Getting Started

This document describes steps to creating a multiplayer game with Mirror. The process described here is a simplified, higher level version of the actual process for a real game; it doesn’t always work exactly like this, but it provides a basic recipe for the process.

Video Tutorials

Check out these awesome videos showing you how to get started with mirror.

Script Templates

• Create new Network Behaviours and other common scripts faster

See Script Templates.

Network Manager Setup

• Create a new Network Manager from the Assets > Create > Mirror menu.

• Add a new game object to the Scene and rename it “NetworkManager”.

• Add the newly created Network Manager component to the “NetworkManager” game object.

• Add the NetworkManagerHUD component to the game object. This provides the default UI for managing the network game state.

See Using the NetworkManager.

Player Prefab

• Find the Prefab for the player game object in the game, or create a Prefab from the player game object

• Add the NetworkIdentity component to the player Prefab

• Set the Player Prefab in the NetworkManager’s Spawn Info section to the player Prefab

• Remove the player game object instance from the Scene if it exists in the Scene

See Player Objects for more information.

Player Movement

• Add a NetworkTransform component to the player Prefab

• Check the Client Authority checkbox on the component.

• Update input and control scripts to respect isLocalPlayer

• Override OnStartLocalPlayer to take control of the Main Camera in the scene for the player.

For example, this script only processes input for the local player:

using UnityEngine;
using Mirror;

public class Controls : NetworkBehaviour
{
    void Update()
    {
        // exit from update if this is not the local player
        if (!isLocalPlayer) return;

        // handle player input for movement
    }
}

Basic player game state

• Make scripts that contain important data into Network Behaviours instead of MonoBehaviours

• Make important member variables into SyncVars

See State Synchronization.

Remote Actions

• Make scripts that perform important actions into Network Behaviours instead of MonoBehaviours

• Update functions that perform important player actions to be commands

See Remote Actions.

Non-player GameObjects

Fix non-player prefabs such as enemies:

• Add the NetworkIdentity component

• Add the NetworkTransform component

• Register spawnable Prefabs with the NetworkManager

• Update scripts with game state and actions

Spawners

• Potentially change spawner scripts to be NetworkBehaviours

• Modify spawners to only run on the server (use isServer property or the OnStartServer() function)

• Call NetworkServer.Spawn() for created game objects

Spawn positions for players

• Add a new game object and place it at player’s start location

• Add the NetworkStartPosition component to the new game object