Tutorial: From Scratch: Part 1
*This tutorial assumes basic knowledge of Unity and C#
*Read Getting Started first. It covers some concepts used in this tutorial
Talk to Trivn in the MSF Discord server if you have any issues!
To start, make a new project named whatever you like. Make sure the entirety of the Barebones Master Framework asset is imported into your Assets folder.
Though it will add an extra step or two, we are going to make 2 scenes, one for the Master Server and one for the Client.
You can make them both in the same scene, but that changes how it extends into multi-player. It also opens some security risks. If your server data is in the same package as the client, any user could gain access to the server code and use it to exploit the server.
In the Assets folder, make a new folder called Scenes. Save the current scene in the Scenes folder and name it scratchClient. Go to File->Save Scene As and save the scene again with the name scratchMasterServer.
Make sure you are editing the proper scene while following the instructions. There will be a title above every edit indicating the scene that should be open.
(Add image)
In the scratchMasterServer scene, add a GameObject with the name "MasterServer" and give it the component Master Server Behaviour.
Add another game object with the name "ConnectionToMaster" and give it the Connection To Master component. Check the "Connect On Start" box on the "Connection To Master" component.
Make sure neither GameObject has any parents.
At this point, hit "Play" and check the console. If everything went well, you should see:
These steps are similar to those found in Getting Started. We're not using the prefabs to get a better feel for how everything works, but they are a perfectly good choice if they do what you need.
If you want to make your own prefabs as we go, you can use those in future projects and you will know much more about them than the ones in the Barebones folder. Or you can use the pre-made prefabs. I can't stop you, I'm just text on a screen.
Open the scratchClient scene. Whether you use the pre-made prefab, the one you may have made in the last step, or make a new one from scratch, make a GameObject called "ConnectionToMaster" and give it the Connection To Master component. Check the "Connect On Start" box on the "Connection To Master" component.
You might be wondering why we added the connection script to both scenes. The Client needs it to connect to the MasterServer of course, but why does the MasterServer need it?
In truth, it doesn't. Not for this example anyway. It will be used in the next tutorial when we go over "Spawners" (a strange sounding word for a script that starts new unity instances on a server)
Anyway, back to where we were.
If you were to start up the Client now, nothing would happen. At least not visibly. What is going on in the background is a loop of the client trying to connect to the MasterServer at the IP address 127.0.0.1 port 5000. Since there is no server running, it will just keep looping.
In order to have it do something, we need to have the server running before we start the client.
Which brings us to building the client and server!... After we add some extra bits to make the server work outside of the editor. If we built it as it is now, nothing would happen! An explanation follows-
Go back to the scratchMasterServer scene. Select the "MasterServer" gameObject. If you look in the Inspector, you'll notice there is a checked box "Auto Start In Editor". That's why the server starts up automatically when you hit play. However, this won't work once the game is built. Unmark the box and hit play. The console should remain empty, which is good, because nothing is happening!
In order to start the server from the build, we either need to use command line calls ( Explained in the last section of Quick Setup ) or have a button to manually call the StartServer function within MasterServerBehaviour.
We're going the button route here, if you want to do the command line, you can skip to Step 5.
First, create a canvas element, add a button to the canvas, and change the text in the canvas to "Start Master Server".
Select the "Button" object. In the inspector, look for "On Click ()". Add a command that targets MasterServer(MasterServerBehaviour). The function to call is MasterServerBehaviour.StartServer. Once that's selected, hit play and check the console.
At first, nothing because we left the auto-start disabled. Now click the button. You should have the same entries in the Console that you had before.
Now that that's all cleared up, onto the actual build!
If you go to File->Build Settings, you'll see a list of Platforms on the left, a few settings on the right, and an empty box titled "Scenes in Build".
Select the platform that you want to build for on the left, make sure you select the proper "Target Platform" and "Architecture" on the right, and clear the checkboxes.
Now, under the window, go to the Assets->Scenes folder we made in the first step. Drag the scratchMasterServer scene into the "Scenes In Build". That should be the only scene in the build.
IMPORTANT Click on "Player Settings". The inspector should now display a somewhat intimidating list of checkboxes and dropdowns. Click on "Resolution and Presentation". Make sure the "Run In Background" setting is enabled. If this isn't enabled, it can cause some issues or just not work at all.
Now that we've got that out of the way, click on "Build" in the "Build Settings" window.
If you made a button, you can use the following "Button instructions". If you didn't make a button OR you did but want to try starting the server from the command line, use the "Command line instructions".
After it finishes building, find the .exe and run it (windowed is probably a good option). Once it loads and you see your button, click on it. Nothing visibly happens, but in the background, the server has started up.
You can try the command line method even if you have the button, you just won't press the button when it shows up.
You will need to locate the directory the .exe was built in and navigate there with the command line. Once you find it, run:
./scratchMasterServer -msfStartMaster
Replace "scratchMasterServer" with the name you gave the build.
For more information on the command line arguments, refer to the final section in Quick Setup.
NOTE: Starting the server may trigger your firewall, there is nothing harmful in the program you just made, so let it on through
Leave that running and head back to the editor and make sure you have scratchClient opened.
Click play, and watch the Console.
If everything went well, you should see the connection information in the console!
Congratulations, you have successfully built a server and connected to it through your client!
In the next part, we'll be adding some additional functionality and some GUI elements to keep track of everything.