Networking

this guide explains how networking works in ir engine and how users, peers, ownership, and authority interact in a networked environment networks networks are channels used to share data between peers ir engine supports two primary network types world networks tied to location instances handle information about the environment, user positions, and world interactions media networks tied to media instances handle audio or video streams and other media related data each network serves a distinct purpose, ensuring that only relevant data is broadcast to connected peers users and peers a user is a unique account on an ir engine deployment users can join multiple instances, potentially having several peers —one peer per active connection or device users represent the individual account or identity in the system own avatars and maintain consistent identity across different sessions or devices peers represent active client connections (e g , a user’s laptop, phone, or vr headset) a single user can have multiple peers connected to different or the same instances simultaneously ℹ️ note only a single avatar is loaded per user, but it can be controlled by any one of that user's peers ownership and authority ownership and authority define how networked entities are managed and controlled across peers ownership indicates which user owns a particular entity (e g , an avatar or object in the scene) cannot be transferred if ownership must change, destroy the entity and recreate it under the new user authority indicates which peer can actively control the entity’s state (e g , movement, interactions) can be transferred between peers via an authority request and an authority transfer action the owner peer decides whether to grant authority to another peer by separating ownership (long term association) from authority (immediate control), ir engine allows flexible handoffs of control without altering the underlying entity’s ownership