Search Unity

  1. Welcome to the Unity Forums! Please take the time to read our Code of Conduct here to familiarize yourself with the rules and how to post constructively.

  2. Unity 2022.1 is now available as the latest Tech release.
    Dismiss Notice
  3. Improve your project's performance with our new guide on profiling in Unity.
    Dismiss Notice
NEW FORUM USER NOTICE Unity 2022.1 is now available New guide on profiling in Unity

Unity Multiplayer Synchronizing an entire skeleton

Discussion in 'Multiplayer' started by seanr, Sep 17, 2015.

  1. seanr

    seanr

    Unity Technologies

    Joined:
    Sep 22, 2014
    Posts:
    669
    Here is an example script that synchronizes the bones of an entire skeleton. This is intended to be used by dynamic animation systems driven by user input, such as Kinect systems doing motion capture for shared VR/AR environments. This could be used for regular Mecanim driven animation, but the bandwidth usage is much high than the usual methods.

    (This is much more efficient than using 30+ NetworkTransformChild scripts to animate all the bones)

    Instructions:
    • Add the NetworkSkeleton component to the root prefab with the Network Identity.
    • drag the root of the skeleton of the object into the Target slot.
    • disable the Animator and animation scripts on the object
    • make a script to enable the Animator and animation scripts in OnStartLocalPlayer
    The size of the animation data may be quite big for large skeletons. Setting the SyncLevel can reduce the size - but deep child bones wont animate. For example, the avatar in the mecanim sample project is 78 bones.

    If the size of the animation data is larger than the MTU (about 1400 bytes), add a UnreliableFragmented channel to your network configuration and specify that as the NetworkChannel.

    The attached custom editor class must go into the Editor directory of the Unity project.
     

    Attached Files:

    Last edited: Sep 17, 2015
    seanr, Sep 17, 2015
    #1
    BFips, Joobei, hippocoder and 2 others like this.

  2. julienkay

    julienkay

    Joined:
    Nov 12, 2013
    Posts:
    80
    Wow, you guys are awesome, thanks for uploading this. This is extremely helpful for me.

    Now say I want most of the bones (down to some sync level) to be controlled by the host (for all clients) and some bones on a deeper hierarchy level (e.g. the hands) by the clients themselves. What would be your suggested way of going about this? It seems I can only have one NetworkIdentity on the root of the skeleton, otherwise I could just attach another one to a child (the hand) and set their 'localPlayerAuthority' property accordingly. Any thoughts?
     
    julienkay, Sep 18, 2015
    #2

  3. iColpitts

    iColpitts

    Joined:
    Sep 30, 2015
    Posts:
    2
    I'm attempting to use these scripts which are exactly what I'm looking for but, I'm getting the following errors:

    Have I placed the scripts in the wrong folder? or have these functions bee deprecated?
     
    iColpitts, Sep 30, 2015
    #3

  4. rishi-ranjan

    rishi-ranjan

    Joined:
    Oct 7, 2015
    Posts:
    22
    Hi Sean,
    Can you provide a sample for "If the size of the animation data is larger than the MTU (about 1400 bytes), add a UnreliableFragmented channel to your network configuration and specify that as the NetworkChannel."



    I tried following but could not get this working:

    • I have added one extra channel in NetworkManager's advanced configuration. But this chanlle #2 is not visible in NetworkBehavior if I send a Command on Channel 2.
    • I also tried changing the Channel#1 to Unreliable Fragmented but it gives an error message
      "no free events for long message".
     
    rishi-ranjan, Oct 18, 2015
    #4

  5. seanr

    seanr

    Unity Technologies

    Joined:
    Sep 22, 2014
    Posts:
    669
    Make sure you have the latest Unity Editor patch release.
     
    seanr, Oct 19, 2015
    #5

  6. seanr

    seanr

    Unity Technologies

    Joined:
    Sep 22, 2014
    Posts:
    669
    to use a specific channel for a script add the NetworkSettings custom attribute:

    [NetworkSettings(channel=2)]
    class NetworkSkeleton: NetworkBehaviour
     
    seanr, Oct 19, 2015
    #6

  7. rishi-ranjan

    rishi-ranjan

    Joined:
    Oct 7, 2015
    Posts:
    22
    This worked.
     
    rishi-ranjan, Oct 30, 2015
    #7

  8. Arcan-Studios

    Arcan-Studios

    Joined:
    Mar 12, 2015
    Posts:
    58
    i am using a character with animations and with bone rotations throw code in late update for ovewriting the animator, i am using network skeleton for sending bone transformation and work fine but the host, the host local player dont update in clients only the bone rotation throw code the animation works well
     

    Attached Files:

    Arcan-Studios, Aug 17, 2016
    #8

  9. Joobei

    Joobei

    Joined:
    Oct 12, 2016
    Posts:
    5
    It would be nice if we could get an example project. I have a kinect but I don't have a rig onto which I could drag these scripts.
     
    Joobei, Nov 24, 2016
    #9

  10. spaceman8

    spaceman8

    Joined:
    Jan 6, 2017
    Posts:
    32
    I know this is an old-ish post but I just came across this same need. A few things are not clear, if I start this on a client then the animation is not in sync (start as in enabling the animation controller) - if I start it on the server then it is in sync however the animation on all clients (ie., except the server+client) the animation is not interpolated. I feel like I am missing something.

    Anyone else having this issue or can shed some light?

    Thanks.
     
    spaceman8, Feb 5, 2017
    #10

  11. jelliman1993

    jelliman1993

    Joined:
    Jul 18, 2017
    Posts:
    1
    Hi, did you have any luck fixing this?
     
    jelliman1993, Jul 18, 2017
    #11

  12. l1141200632

    l1141200632

    Joined:
    Mar 27, 2018
    Posts:
    2
    Thanks very much!!!!!
    Can you provide a sample project?
     
    l1141200632, May 22, 2018
    #12

  13. HudsonViewLabs

    HudsonViewLabs

    Joined:
    Sep 29, 2016
    Posts:
    1
    @l1141200632.. I have this working in my project. Let me know if you need any help
     
    HudsonViewLabs, Jun 5, 2018
    #13

  14. AlphaNoir

    AlphaNoir

    Joined:
    Jun 8, 2018
    Posts:
    2
    I know that this post is now 4 years old but thank you so much guys for sharing the script. It works great
     
    AlphaNoir, Jul 20, 2018
    #14
unityunity