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Author Topic: How deep is the network ability in 1.3 of playmaker?  (Read 7434 times)

shadowspark

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How deep is the network ability in 1.3 of playmaker?
« on: February 28, 2012, 06:52:24 AM »
I've been wanting to get into unity and playmaker has seemed to make this a possibility, however I want to be able to develop an MMO project and so far the answers have all resulted in it being an impossible thought, however if the new version of playmaker makes accessing the network as user friendly/non-coder friendly as the gameplay I've seen created in video tutorials with previous versions, it might be possible.
But that still depends on how much network support and how extensively it has been developed in 1.3.
Would this at all be possible, or does 1.3 just have very basic network functions which would still require a programmer to develop actions for or code their own network in the end anyway?

So I'd like to know, just how extensive is the support for the network, is anything I've mentioned possible?
Or will it still be a matter of requiring a programmer?

P.S. telling me it just needs programmed actions or it's something programming that's 'easy to learn', still means it requires a programmer. I don't want to spend money on something that won't get me anywhere in the end, so please respond thoughtfully and with as much detail as possible.
I would greatly appreciate some insight into this.

marcos

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Re: How deep is the network ability in 1.3 of playmaker?
« Reply #1 on: February 28, 2012, 10:18:36 AM »
You should be able to, especially after they add the actions to let playMaker talk to Photon, which are in the works at the moment, I believe.

jeanfabre

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Re: How deep is the network ability in 1.3 of playmaker?
« Reply #2 on: February 28, 2012, 02:08:48 PM »
Hi,

 Yes, we are working on a set of actions to support Photon Networking.

 As for Unity Networking:

Support is exhaustive as far as I am aware, I think all the networking api is covered.

-- fsm variables can be checked to be synched across the network.
-- you can send events across the network ( RPC under the hood).

 So yes, everything you are mentioning is possible. It doesn't mean it's ideal just yet.... networking done right is a beast to tackle. If you don't have the necessary knoweldge required to understand what you are arequired to set up, playmaker will not help you in that unfortunatly, you will still need to grab the concepts of network view, the difference approaches to create, manage connections, etc etc.

Playmaker will take you so far into the development that even requiring the need to get a programmer to do that last action that you need to finish your project is totally worth it compare to not use playmaker to begin with.
If you start with playmaker and find yourself stuck because a particular feature is not available in the standard set of action, so what!?... get this feature done as a playmaker action, it will cost you nothing if you go through this forum and request an action ( I think you can see from the history, that 99% of the custom action requests are fullfilled): this means if the custom actions you need make sense, the community will do it for you. You can contact me even in person if you have reasonable expectations about an action that should have been there in the first place. Such action as "I want my enemy spawn, seek and kill the player, make coffee and publish it on iOs for me" is never gonna make it as an action tho :)

Actions are granular, very much like Lego bricks, you can't expect Lego to create a new brick that ressemble a car, they'll break the model down in smaller parts that "ideally" should be reusable to make other things than that model. With playmaker actions, this is the same principle. So given that metaphor, if you start building a genuine lego model, you will likely find the need for a part that doesn't exists, and you will have to make from other parts, or else mold it yourself ( = custom actions).


hopefully, this is making sense, a bit late here :)

Bye,

 Jean

shadowspark

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Re: How deep is the network ability in 1.3 of playmaker?
« Reply #3 on: February 28, 2012, 05:40:40 PM »
It's not a matter of whether or not it'll be worth it even if it requires a programmer to do that last action, it's the fact that money doesn't grow on trees as I wish it would, nor does impressive and trustworthy programmers with time on their hands that understand you and you can rely on, and in this case the first would additionally need to be true for them to have playmaker.

Besides all that though, it sounds like it is covered quite well which is a great thing to hear. And wow if playmaker works on supporting photon networking, that'll make it a beast and a half.
Not that I'm one to go on and on requesting a release date or such, but rather because I don't know whether I should risk continuing developing my project assets, etc, in-case the game ends up being unable to be completed and have wasted precious development time, does anyone have an idea of when that might be supported? Like is that a release in the far far distance, or something they are simply tinkering with, as I'll be needing to start networking as soon as possible so I know that I can accomplish it or not. And I'm just trying to workout if I should leave it for now and wait for photon networking, or just start with the networking as it is now, because I'd really need something up and running in at the very most 10 weeks, though I'd still want to verify as soon as possible whether I can get it functioning or not.
So should I try and get it now and look at the networking as it is, because photon is too far away, or will this end up eating into development time that I don't have and should just hold on until the next release with photon support? If it's going to be a few months I won't be able to wait around.

Also though this forum is trying more than most, there's still no grand amount of support or community working together to share custom actions or just in general. It would be nice if there was a stickied topic linking to all those which were complete. Either way it's still enough missing that I hope I don't ever need to ask, though the offer for support is greatly appreciated!


So I'd love some feedback on my additional questions regarding multiplayer and photon as it's really hard to try and manage my time if I don't know whats going on, any help there will be greatly appreciated, and thanks both of you for responding

FractalCore

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Re: How deep is the network ability in 1.3 of playmaker?
« Reply #4 on: February 28, 2012, 06:38:53 PM »
I was going to ask similar questions about how much you can do of networking through Playmaker. But I'd settle for some sort of quick example of networking.

I have Unity on my desktop and laptop computers so I'd love to be able to tell something to happen on one with the other. Then I can figure out what to do from there.

Right now Playmaker networking is 42 brand new actions. That's quite a daunting amount to experiment with when you have no idea.

Alex Chouls

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Re: How deep is the network ability in 1.3 of playmaker?
« Reply #5 on: February 28, 2012, 10:40:51 PM »
@shadowspark: The Playmaker Photon integration should be ready very soon (we hope to show it off at GDC). Still 10 weeks is not a lot of time, so you should weigh your options carefully and have a Plan B and C ready! We can't guarantee a release date.

I agree that it's not ideal sifting through the forums for custom actions right now. A few things we're working on that should help:

  • Posting completed custom action sets in the community wiki (WIP): https://hutonggames.fogbugz.com/default.asp?W547.
  • Adding more of the actions posted on the forums to official Playmaker updates (and noting that on the forum thread).
  • Internally we're starting to use an Assembla workspace to keep user submitted custom actions under version control. We might open this up more soon...

@FractalCore: 1.3 ships with new Network sample scenes that should help you get started. Import the PlayMakerSamples.unitypackage and look in PlaymakerSamples/Network.

NOTE: DO NOT install the samples over your project! Make a new PlaymakerSamples project!

The samples are numbered in increasing complexity, starting with basic connection, NetworkView usage, syncing fsm variables... If you work through them you should get a good working knowledge of some networking basics.
« Last Edit: February 28, 2012, 10:53:11 PM by Alex Chouls »

shadowspark

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Re: How deep is the network ability in 1.3 of playmaker?
« Reply #6 on: February 29, 2012, 10:11:05 AM »
Thanks a ton for the reply, hope it get's to be shown off that soon as it will really open up what this can do and help with, cause photon was what I was looking at to try and get a server running before discovering it was much harder than they made it sound like, as it tends to be, and of course in the end you'd need an expert programmer.
Playmaker with photon support should hopefully really break through to much larger possibilities.
I guess the best thing I can do now is seeing if I can setup a functioning multiplayer, and if I can manage that stick around waiting for the photon support while I get back to working on assets.

Those are some great steps towards supporting the custom actions and making them easy to access and learn about, and it's awesome to see that you are taking it so seriously. Maybe it would benefit you to have a sticky linking to that or something of the sort in the actual share new actions forum, because that may inspire people or give them a warm and happy feeling to know that their work is appreciated and supported more than by the people who may or may not just randomly download their custom actions.
Though that may end up leading people to just pose rushed random custom actions and then hassle you wandering why they didn't get theirs into the wiki, so I guess as it is now works fine, I'm just really happy to have discovered it, thanks for sharing that link and information on all the other ways you are supporting them.


Great to hear that there are some network samples available to start you off.

I guess in the end I'm just going to have to hope for the best and hope that my approach ends up working instead of screwing me over, thanks for the reply's and I'm really hoping to see photon support in a release soon :)!

P.S. Expect many questions in the help forum from me soon :P

jeanfabre

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Re: How deep is the network ability in 1.3 of playmaker?
« Reply #7 on: March 01, 2012, 12:48:06 AM »
Hi,

 Yes, photon really works very well, especially the cloud system, connecting and management is just truly no brainer compare to unity networking. I am very happy with what I have so far, and when it's going to get reviewed, I am sure it's going to be a very helpful addition to playmaker.

But it's true: network is a concept you have to learn, photon is not magic... you still have network view concepts, spawning, and player management, that will not really change compare to unity networking. You know, we do assume so many given regards real time 3d and 3d environment, but someone that never had to deal with transform will have a hard time to grasp concept and finds his/her way around it. so it's just a matter of learning new concepts. once you have sufficiently mess with them , it will become natural to work with.

Keep the question coming up! :)

Bye,

 Jean

shadowspark

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Re: How deep is the network ability in 1.3 of playmaker?
« Reply #8 on: March 03, 2012, 09:43:42 PM »
Great to hear it's going so well, can't wait to have it in the program :D It'll put it ahead of competition for sure :)! And will open it up to many more genres for everyone that's a designer, not a programmer.

Of course, but at least with something like playmaker, it makes it much easier for those that can grasp mechanics/etc, but are unable to store so many programming rules in memory and everything along with that which is required when setting up networking from scratch, to be able to develop games that use networking and the likes.


Will the progress of adding photon be tracked anywhere or progress updated, or is it just a matter of waiting for it's release?

neroki

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Re: How deep is the network ability in 1.3 of playmaker?
« Reply #9 on: April 22, 2012, 06:18:12 PM »
INNNNCREDIBLE!!! I can't believe you are adding photon!!!!!! Truly AMAZING!!! Thank you so much!

As shadowspark asked is there somewhere to follow the progress of adding photon?? It's nearly been 2 months since shadowspark posted and I (and I'm sure others) would like to know how it's coming along. I can't wait!

Alex Chouls

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Re: How deep is the network ability in 1.3 of playmaker?
« Reply #10 on: April 22, 2012, 06:23:28 PM »

neroki

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