Corona® AutoLAN- Public Internet Multiplayer Support Beta! Join Now!

Games
#1

Hello Community,
Thank you for supporting our other Corona® Tools and we are proud to announce Corona® AutoLAN, a multiplayer library for the Corona® SDK. Some exciting features include.

AutoLAN is easy to integrate into your code. Create a server in 2 lines of code, and a client in 3.

New to multiplayer gaming? No problem! We have created a clear and concise tutorial highlighting all the important aspects of multiplayer networking like dead reckoning, random numbers, and floating point errors. Its free to download and look at!

AutoLAN finds devices on the network automatically so you or your users do not have to enter in IPs and ports.

We use low latency UDP for all our network traffic. TCP is never used, not even for file transfers. What this means for you is faster speed and less network overhead!

Multiple servers can coexist on the same network, as can multiple clients on the same server. A full example with a game lobby shows how clients can choose which server they want to join.

Transfer files from client to server or vice versa. You can transfer anything from images, music files, screenshots, you name it!

Please visit the AutoLAN website at http://www.mydevelopersgames.com/AutoLAN/index.html
Thank you for all your support and please let us know if you run into any problems or have suggestions.

Thanks!
M.Y. Developers [import]uid: 55057 topic_id: 19917 reply_id: 319917[/import]

#2

O bugger - i bought this like an hour ago before it came up :frowning:

darn my luck with the promo code :stuck_out_tongue:
[import]uid: 97707 topic_id: 19917 reply_id: 77429[/import]

#3

GameLab,
can you give us your email address? We can give you a free link for Profiler for missing out on the promotion offer.

Thanks,
M.Y. Developers [import]uid: 55057 topic_id: 19917 reply_id: 77431[/import]

#4

This was a no flipping brainer!!! - What does someone know its my birthday or something? I mean Blogs about email and sms on corona and not this…

But if there was a multi-Pack of your products I would have snagged that instead. Is there?

Larry meadows

http://www.DoubleSlashDesign.com [import]uid: 11860 topic_id: 19917 reply_id: 77440[/import]

#5

Just bought it with the 20% discount! Not ready yet for a multiplayer game dev but I just wanted to support you guys:)

I am sure I will have fun with this at some point. By the way, do you absolutely need wifi or would 3G works for game like the included pong?

CONGRATS!

Mo. [import]uid: 49236 topic_id: 19917 reply_id: 77441[/import]

#6

just a note if you unzip the folder remove the @_ form the folder name. Simulator on windows would not compile with it. Thought it needed some type of special key from android…

Wild.

Larry meadows

http://www.DoubleSlashDesign.com [import]uid: 11860 topic_id: 19917 reply_id: 77444[/import]

#7

Wifi works GREAT. how about adding a little Blue Tooth love if possible :slight_smile:

Wild.

Larry meadows

http://www.DoubleSlashDesign.com [import]uid: 11860 topic_id: 19917 reply_id: 77446[/import]

#8

Hi Lemsim,
Thanks for supporting us! Currently the library is for LAN connections only. Internet is on the roadmap but would require much more infrastructure than we currently have. Internet over 3G would probably have horrible latencies restricting it to turn based games. Thanks for the support and we have not forgotten about your profiler feature requests!

Thanks,
M.Y. Developers [import]uid: 55057 topic_id: 19917 reply_id: 77452[/import]

#9

Hello Larry Meadows,
Thanks for trying out autoLAN! What do you mean by the @ from the folder name? We do not see that in the distribution zip file.

Good to hear its working for you! Unfortunately Corona does not support bluetooth at the moment, but as soon as they do we will incorporate that in our library.

Let us know if you have any problems.

Thank you,
M.Y. Developers [import]uid: 55057 topic_id: 19917 reply_id: 77453[/import]

#10

@M.Y. Developers

No problem. Thank you for coming up with such great tools. Keep up the great job!

Mo [import]uid: 49236 topic_id: 19917 reply_id: 77457[/import]

#11

the file name came down like this corona®_autolan ( notice the registered mark ) i then just unzipped it and the 7zip created the folder based on the file name, so then it had an issue with that character in the simulator.

Great info on the Blue tooth.

Larry [import]uid: 11860 topic_id: 19917 reply_id: 77458[/import]

#12

Awesome! This sounds perfect for my local multiplayer option in my game and I was able to get the discount as well :slight_smile:

Any chance this could be used (or eventually) for non-local multiplayer (e.g., Like Words with Friends or Hanging with Friends)?
[import]uid: 47361 topic_id: 19917 reply_id: 77468[/import]

#13

I can’t wait to try it out! I have several LAN based games planned - this came at the perfect time! [import]uid: 6551 topic_id: 19917 reply_id: 77470[/import]

#14

@Larry
Thank you for letting us know about the filename issue. It seems our digital distributor renamed the file as we did not include the ® sign in any paths. Let us know if you run into anything else.

@rarmstrong
Thanks for trying us out! Internet multiplayer is on the road-map but it would require a lot more infrastructure than we currently have right now. It should be possible via Lua sockets though.

Thank you,
M.Y. Developers [import]uid: 55057 topic_id: 19917 reply_id: 77471[/import]

#15

Wow, thank you for so useful library. Seems I missed the discount:) [import]uid: 74676 topic_id: 19917 reply_id: 77483[/import]

#16

Just bought it… Love this…
@carlos please bluetooth in corona :slight_smile: [import]uid: 7427 topic_id: 19917 reply_id: 77578[/import]

#17

Great work a will buy it tomorrow;) Splitscreen support would be nice;) [import]uid: 86417 topic_id: 19917 reply_id: 77611[/import]

#18

IMPORTANT!
Something we want to bring to the attention of everyone about a recent bug report has been submitted yesterday in another thread
(Case 11306) Physics Simulation Speed Errors on the forum post
http://developer.anscamobile.com/forum/2011/10/24/physic-force-differences-devices

We indeed see very jumpy behavior in the provided multiplayer pong example when compiled and played on different devices (even if it is on the same platform.) The speed differences are very noticeable especially when one device cannot keep up the framerate. Be aware that the Corona physics library seems to have a framerate dependent component that would make your games go out of sync very quickly and appear jumpy because the two programs do not exactly run the same way. Unfortunately there seem to be differences in the collision forces as well from device to device which would also result in a similar situation. Please be aware of this bug when debugging your physics based mulitiplayer game as this problem may not occur to you, it certainly didn’t to us until we saw the bug report. Hopefully this problem will be addressed soon, however in the meantime here are some suggested workarounds:

  1. Set active game objects to kinematic and change positions based on velocity in lua code. Ensure that you do this in a time based rather than a frame based manner.
  2. Use 30fps rather than 60fps to ensure most devices can run at the same framerate. Even so this probably will not solve the collision errors.
  3. Send an update every frame. In order to make this appear smooth you will have to do some sort of filtering such as this.
local updateX,updateY = message[1], message[2] --from server  
local dx, dy = updateX-ball.x, updateY-ball.y --calculate difference  
ball:translate(0.1\*dx, 0.1\*dy) --prevent jumping by slowly resolving server-client mismatch, low pass filter, PID control, think of it however you like.

You will also need to account for differences in packet arrival times if you take this frame by frame approach. Put a timestamp on each packet to account for jitter in the system.

Thank you and let us know if you have any problems,
M.Y. Developers [import]uid: 55057 topic_id: 19917 reply_id: 77615[/import]

#19

@Sun.Jiajie
Thanks for supporting us! Hope your next game goes well.
@IronMan
Thanks for the words. Agreed, Bluetooth would make things a lot easier. However, lots of android phones have wireless hotspots these days that could substitute for this feature.

Any feedback is appreciated!
Thanks,
M.Y. Developers [import]uid: 55057 topic_id: 19917 reply_id: 77614[/import]

#20

@Martin
Thanks! What do you mean by split-screen support? Are you trying to make a multiplyer game on the same device?
M.Y. Developers [import]uid: 55057 topic_id: 19917 reply_id: 77657[/import]