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BootstrapAndFrontend.md

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HelloNetcode Bootstrap and Frontend sample

The netcode package provides a way to automatically create client and server worlds and connect them together (client connects to server) by using a custom bootstrapper and the auto connector feature. This works in simple cases when testing out features quickly.

It's also possible to do everything manually via helper methods, including creating the worlds and setting up connections.

When any HelloNetcode sample is directly opened (besides the Frontend scene), the autoconnect functionality is used.

See

Sample description

This sample shows the modification needed to the bootstrap functionality to enable the auto connection feature and to select an alternative manual connection and world creation method, called Frontend here. It's split into two parts:

  • Bootstrap folder of the sample has the custom bootstrap code file, it enables auto connection when the frontend is not being used and also creates the default client and server worlds (like would happen with the default netcode bootstrap).
  • Frontend folder shows a UI for selecting at runtime if you'd want to host a game or join one. It creates at runtime either a only a client world (join) or both client and server (host) and then manually starts listening or connecting as appropriate.

The frontend is placed in a separate assembly from the bootstrap assembly since this is something we do not want to include in dedicated server builds (UNITY_SERVER is defined).

The frontend allows you to either use direct IP/port connections or use the sessions feature. Sessions allow you to set up a session ID which anyone can then connect to, either with relay or directly. It also allows you to enable host migration support in a simple manner.

There three scenes here:

  • Frontend.unity has manual connection setup (connect or host) and on demand world creation (at runtime) with scene selection of all sample scenes in the project.
  • There is a companion FrontendHUD.unity scene which shows the UI for going back to the main menu after a scene has been opened from the frontend, a text for the connection status, as well as the session ID in use (if any).
  • There is also a HostMigrationHUD.unity scene which is only loaded when host migration support is enabled. This shows statistics about host migration like the migration data size.
  • A FrontendBootstrap scene is meant to be placed first in the build settings scene list and sets up a few flows for the first sample scene loaded. It loads the Asteroids sample by default when a dedicated server is launched, but otherwise the frontend scene. When a scene name is given on the command line it picks that instead.

Note

Note

There are two extra frontend scenes for showing how to manually set up relay and host migration support without using sessions. To read more about these, refer to the 01b_RelaySupport and 01d_HostMigration descriptions. Also note that only one frontend can be enabled in the build settings at a time, to try out a different frontend in a build select it (and deselect current one) in the build settings scene list.