Unreal Engine 4 and Photon C++ Client API

TimGS

I'm trying to test Photon Network with UE4.
I linked Photon API according to these instructions of UE4 wiki:

1. Copied Photon-cpp and Common-cpp to Sources folder of my UE project.
2. Edited code of UE project build .cs file (in my case PhotonTest.Build.cs) linking Photon-cpp_vc12_release_windows_mt_x64.lib and Common-cpp_vc12_release_windows_mt_x64

Now I'm trying to create a peer, but compiler gives me errors:

1>d:\tim\uproj\photontest\source\photontest\Common-cpp/inc/Enums/TypeCode.h(21): error C2825: nByte: должен представлять класс или пространство имен с последующим "::"
1>d:\tim\uproj\photontest\source\photontest\Common-cpp/inc/Enums/TypeCode.h(21): error C2825: nByte: должен представлять класс или пространство имен с последующим "::"
1>d:\tim\uproj\photontest\source\photontest\Common-cpp/inc/Helpers/ConfirmAllowedKey.h(46): error C2589: ::: недопустимая лексема справа от "::"
1>d:\tim\uproj\photontest\source\photontest\Common-cpp/inc/Helpers/ConfirmAllowedKey.h(46): error C2059: синтаксическая ошибка: ::
1>d:\tim\uproj\photontest\source\photontest\Common-cpp/inc/Helpers/ConfirmAllowedKey.h(46): error C2238: непредвиденные лексемы перед ";"
1>d:\tim\uproj\photontest\source\photontest\Common-cpp/inc/Helpers/ConfirmAllowedKey.h(46): error C2589: ::: недопустимая лексема справа от "::"
1>d:\tim\uproj\photontest\source\photontest\Common-cpp/inc/Helpers/ConfirmAllowedKey.h(46): error C2059: синтаксическая ошибка: ::
1>d:\tim\uproj\photontest\source\photontest\Common-cpp/inc/Helpers/ConfirmAllowedKey.h(46): error C2238: непредвиденные лексемы перед ";"
1>d:\tim\uproj\photontest\source\photontest\Common-cpp/inc/Helpers/ConfirmAllowed.h(79): error C2589: ::: недопустимая лексема справа от "::"
1>d:\tim\uproj\photontest\source\photontest\Common-cpp/inc/Helpers/ConfirmAllowed.h(79) : error C2589: ::: недопустимая лексема справа от "::"
1>d:\tim\uproj\photontest\source\photontest\Common-cpp/inc/Helpers/ConfirmAllowed.h(79): error C2059: синтаксическая ошибка: ::
1>d:\tim\uproj\photontest\source\photontest\Common-cpp/inc/Helpers/ConfirmAllowed.h(79): error C2238: непредвиденные лексемы перед ";"
1>d:\tim\uproj\photontest\source\photontest\Common-cpp/inc/Helpers/ConfirmAllowed.h(79) : error C2059: синтаксическая ошибка: ::
1>d:\tim\uproj\photontest\source\photontest\Common-cpp/inc/Helpers/ConfirmAllowed.h(79): error C2238: непредвиденные лексемы перед ";"

Am I doing something wrong? If there's any tutorial or instructions on this topic, please let me know.

PS: btw i find it very strange that only

static const nByte FLOAT              = 'f';

gives an error. All other constants don't.

UPDATE:
I changed constant's name to MYFLOAT and edited ConfirmAllowedKey.h and ConfirmAllowed.h files, where it's used. And now I got no errors. Seems like that name isn't good.

vadim

Hi,

Photon FLOAT resides in ExitGames::Common::TypeCode. It's quite safe use any names inside namespaces. But Unreal's #define FLOAT ::FLOAT breaks anything even inside namespaces.
We have same issue with our Unreal Engine 4 tests.
Since we can't change FLOAT name in our api, the only solution working for us currently is commenting out last line "using namespace DoNotUseOldUE4Type;" in "Unreal Engine\4.1\Engine\Source\Runtime\Core\Public\Core.h"

But in many cases your workaround may be more appropriate than changing Unreal sources.

trethaller

Hi,
Is there any plan for a better UE4 integration? In particular, I'm interested in reusing the UE low-level networking and replication features, but using Photon for matchmaking and online features.
Has anybody tried this?

Kaiserludi

Hi tret.

What is it that you don't like about the current integration?

The main purpose of Photon is to do provide a solution or realtime ingame multiplayer. Therefor it doesn't make much sense to use Photon just for some side features like matchmaking while using something else for what Photon is best at.

However it is possible to use Photons matchmaking and then use UE for ingame communication:
Just let your clients connect to Photon, create a Photon room (optionally with properties to filter for) with one client, join that room by opJoinRandomRoom() (optionally with filters for certain properties like for example the map name) with some other clients, then let the clients send their respective IP addresses to each other, then disconnect them from Photon and let them use their IPs to find themselves in UEs built-in networking.

What do you mean with "online features"? Please be more specific about what you are referring to when using such a broad term.

trethaller

> What is it that you don't like about the current integration?
Nothing in particular, I was just thinking about an official UE4 plugin that uses the above workaround so recompiling the engine is not necessary

> What do you mean with "online features"?
Yes, sorry for not being more specific, I essentially meant everything except real-time networking, which will be left to UE in most cases (I haven't looked at Photon in details yet).

Do you know of any titles in development that use Photon and UE4 ?
Thanks

Kaiserludi

As stated at https://docs.unrealengine.com/latest/IN ... index.html UE4s plugin system is still work in progress. We may consider a plugin approach when the plugin support of UE4 is more major.

I am personally not too familiar with UE4 myself, so I wonder why you are talking about "recompiling the engine". Only those source files should need recompilation that have actually been touched since the last compilation, so this shouldn't be a big time intensive issue.

Is there a specific reason why you want to leave realtime networking to UE?

Photons UE4 support same is UE4 itself is pretty fresh and normally people only approach us, if they need devsupport, so in general we often don't hear about the games in development with Photon until they get published.That said I don't know who is currently using Photon with UE4.

However I can tell you that for example the new game of Peter Molyneux, which has been released two weeks ago and reached position 1 in the iOS app store in more than 25 countries, is extensively using Photons C++ Client SDKs for all it's networking.

trethaller

Kaiserludi wrote:

As stated at https://docs.unrealengine.com/latest/IN ... index.html UE4s plugin system is still work in progress. We may consider a plugin approach when the plugin support of UE4 is more major.

Right. I don't know how unstable it is in practice, but there are already major commercial plugins available (SpeedTree, CoherentUI, Substance Designer)

Kaiserludi wrote:

I am personally not too familiar with UE4 myself, so I wonder why you are talking about "recompiling the engine"

Many developers prefer to use the prebuilt releases for convenience. When you work in a team, you can just share your plugins/game modules instead of all the UE binaries. It's also possible to get stable updates by just a click on the UE launcher. Needing to change the sources also makes merging more difficult, especially if it's required by several 3rd party libraries.

Kaiserludi wrote:

Is there a specific reason why you want to leave realtime networking to UE?

Yes, networking is a core feature of UE, and it has been since version 1. It is deeply integrated, from core classes to Blueprint (the visual scripting tool). For example, replication behavior is specified directly on properties when creating classes. It also supports prediction.

Kaiserludi wrote:

Photons UE4 support same is UE4 itself is pretty fresh and normally people only approach us, if they need devsupport, so in general we often don't hear about the games in development with Photon until they get published.That said I don't know who is currently using Photon with UE4.

I understand, thanks

TimGS

trethaller wrote:

Needing to change the sources also makes merging more difficult, especially if it's required by several 3rd party libraries.

You don't have to change engine source. You just need to change a couple of Photon files. And implement a string converter.
There's no need for UE plugin, frankly speaking, because it's much more flexible and optimized to create your own c++ implementation of system using Photon than to use some universal solution.

Serphimera

Hi TimGS,

can u explain a little bit more how to achieve this?

Thanks in advance