandler: NullReferenceException Object reference not set to an instance of an object
at LlamaSoftware.Chat.Player_Chat.ClientFriendsListUpdated (LlamaSoftware.Chat.Model.FriendsListMessage friendsListMessage) [0x00015] in C:\Users\Arysum\Desktop\LlamaSetup\Assets\Llama Software\Llama Chat\Scripts\Player_Chat.cs:529


Am I missing something?

 

Can you help me with what version of Unity you are using, which scene you are getting this error on, and what you did after clicking play to get this error?

 

Unity Version 2020.3.16f1
Scene: mirror-demo-login
When I click play I then click the server button or the host/client button and then make an account which seems to work
then I enter the login info for that account and click login then the error happens. I have tried it both ways and with exported client and server.

 

Ah this is likely due to a missing configuration that you have to create after importing the Llama Chat asset.

If you go to Assets > Create > Llama Chat > Settings then try the steps you've listed above you should not encounter that error.


If you still have the error after doing that please let me know!

 

That was the issue Sorry for not catching that part! I am having another issue when I try to build or switch to webgl platform I encounter a stream of errors and then they are followed by warnings from mirror when I switch back to desktop platform.


Before I tried building to webgl I encountered this error as well which is unrelated but I couldn't figure out either.
Unknown message id: 22269. This can happen if no handler was registered for this message.
I get this last error after logging in two clients then trying to send a message.

Edit: The last error resolved itself somehow lol

Hopefully this helps

 

When I strip down all of that code based on those errors I am left with these errors



on both the simple chat asset and the llama chat versions so I am guessing its not compatible with the most current mirror version and webgl? I am confused why it would not work only with this build platform.

 

I've just checked with the most recent Asset Store version of Mirror and both Simple Chat and Llama Chat in an empty project and they are working with the current Mirror version. From the errors above and this one it sounds like maybe you got an older version of Llama Chat. Could you check the "My Assets" page on the Asset Store and see if it offers you an update?

Another possible issue could be the Mirror defines didn't get configured correctly due to some compilation errors from your previous post.

I'd recommend trying the following:

1. Delete Llama Chat from your project
2. Reimport Mirror and validate the scripting define symbols are configured (Project Settings > Player > Other > Scripting Define Symbols - check for MIRROR and MIRROR_24_O_OR_NEWER - these are both usually added by Mirror by default when you import it, but if they're not there you can also add those.
3. Check for any updates to Llama Chat, if there is one, update, then reimport it.
   1. You can check the changelog.txt in the Llama Chat folder to see which version you currently have, it should be 2.4.

Edit:
After doing this again in a new project - it seems Mirror doesn't always add the scripting define symbols to all available platforms on import. I imported Mirror and Llama Chat with a Standalone PC / Mac / Linux configuration, everything was fine, changed to WebGL then got all the errors you've mentioned. I copy/pasted the scripting define symbols from the other platform into the WebGL Project Settings configuration. Then maybe reopening the editor is required, or delete Llama Chat from the project and import it again.

Unity wasn't picking up the new scripting defines even with a Right click > Reimport that's why I mentioned the second option of deleting and reimporting.

 

I can happily confirm that was the problem and it is resolved. I had to copy the defines and then just restart the project and the errors went away Thank you so much for this support I am really excited to get to use this asset in game! I will leave a great review asap.

Additionally it seems mirror does not copy the defines over they went completely blank when the project was changed to webgl.

This also fixed the SimpleChat asset.

 

Really great to hear! I'd love to see how you integrate it into your game when you have a working prototype

 

I will definitely keep you updated


[I could very easily be doing something wrong]

I'm trying to start with the simple chat asset to learn more about this chat system but I am having some issues and its similar to one in a review you had I don't think they knew how to explain the issue well enough though. What is happening is when I try to run the demo for it I am faced with this error.


That seems to be caused by the inputField object but even if I instance it manually it does not show up. I don't have this issue with Llama chat but figured I should mention it here. I do have TMPro installed and the unity version is 2020.3.16f1. The error shows in ChatPlayer when it tries to access the ChatSystem component.

TextMeshPro Version: 3.0.6

 

Thanks for that report on Simple Chat too! For that one I'm not able to get the same error on a clean project with just Mirror and Simple Chat. Could you send me an email with a zip of that project to support@llama.software and I can investigate it further?

 

Sure thing I will try to get that to you asap

I have a question about how to host this with the database file on a linux server. How do we point the server to the file in the directory and where do we put it? I just built it for linux by default because I wasn't thinking about that issue. Everything worked (besides some other setup problems) until I get this error which makes sense since I probably don't have that file on the server lol

SqliteException: Unable to open the database file

Is there a quick way to resolve this?

Can I do something like this and then put the login.db in the root directory of the server executable?

protected readonly string PathToDatabase = "URI=file:./login.db";

I tried similar but wasn't able to get it to pick it up but also wasn't sure that's how it works.

I know I have to change the config in two places code wise but I don't know how to point those at the proper directory for a server build.

 

I found out this seems to happen only when using the SimpleWebTransport. If you switch to that transport it should trigger that error when you send a message. I thought I had originally got that error from the Teleport transport but I think I was wrong.

 

Hey sorry for the delayed reply on this I wanted to take a little time to explain the whole process of using a database.

First, if you want to keep using SQLite then you are good to go with the SQLitePlayerDatabase. If you're targeting a high concurrent user game, You may consider migrating to a more robust concurrent user database system more suited for that use case. SQLite is a very simple to implement and portable solution for the demo purpose and gives you reference implementation for the an AbstractPlayerDatabase.

To answer the question itself, you should be good to go with providing a relative or absolute path to the login database. Using just

./login.db

- one thing to remember here is on the demo scripts that field is Serialized so you have to update it in the inspector, not just the code!
A common issue where you cannot open the database is Llama Chat only ships with Windows x64 support and by default Unity will build for Windows x86. All available downloads are here: SQLite Download Page

The error you've mentioned is basically the generic "I can't open the database" error from the SQLite connector. It can be that the file is not found (you can check the directory it's looking from by using a log like this:

Debug.Log($"Trying to open: {PathToDatabase} at: {Directory.GetCurrentDirectory()}");

)
Or if you have full logging enabled you may see some logs right before that error like this:

Code (csharp):

1. Fallback handler could not load library C:/src/llama-chat-import-test/Build/llama-chat-import-test_Data/Mono/sqlite3
2. Fallback handler could not load library C:/src/llama-chat-import-test/Build/llama-chat-import-test_Data/Mono/sqlite3.dll
3. Fallback handler could not load library C:/src/llama-chat-import-test/Build/llama-chat-import-test_Data/Mono/sqlite3
4. Fallback handler could not load library C:/src/llama-chat-import-test/Build/llama-chat-import-test_Data/Mono/libsqlite3
5. Fallback handler could not load library C:/src/llama-chat-import-test/Build/llama-chat-import-test_Data/Mono/libsqlite3.dll
6. Fallback handler could not load library C:/src/llama-chat-import-test/Build/llama-chat-import-test_Data/Mono/libsqlite3
7. Fallback handler could not load library C:/src/llama-chat-import-test/Build/llama-chat-import-test_Data/Mono/sqlite3
8. Fallback handler could not load library C:/src/llama-chat-import-test/Build/llama-chat-import-test_Data/Mono/sqlite3.dll
9. Fallback handler could not load library C:/src/llama-chat-import-test/Build/llama-chat-import-test_Data/Mono/sqlite3
10. Fallback handler could not load library C:/src/llama-chat-import-test/Build/llama-chat-import-test_Data/Mono/libsqlite3
11. Fallback handler could not load library C:/src/llama-chat-import-test/Build/llama-chat-import-test_Data/Mono/libsqlite3.dll
12. Fallback handler could not load library C:/src/llama-chat-import-test/Build/llama-chat-import-test_Data/Mono/libsqlite3
13. Fallback handler could not load library C:/src/llama-chat-import-test/Build/llama-chat-import-test_Data/Mono/sqlite3
14. Fallback handler could not load library C:/src/llama-chat-import-test/Build/llama-chat-import-test_Data/Mono/sqlite3.dll
15. Fallback handler could not load library C:/src/llama-chat-import-test/Build/llama-chat-import-test_Data/Mono/sqlite3
16. Fallback handler could not load library C:/src/llama-chat-import-test/Build/llama-chat-import-test_Data/Mono/libsqlite3
17. Fallback handler could not load library C:/src/llama-chat-import-test/Build/llama-chat-import-test_Data/Mono/libsqlite3.dll
18. Fallback handler could not load library C:/src/llama-chat-import-test/Build/llama-chat-import-test_Data/Mono/libsqlite3

if your build is missing the the SQLite libraries.

I'll update the documentation to include some notes about deploying this on a server when retaining the SQLite database.


Regarding the Simple Chat bug you reported - Thank you for sending the project - I've found the root cause of the issue and replied to your email with the solution I'll be submitting to the Asset Store in the next couple of days.

 

Thank you this helped me so much! I was able to get it functioning. I do plan to change databases to something better for production probably just mysql (definitely open to suggestions) since I don't actually store passwords there (using blockchain for login) but only a user address and username I am really happy to have helped out with the SimpleChat I really like that asset to lol Very useful stuff.

 

Does Llama chat spawn players differently? I am having trouble getting the player to spawn at my network start position, I see it instantiates the player in the logincontroller but it seems to only spawn players at 0,0,0 am I doing something wrong?

 

Yes and no . Simple Chat and Llama Chat follow the general same process of registering players and chat systems, but Llama Chat has a lot more processing on the player spawning because it has to manage the player status, notifying online players of the status change, and querying database for the subscribed chat channels.

To use

NetworkStartPosition

s you can use

NetworkManager.singleton.GetStartPosition()

and assign the player's position to that location when its being spawned.

Because of the processing that needs to happen on player spawn flow, it uses custom player spawning. The NetworkManager does not automatically create the players so we have to assign their locations to the NetworkStartPositions

 

Very happy to hear that! Llama's system seems more flexible, coming from traditional networking that was always an issue I had with its spawning method was a lack of obvious control without using those objects. Thank you so much for all the help with this

 

Should I be setting this in the LoginController.CreatePlayerFromRow() method? I was able to get it to spawn correctly once and then I moved the spawn position and it stopped working :'( lol

 

This is the code I tried with but I have also tried just setting it with the game object.




Edit: Ah hah! Got it

GameObject player = Instantiate(SpawnPlayerPrefab, NetworkManager.singleton.GetStartPosition());

 

You're fast! Glad you got it working

 

Thank you and well... mostly working lol For the first player that spawns everything is fine but for some reason when I spawn a second player they stopped spawning correctly and returned to 0,0,0. I will have to keep digging, is there anywhere that might cause that to happen?

Edit: Strange it seems to happen only when I either press host+client and then open a second client or if I launch one instance as server only and then on the other game instance run it as only a client. If I do that then it defaults to using 0,0,0 as the spawn location.

 

I would check out the Mirror documentation on spawning objects: https://mirror-networking.gitbook.io/docs/guides/gameobjects/spawning-gameobjects
And the Network Start Position ones to make sure you're implementing it all the way Mirror is expecting it to work: https://mirror-networking.gitbook.io/docs/components/network-start-position
I can check into the spawning with start locations maybe tomorrow to provide tips if you don't beat me to it.

The idea is the network manager will return a position based on the available network spawn locations and the configuration of spawn methods

 

If I can get this sorted I will update here I been struggling with this part for some reason lol I appreciate it!

 

I just realized I think this script is missing on Spawn Location in Llama Chat. Is it just a network start position? I was also able to get mysql working so far with the asset by using the mysql connector.

 

About the spawn location - I'm not sure, that may have been a leftover from the scene copy/paste when I was setting up the scene from UNET.

To get the spawn locations working what I did was this:

GameObject player = Instantiate(SpawnPlayerPrefab, NetworkManager.singleton.GetStartPosition().position, Quaternion.identity);

So adding the

NetworkManager.GetStartPosition()

like we talked about earlier, then passing that position and I just chose Quaternion.identity for the rotation when instantiating the player object. You could use the rotation of the StartPosition too if that matters for your game.

Both clients and the host were able to spawn at the 2 start positions I put in.

Maybe you can try this way to see if it is working for you?

 

Thank you so much! This fixed it

GameObject player = Instantiate(SpawnPlayerPrefab, NetworkManager.singleton.GetStartPosition().position, Quaternion.identity);

and I was able to now get MySQL fully implemented with very little effort after all. I created a new MySqlPlayerDatabase
and changed the code to make sense and everything just worked This is so awesome I am very grateful for all your help and time! I will keep you updated on the progress this makes me so excited now I can move on and complete the game since it was nearly finished already.

 

Awesome! Definitely interested to see what you're coming up with!

 

HI again I recently tried to update my project to newest mirror and llama chat but I am having some issues. In the old build I had always gotten warnings about api deprecation mostly regarding WriteBoolean Int32 etc... When I try to install this new version those warnings seem to have turned into errors as they are now not allowing me to create the llama chat settings and its throwing these instead.



I tried solving the errors on my own but when they were completed I was faced with this remaining error

I'm not sure what to do from here so wanted to report it to you.

this is on unity version 2020.3.16f1
and mirror: 53.0.0 (not sure that actually changed)

Edit: oh yes it did change recently and seems its something affected by the change log for that version

 

Seems they removed the old methods but didn't really give hints how to migrate the code lol

 

Dang! I checked the compatibility just a day before that went up. Let me take a look into what needs to be done and I'll send you the updated unitypackage once I have it updated and ready to submit to the asset store.

 

No problem at all I am happy it will get sorted It's annoying they don't announce those changes a bit better lol thank you for spending some time on this!

 

Sent you an email with the compatibility updated!

 

I sent you an email today regarding a new networking library to replace/add in to Llama chat. FishNet is a very powerful library that fixes tons of issues with mirror. Hoping you will take a look at it

 

Thanks for the heads up! FishNet looks really interesting

 

hello, i am not an backend developer, is there any simple service to connect this onto, so players can talk without localhost?

 

Hi! There will be some kind of integration work unless you're starting from absolute scratch. The key points are when creating the Player object on the network you need: a unique identifier for that player, and a display name.
Whichever identity provider you use (PlayFab, Google Play APIs, App Store APIs, Steam, etc...) all provide both of these to you. The platform itself does not care about the identity provider.
However, because this is integrated with a Unity game, the server that is running must have some connectivity to a database to pull all of this chat information. This database connectivity can be through the provided sqlite database, or it could even be through API calls to some backend system (the latter being more complex)

 

como funciona a integração com o backend do playfab?

 

It's not directly integrated into PlayFab but you can use the PlayFabId and Player Name you get from authentication with PlayFab during the custom player creation process as outlined here in the documentation.