transform is an alternative to network transform and smooth sync. Flex network transform offers more features, better smoothing, less bandwidth used, and even higher frames per second. There is no doubt that flex network transform brings more features in any alternative. But before I talk about all the wonderful options it has to offer, let's see how flex network transform compares to network transform and even smooth sync, a more expensive option running locally. All three options seem to be about the same, but this isn't very realistic, so let's simulate some latency using clumsy. Network transform is having a bad day. Smooth sync has begun to jitter more and sometimes overshoots its target. Flex network transform still provides the best overall experience. In addition to better smoothing, worst-case scenario, flex network transform uses half the bandwidth of smooth sync and a third of network transform. In most conditions, flex network transform will use less than 15 percent of the bandwidth of network transform. I also mentioned flex network transform provides a higher frame rate. These tests were run with 500 objects on the server. Flex network

transform brought roughly 1050 frames. Network transform did about 760, and smooth sync around 900 for clients. Flex network transform runs around 1250 frames per second. Network transform about 1080, and smooth sync falls way behind around 540 frames per second. How about we show off those fancy features, most of which unique to flex network transform. The first is Euler snapping. Flex network transformer allows you to snap any number of Eulers on position, rotation, and scale. Notice how when I'm using a regular network transform, when the rotation occurs, it's over time, not ideal for a 2D game. When switching to flex network transform and turning on Euler's snapping for the Y-axis on rotation, the changes are now immediate for everyone. That setting can be found under properties rotation and snap rotation set to Y. And keep in mind, again, you can snap as many as you like. Another really awesome feature is platform synchronization. This is what your character may look like without platform synchronization. Notice how other players see figures float around on the moving platforms. This is not great. After enabling

platform support. You can see now that the player figure is synchronized perfectly, even on a moving object. Also, note that this does not require you to child your objects; Flex Network Transform handles everything automatically. Next is picking up world objects. In this demo, the red sphere is client authoritative, and the blue is server authoritative. Notice how the players can pick up each object, and they are synchronized perfectly with spectators. Again, the objects are not being set as a child, which is great for maintaining your hierarchy. I'm going to now select the player prefab and talk more about the options within the inspector. The first is to synchronize with local space or world space. Most of the time, you will use local space. If you do ever want world space, however, the option is there. Next is the interval type. This is how often to synchronize with the server and client. Selecting fixed update will occur every fixed update frame. When timed is selected, you can choose how often you wish to synchronize between server and clients. Next is to send messages reliable or not. While checked, messages will, of course

send reliably. When unchecked, they will not. This, however, will require a UDP transport, such as Ignorance. When not using reliable, you'll see the Resend Unreliable option. This will occasionally resend the full transform data. While checked, typically this is not needed for 3D games, but for 2D games with snap rotation, you may want to check this, as if the rotation packet drops, the transform won't be corrected until it stops or the rotation changes again. 

Next is the smoothing loop. It's Update by default but can be changed to Fixed Update or Late Update. More commonly, Late Update is used when you are making adjustments to the animator bones. Interpolation fall behind is how far the object will be in the past when synchronizing to new data. Shorter values will provide more real-time results but may produce a little jitter if the packets are not being received well. 

In addition to the fall behind, you may also use extrapolation. When a value is set within extrapolation, your object will continue to travel the specified amount of time should new expected data not be received.

lastly, under smoothing, is the teleport threshold. If this value is not zero, and the next received data position exceeds your specified distance, your transform will be teleported rather than smooth over time. For slower-paced games, you might have your interpolation fall behind to around 60 milliseconds, or 0.6, and perhaps the extrapolation set to 0.1, or 100 milliseconds, for fast-paced games. For the fall behind and extrapolation, you'll probably have somewhere around 30 milliseconds each. Next is a client authoritative option. While checked, the client will have control of the transform. Any movements you make on the client will be sent to the server and then to other clients. While unchecked, the movements must be made on the server, and then they'll be sent to other clients. If you have synchronized to owner also checked, then the position changes made on the server will also be sent to the owning client. There's not a whole lot to the properties section. The first option, which is enabled by default, is compress small values. While checked, values will be rounded to the nearest

hundredth decimal. For example, 1.00. Typically, this is fine left on, but if you are synchronizing child objects that have a weird scale on the transform, or even within the parents, you may want to leave this unchecked, as those dropped decimals may cause loss of precision. Finally, we have the properties of position, rotation, and scale. Here, you can choose if you want to synchronize this property setting. No synchronization means that this will not be synchronized over the network. And as I talked about previously, any property can snap a number of axes. For example, on the rotation, I can set the snap axes to y, which would be left and right on a 2D platformer game. If you're interested in getting this asset, find out how in the description of this video.

Unity Multiplayer With Mirror - Flex Network Transform (Asset)

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Unity Multiplayer With Mirror - Flex Network Transform (Asset)

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