How can a client change their scene when joining mid game?

Unity Engine
1

I have two scenes, let’s call them StartGameScene and GameScene. StartGameScene has 2 buttons, one to Start a host and one to join a game (using a join code).

If I spin up an instance of the game and click to Start a host, the NetworkSceneManager is called to switch the host to the GameScene. This works fine and my player prefab is spawned correctly along with any network objects that I’ve spawned.

If I then use a different instance of the game to join the in progress game using the join code, how can I have that client switch to the GameScene?

I tried calling NetworkSceneManager using the client but I’m met with an error that only the server can use that (I understand why). If I use the regular SceneManager to switch to the GameScene on the client, I don’t have any of the network objects spawned and it’s as if I just loaded this scene without any network support.

Can someone please clarify how to go about doing this? Am I supposed to use the host to listen for the client connect and request a scene change there? Documentation around this is lacking unfortunately.

2

Upon calling NetworkManager.Singleton.StartClient(), the client should automatically be switched to the scene of the host, assuming the host loaded it through the NetworkManager too (NetworkManager.Singleton.SceneManager.LoadScene(...)).

3

In order for the auto sync of scenes to happen, you need to make sure that the NetworkManager’s “Enable Scene Management” bool is set to true in the inspector as well :slight_smile:

4

Hi, I tried to do it this way, but after I click the host button (that firstly runs this code NetworkManager.Singleton.StartHost()) I want to load the next scene by using that code you showed. I previously stored the scene as gameScene = SceneManager.GetSceneByBuildIndex(1);, and I’m trying this piece of code:
NetworkManager.Singleton.SceneManager.LoadScene(gameScene.name, LoadSceneMode.Single);
however, I’m getting the following error

The scene is in build list. In fact, I can load the scene pretty easily by using SceneManager. Notwithstanding, I want the scenes to be synchronized with other clients, and that’s why I’m trying to get this method done. Any idea of what could be causing this issue?

5

That’s very strange, you’re calling the network scene manager correctly… If the scene is really in the build list then the only thing I can think of is that you’re maybe calling LoadScene slightly too fast. What I do myself is subscribe to OnServerStarted and call the scene loader from there:

void Start() {
    NetworkManager.Singleton.OnServerStarted+=HandleServerStarted;
} //Start

private void HandleServerStarted() {
    NetworkManager.Singleton.SceneManager.LoadScene(sceneName,LoadSceneMode.Single);
} //HandleServerStarted
6

Thanks for the reply. I found what the issue was and I explained on this thread how I fixed it.

Apparently, the scene name was null because this code: gameScene = SceneManager.GetSceneByBuildIndex(1); does not retrieve the data correctly.

gameScenePath = SceneUtility.GetScenePathByBuildIndex(1);
string gameSceneName = System.IO.Path.GetFileNameWithoutExtension(gameScenePath);

on the other hand did the trick.

Appart from that, I want to ask something out of curiosity:

I tried loading the scene with the SceneManager and also with the NetworkManager, but I don’t see any difference, they look the same to me. Why is it recommended to do it with the NetworkManager?