Multiplayer in Rust using Renet and Bevy

Here at Renuo, we specialize in web technologies such as Ruby on Rails, React, Angular, and Spring. One of our core company values is continuous learning: we love exploring new technologies even beyond our usual scope of expertise.

Inspired by Michael’s Unity Powerday, I decided to delve into how multiplayer games operate. As a team, we held a competition to implement FPS (First-Person Shooter) games using C# boilerplate. Initially, the sheer amount of boilerplate required felt overwhelming. Beyond that, I wanted to understand client/server data synchronization at a lower level of abstraction.

My recent experiences with Rust and Bevy convinced me to write this blog article to share my newfound learnings of game development.

Why Choose Rust

Advantages

Rust is a statically typed, memory-safe, multi-paradigm programming language that matches the performance of C. Due to its safety, concurrency features, and modern syntax, it has gained popularity among developers in recent years.

Some notable software written in Rust includes:

• Rapier3d: A performant physics engine often used with ThreeJS.
• Ripgrep: A performant command line search tool.
• Alacritty: A performant, minimalistic cross-platform terminal emulator.
• Warp: A performant, modern terminal IDE.
• Tauri: A performant and lightweight alternative to ElectronJS.
• Amethyst: A performant tiling window manager for MacOS.
• Condorium Blockchain: A performant and secure blockchain technology.

I mean, there is no such thing as a perfect programming language Rust is merely a statically type low-level multi-paradigm perfect programming language
YouTube interview by Programmers Are Also Human, Rust is a perfect programming language.

Picking a game engine

There are currently 5 games written in Rust. And 50 game engines.
Interview with a Senior Rust Developer - 2:52

There are too many game engines available for Rust. An excellent resource is Are We Game Yet. I also recommend this article by GeeksforGeeks, which makes picking the optimal engine easier.

The Difference Between Bevy and Other Engines

While big game engines like Godot, Unity, and Unreal Engine come with graphical editors, Bevy focuses on providing a simple yet powerful, multithreaded system to manage game state with minimal code.

Understanding ECS

The ECS (Entity Component System) is a software pattern that emphasizes a modular design. It is commonly utilized in game and game engine development. This approach separates the data and behaviour of game entities into components, making it easier to manage and organize complex systems.

Components of ECS

1. Entities: Unique identifiers of a group of components (A u32 wrapper in bevy).
2. Components: Modular data pieces that represent specific Entity attributes. (A struct that derives the Component macro in bevy)
3. System: Logic that operates on entities and their components. (A struct that derives the Resource macro in bevy)

Systems in Bevy

Systems in Bevy are functions that take various parameters such as queries, EventReaders, assets, and resources and apply logic to them.

One powerful feature of Bevy systems is the Query interface. It allows you to fetch specific data for entities in your project. For instance, if no entity is found, the single_mut() function will raise an error. Multiple queries are possible as long as entities do not overlap.

Below is an example where the MyPlayer component doesn't contain any data but is used to denote that the entity belongs to the client player.

pub fn update_player_movement_system(
    mut keyboard_events: EventReader<KeyboardInput>,
    mut query: Query<(&mut Transform, &MyPlayer)>,
) {
    let (mut transform, _) = query.single_mut();

    for event in keyboard_events.read() {
        let mut delta_position = Vec3::new(0.0, 0.0, 0.0);

        match event.key_code {
            KeyCode::KeyW => delta_position.z += 0.1,
            KeyCode::KeyS => delta_position.z -= 0.1,
            KeyCode::KeyA => delta_position.x -= 0.1,
            KeyCode::KeyD => delta_position.x += 0.1,
            _ => {}
        }

        let new_position = transform.translation + delta_position;
        transform.translation = new_position;
    }
}

The example above has a flaw: the player position update has a fixed step. Instead of using a fixed-step update, consider using the time passed since the last step. This will ensure a consistent movement speed regardless of the frame rate.

Picking Networking Libraries

We need to decide on networking libraries after choosing Bevy as our game engine. Here are a few options:

• Matchbox
• Naia
• Renet
• Bootleg_networking
• Spicy_networking

I chose Renet because of its popularity and my good experiences with its boilerplate. Additionally, I included Serde for efficient binary message encoding.

Sketching the scene

Before coding, let's sketch a simple scene:

• Camera: Renders the scene.
• Plane: Represents the floor.
• Green Cube: Represents the player.
• Red Cubes: Represent other players.

Attributes to synchronize:

• Position: Vec3

Input method:

• Keyboard (WASD): Used to translate the player.

Handling Player inputs

There are three main ways to handle player inputs:

1. Client-side: The client handles inputs, moves the player, and sends the position to the server.
2. Server-side: The client sends input data to the server, and the server responds with the position.
3. Hybrid: The client handles inputs and shares them with the server, which then responds with position synchronization.

The client-side approach can reduce latency, but is less secure. The server-side approach is more secure but adds server load. The hybrid approach offers a balance, but is more complex.

Planning

Client

Type	Name	Description
Component	PlayerEntity(ClientId)	Represents an enemy player entity.
Component	MyPlayer	Marks the current player entity.
Event	PlayerSpawnEvent(ClientId)	Emitted when a player joins. Adds a player object to the scene.
Event	PlayerDespawnEvent(ClientId)	Emitted when a player leaves. Removes a player object from the scene.
Event	PlayerMoveEvent(ClientId, Vec3)	Emitted by the player controller when a player moves.
Event	LobbySyncEvent(HashMap)	Emitted when the client receives sync messages from the server. Updates other player positions using their ID and position.
System	send_message_system	Shares MyPlayer position data with the server.
System	receive_message_system	Processes messages received from the server.
System	update_player_movement_system	Updates player position from keyboard input.
System	setup_system	Sets up the scene with a camera, a ground plane, and a mesh for the current player.
System	handle_player_spawn_event_system	Adds enemy players to the scene once they join in.
System	handle_lobby_sync_event_system	Updates enemy player positions and potentially spawns missed players into the scene.

Server

Type	Name	Description
Resource	PlayerLobby(HashMap)	Holds attributes of all players currently in the game. Used to synchronize these attributes with the clients.
System	send_message_system	Broadcasts player positions to keep enemy player positions in clients up-to-date.
System	receive_message_system	Updates player lobby position based on messages received from the RenetClient.
System	handle_events_system	Handles events such as ClientConnected and ClientDisconnected from the Bevy Renet plugin.

Deciding on a project structure

I separated the ECS components into specific modules to structure the Bevy project and used two entry points: one for the client and one for the server. Shared code, such as structures for Client-Server communication, can be placed in a global lib module.

src
├── client
│   ├── components.rs
│   ├── events.rs
│   ├── main.rs
│   ├── resources.rs
│   └── systems.rs
├── lib.rs
└── server
    ├── main.rs
    ├── resources.rs
    └── systems.rs

Defining various entry points is as simple as adding this to the Cargo.toml file:

[[bin]]
name = "server"
path = "src/server/main.rs"

[[bin]]
name = "client"
path = "src/client/main.rs"

Afterwards, the binaries can be run with the --bin argument:

cargo run --bin server
cargo run --bin client

Setting up Boilerplate

To integrate bevy_renet into the bevy project, I followed the Bevy Renet documentation. In my setup, I used these two default channels:

• Unreliable: Used for sending and receiving messages for player attribute synchronization. (We don't care about every state change, we can pick the last one)
• ReliableOrdered: Used for sending and receiving messages for player actions such as joining and leaving.

Synchronising player positions

Here's an example of sending player attributes from the client to the server:

pub fn send_message_system(mut client: ResMut<RenetClient>, query: Query<(&MyPlayer, &Transform)>) {
    let (_, transform) = query.single();
    let player_sync = PlayerAttributes {
        position: transform.translation.into(),
    };
    let message = bincode::serialize(&player_sync).unwrap();
    client.send_message(DefaultChannel::Unreliable, message);
}

Handling messages from the client on the server:

pub fn receive_message_system(mut server: ResMut<RenetServer>, mut player_lobby: ResMut<PlayerLobby>) {
    for client_id in server.clients_id() {
        let message = server.receive_message(client_id, DefaultChannel::Unreliable);
        if let Some(message) = message {
            let player: PlayerAttributes = bincode::deserialize(&message).unwrap();
            player_lobby.0.insert(client_id, player);
        }
    }
}

Sending attributes of all players back to the client:

pub fn send_message_system(mut server: ResMut<RenetServer>, player_lobby: Res<PlayerLobby>) {
    let chanel = DefaultChannel::Unreliable;
    let lobby = player_lobby.0.clone();
    let event = multiplayer_demo::ServerMessage::LobbySync(lobby);
    let message = bincode::serialize(&event).unwrap();
    print_lobby(&player_lobby);
    server.broadcast_message(chanel, message);
}

Synchronizing the client scene with the player attributes from the server:

pub fn handle_lobby_sync_event_system(
    mut spawn_events: EventWriter<PlayerSpawnEvent>,
    mut sync_events: EventReader<LobbySyncEvent>,
    mut query: Query<(&PlayerEntity, &mut Transform)>,
    my_clinet_id: Res<MyClientId>,
) {
    let event_option = sync_events.read().last();
    if event_option.is_none() {
        return;
    }
    let event = event_option.unwrap();

    for (client_id, player_sync) in event.0.iter() {
        if *client_id == my_clinet_id.0 {
            continue;
        }

        let mut found = false;
        for (player_entity, mut transform) in query.iter_mut() {
            if *client_id == player_entity.0 {
                let new_position = player_sync.position;
                transform.translation = new_position.into();
                found = true;
            }
        }

        if !found {
            info!("Spawning player {}: {:?}", client_id, player_sync.position);
            spawn_events.send(PlayerSpawnEvent(*client_id));
        }
    }
}

Conclusion

The multiplayer demo project demonstrates the intricate planning and attention to detail needed to synchronize player attributes between the client and server. This showcases the complexity of creating a seamless multiplayer experience at a lower level.

For more detailed code, visit the MIT-Licensed GitHub repository.