Question Regarding Multiplayer and Networking Rooms using the Oculus Platform and Avatars SDK

[BaptisteGr]

Hello,

Is there anyone here who used the networking tools from the Platform SDK?

We managed to create a room and invite users from the friends list but we are struggling to move forward to synchronize the players movements and locations. We were using Photon before and the logic here with the SendPacket and ReadPacket seems to be different.

We were looking into exploring the Unity Social Starter Example (https://developer.oculus.com/documentation/avatarsdk/latest/concepts/avatars-sdk-unity-example-social/) but it doesn't seem to be included in the last version of the Avatars SDK, any ideas where we could download it?

Thank you for your help!

[Anonymous]

Hi BaptisteGr I hope you don't mind me jumping in on this thread with you. I'm having a lot of issues so far with the social starter example. Which is included in the latest Avatar.SDK  under OvrAvatar-Samples-SocailStarter.
I also really want to be able to create a multiplayer experience using Avatars. I've been able to use VRTK with Unity and Photon to create a multiplayer experience which is ok but you can't tell who anyone is. Leading back to why I want Avatars to work. 

From reading other posts and trying to piece together the very limited guides and documents this is what I've tried with no success on Unity 5.6.0p2 and 2017.2.0f3

• 1 - Created a new unity project where I downloaded and imported the latest SDK's as of the date of this post. 
   Oculus Utilities for Unity v. 1.20.0
   Oculus Avatar SDK 1.20.0
   Oculus Platform SDK 1.20.0
• 2 - Created a new app to submit to the app store so I can use the app id to access Avatars in my project. 
• 3 - Tested in the editor works as it should. But did not send the editor project to another user to test editor to editor as that doesn't help me with deployment. 
• 4 - Built out my app to a standalone VR .exe - Tested it on my computer. Oculus didn't recognize it. Unity app just did nothing. Although I can confirm the ground turned blue and sphere turned white. So I was the host and connected. 
• 5 - Sent it to another Oculus user to test on their computer. Crashed on start right after the unity logo.
• 6 - Read the thread listed below and followed the quote I attached from the thread thinking this might fix the standalone build issue 
• 7 - Uploaded it to the app store as an alpha build and added myself as a tester via email so I could add it to my library and test. Waited for about 3 minutes nothing happened. To be more clear the app didn't start. 

This is the limited Avatart guide I read. That really does need a lot more information. 
https://developer.oculus.com/documentation/avatarsdk/latest/concepts/avatars-sdk-unity-example-socia...

This is the thread that seemed to be going in the right direction to answering my question but didn't solve my issue.
https://forums.oculusvr.com/developer/discussion/comment/561890#Comment_561890

SkyMage said:

I haven't tested the invite feature yet, but it would require the following:
* two Oculus accounts, running on real oculus equipment (unity editor without DK2 or CV1 will be kicked)
* An APK with a properly formatted androidmanifest.xml uploaded to the alpha channel
* both accounts invited to the alpha channel, having accepted the invite, and downloaded the app from the oculus store.
The app on the store doesn't have to be functional. After it's been installed once, it can be uninstalled, and working test builds can be run on the phone.
I suppose those two oculus accounts would also need to be eachother's friend.
Accurate to the best of my knowledge, hope it helps 🙂

Even though this quote is directed towards android it's the closest thing I can find to an answer. 

Any one else out there want to shed some light on their experience with building social Rift Avatar apps?

[Anonymous]

for some reason my comment posted twice. This is an edit to it since I can't seem to find an option to delete it. 

[Jed_Bartlet]

I am also struggling to get this to work. would really appreciate if Oculus could provide a step-by-step guide on how to implement this..it would really go a long way to simplifying the creation of social VR apps.

[Ross_Beef]

Hi folks,

Thanks for the feedback - we're always looking at what we can do to improve both our samples and the accompanying documentation. Social Starter is a more recent sample, so I'm glad you're using it and I'd love to know how we can help you get up and running.

A couple questions for the things that came up above:
1. Please let me know if the above posts didn't help you find the sample you were looking for.
2. Can you share logs, especially for the app failing to start altogether (that seems weird)
3. Other than this, can you provide details of specifically what isn't working for you, or what's missing in the docs. We've had a fair number of people take Social Starter and run with it, so knowing the specifics will help us understand whether it's something specific to a build / version, etc. that isn't working as intended, or where we need to document specific implementation options.

To clarify some other things.
1. You'd need 2 Oculus accounts to test multiplayer
2. In order to access platform services, you'll need the app to be published on Oculus dev center and get a valid app ID. You'll use this to request a valid userID for each user and then their respective Avatar configuration.
3. If you're planning to enable a Rift / Go multiplayer experience, ensure that you have created an app grouping, so you havde a shared app ID and user IDs which correspond between the two apps.

Hope to hear from you soon and we'll do our best to debug, improve or clarify

Thanks all!

[Digibix]

If you, like me, are using Photon for multiplayer you should check this tutorial on integrating Oculus Avatar with Photon:

https://doc.photonengine.com/en-us/pun/current/demos-and-tutorials/oculusavatarsdk

I also use PhotonVoice for the avatars audio.

It works for me on the Oculus Go / Gear VR and on the Rift using the new avatars.

[Anonymous]

Ross_Beef said:

Hi folks,

3. If you're planning to enable a Rift / Go multiplayer experience, ensure that you have created an app grouping, so you havde a shared app ID and user IDs which correspond between the two apps.

Just a small correction to the above post:
You will NOT get a shared App ID using App grouping, the two app variants ( mobile / rift ) still have distinct, different  app id's ( which you have to seperatly use in the platform sdk and avatar sdk too, there are even two seperate unity inspector fields for this, one for the rift and one for the mobile app id). App grouping as i understand it for this use case just takes care that those two app ids can share avatars and platform features and the Oculus servers allow this internally

[Digibix]

If you, like me, are using Photon for multiplayer you should check this tutorial on integrating Oculus Avatar with Photon:

https://doc.photonengine.com/en-us/pun/current/demos-and-tutorials/oculusavatarsdk

I also use PhotonVoice for the avatars audio.

It works for me on the Oculus Go / Gear VR and on the Rift using the new avatars.

[Digibix]

If you, like me, are using Photon for multiplayer you should check this tutorial on integrating Oculus Avatar with Photon:

https://doc.photonengine.com/en-us/pun/current/demos-and-tutorials/oculusavatarsdk

I also use PhotonVoice for the avatars audio.

It works for me on the Oculus Go / Gear VR and on the Rift using the new avatars.

[Anonymous]

Digibix said:

If you, like me, are using Photon for multiplayer you should check this tutorial on integrating Oculus Avatar with Photon:

https://doc.photonengine.com/en-us/pun/current/demos-and-tutorials/oculusavatarsdk

I also use PhotonVoice for the avatars audio.

It works for me on the Oculus Go / Gear VR and on the Rift using the new avatars.

I posted a question today somewhat related to this (https://forums.oculusvr.com/developer/discussion/74968/how-to-do-avatar-sdk-or-network-related-dev-locally#latest).  I am trying to figure out how to test/debug user/network stuff but it seems like there's no way to do so using the oculus platform SDK, is Photon really the only answer to that?  Or do you use it for something else?