Hey, Riku here!
So, what is a Replica? Well, first of all, replica essentially means a duplicate of something, and I’m sure you’ve heard of replicas of artwork, trophies and whatnot. Replicas are a so-called reproduction that is practically the same as the real thing that it is made after. Replicas in game production are also use in the same sense.
In this blog, I will go over what I learned about replicas and replication!
｜Contents
｜What are Replicas?
Please watch the videos below.
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PLAYER1
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PLAYER2
When the blonde haired character on the right video runs around, you can see that the same character is running around in the video on the left. Matching the game’s state between each player in the game in this way is known as “Synchronization”.
On the left screen, Riku A (the blue haired character) is the owner and Riku B (the blonde haired character) is the replica. On the other hand, on the right screen, Riku A is the replica for Riku B’s game and Riku B is the owner.
When Riku B is running around on the left screen, Riku B, the owner of the right screen, is actually sending the instructions, “make the replica run!” to the Riku B replica on the left screen. This operation is called replication.
Similarly, when Riku A is running around on the left screen, Riku A’s replica on the right screen is receiving instructions to run.
In this way, for the owner, all synchronized GameObjects other than the owner themselves are called replicas, and the process of creating more replicas and synchronizing them is called replication.
*In Unity, including characters, backgrounds, various props (various things placed throughout a scene), etc. are known as GameObjects.
｜About Replication in STRIX
One of the features that Strix Cloud provides for synchronous processing is a component called StrixReplicator. By adding the StrixReplicator component to a GameObject, you can synchronize the GameObject’s position, animation, and various physics behaviors.
In the video Practical Guide Ep. 2 | Synchronizing the Character and Emotes, we add a component called StrixMovementSynchronizer to the character GameObject to synchronize its position, and a component called StrixAnimationSynchorizer to synchronize its animations.
Also, in the Let’s Create an Online Game! Ep. 2 | Synchronizing Projectiles! video, a component that works for synchronizing physical movement called StrixTransformSynchronizer was added to projectiles to synchronize them.
With this, Strix Cloud can synchronize movement, animations, and various physics behaviors simply by adding components to GameObjects.
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