How do I set a scene up for two players?

Question

I´m finishing a game in Unity, but I have a new requirement: make it multiplayer. I will do this by splitting the screen and running two instances.

Is there a way to instance a scene twice at the same time, and render them two a different part of the screen? Alternativley, what is the best approach to achieve this?

Answer 1

If you want to make a local multiplayer with a split screen, the way to go is to have two cameras and change the rect viewport of them :

https://docs.unity3d.com/ScriptReference/Camera-rect.html

For vertical split screen : (x, y, width, height)

• 1st camera : (0, 0, 0.5, 1) ► left
• 2nd camera : (0.5, 0, 0.5, 1) ► right

For horizontal split screen : (x, y, width, height)

• 1st camera : (0, 0.5, 1, 0.5) ► top
• 2nd camera : (0, 0, 1, 0.5) ► bottom

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No need to have two worlds. However, if you want the players to have their own GUI, you will have to take a look at culling masks

https://docs.unity3d.com/ScriptReference/Camera-cullingMask.html

Place all the objects of the player 1 in a new layer ("Player1Layer"), all the objects of player 2 in another ("Player2Layer"), and make sure the camera of the player 1 does not have "Player2Layer" checked in its culling mask while the camera of the player 2 does not have "Player1Layer" checked in its culling mask.

IMPORTANT NOTE

It seems that additional configuration is required so as to show GUI to a specific player. I don't really know why.

Each player must have their own :

1. Main camera with :

   • Correct viewport rect
   • A Depth value set to 0
   • A culling mask to Everything, except Player1Layer and Player2Layer

2. A second camera with :

   • Correct viewport rect
   • A Depth value set to 1
   • A culling mask to Player1Layer (or Player2Layer for 2nd player)

3. A dedicated canvas with :

   • Render Mode set to Screen Space - Camera
   • The correct camera configured in #2

For the sake of simplicity, attach the two cameras of a given player to a unique parent, and move the parent so that the two cameras will follow. Maybe, you can keep the cameras #2 at (0, 0, 0). I haven't tested.