Using prime[31] to connect your unity game to azure mobile services. More info at my blog: http://davevoyles.azurewebsites.net/prime31-azure-plugin-win8-wp8-unity-games-part-3/

2. • Intro to prime[31]’s Azure plugin
• Creating a mobile service in the Azure web portal
• Installing the plugin
• How does Unity handle .DLLs?
• Compiling our project
• Walking through the code
• Azure functions
• What other options exist?
Source Code: https://github.com/DaveVoyles/prime31-azure

4. prime
• Free!
• Runs across:
Windows 8 Store
Windows Phone 8
Does not run in the Unity Editor
• Download here:
https://prime31.com/plugins#

5. // Prepares the connection to the Azure servers. This must be called before
any other methods.
public static void connect( string applicationUrl, string applicationKey )
// Inserts a new item into the database
public static void insert<T>( T item, Action completionHandler )
// Updates an item in the database
public static void update<T>( T item, Action completionHandler )
// Deletes an item from the database
public static void delete<T>( T item, Action completionHandler )

6. // Queries the database
public static void where<T>( Expression<Func<T,bool>> predicate,
Action<List<T>> completionHandler )
// Looks an item up to see if it is in the database
public static void lookup<T>( T item, Action<T> completionHandler )
// Authenticates a user with the service provider. Note that the service provider
// must first be setup in the Azure web dashboard! The completionHandler will
// return null in the event of a login failure.
public static void authenticateWithServiceProvider(
MobileServiceAuthenticationProvider serviceProvider,
Action<MobileServiceUser> completionHandler )

7. prime
NOTE: It’s important to note that before you can use this plugin you
must download and install the Mobile Services SDK from here.

10. Creating your mobile service
https://manage.windowsazure.com/

11. Creating your mobile service

12. Creating your mobile service

13. Creating your mobile service

14. Creating your mobile service

15. Creating your mobile service

16. Creating your mobile service

17. Creating your mobile service

18. Creating your mobile service

19. Creating your mobile service

21. What is a .DLL?
A DLL is a dynamic link library. It is a
collection of code and/or data, which
may be used by several applications
(or other libraries/modules).
So, common methods to process
files, work with GUI components etc.
are made available in libraries so
several applications may use the
same functionality.

22. Handling .DLLs
For example:
Assets/Plugins/Metro
would hold my [prime31] .DLL which
connects to Azure.

23. Building .DLLs
When Unity builds your project, it
first grabs all of the .DLLs within
the Assets/Plugins folder.
It then does another pass to see if
there is a platform-specific folder
containing plugins.

24. Is one present?
If one is present, it adds those to the
build.
If there are two plugins with the
same name:
1. Unity prioritizes the plugin in the
platform-specific folder, and
2. overwrites whatever was in
the Assets/Plugins folder.

26. Installing the plugin
Download the plugin from the prime[31] site by
registering at the site.
You’ll receive a download code immediately after, in
your e-mail.

27. Installing the plugin
Import the whole project into an
empty Unity scene

28. Go to File –> Build Settings, located
at the top-right corner of Unity.
NOTE: Make sure that your Inspector
window is visible, because we’re
going to change some build settings
for Windows 8 here!
Add the current scene
(MetroAzureTestScene) to the build.

29. Click on Windows Store Apps, and
on the right-hand side you will see
several options.
NOTE: prime[31] currently only
supports C# / XMAL apps, so
under Type you must select XAML
C# solution.
For SDK, I’m currently building for
Windows 8, and I have Unity C#
projects checked.

30. Select the button for Player Settings,
and look at your Inspector window.
You should see a tab for Publishing
Settings; select that. Move down
to Unprocessed Plugins, and you’ll
see that the size currently reads 0.
Change that to 1, and a new line
appears, with the text Element 0 to
the left of it.

31. NOTE: You need to add “P31MetroAzure.dll” in
this empty field, otherwise Unity never knows to
build the project with your Azure plug!

32. You’ll also need to add “Internet Client” to your
capabilities section.
This allows your Win8 project to connect to the
internet. It modifies the AppManifest.XML file
which is generated for your WIn8 project.

33. Go back to the Build
Settings popup, and
select Build.
When it prompts you for
a location, I generally
create a new folder
inside of my project
called “Builds”, and then
have more folders inside
of that one for each
platform. In this case,
“Metro”.

37. Something that threw
me in a loop initially,
was the fact that the
project wants to deploy
to an ARM device
immediately.
If you hit debug “Local
Machine” it will throw an
error about your
machine not being an
ARM tablet.

38. Go to Configuration
Manager and change
the Active Solution
Platform to X86

39. You can now run your
projects and deploy
them via Visual Studio.
Do that, and you will be
greeted with this screen:

40. NOTE: On occasion, I’ll get an error when building the project.
I’m not sure of what causes this, but when I switch my deployment from
whatever it is currently on (for example, Debug) to Release or Master, it
suddenly builds fine.
I can then go back to Debug, and use that if I’d like.

43. A container for the things
you insert into your
leaderboard.
It simply holds a name,
score, and unique ID for
each object you insert into
the board.
NOTE: username and score
MUST be lowercase

44. [SerializeField] private string _azureEndPoint = "<your leaderboard service>";
[SerializeField] private string _applicationKey = "<your application key>";

45. Organizes
our
buttons
and on-screen
text.

47. We can update, delete, and insert things into our
leaderboard, but before we can update or delete anything, we
need to return some leaderboard results.
The syntax may look kind of funky, but bear with me:

48. // Grab all scores in our leaderboard which are <= _minScoreToReturn
Azure.where<LeaderBoard>(i => i.score <= _minScoreToReturn, itemsInTheLeaderboard =>
{
Debug.Log("queried all scores <= 100 has completed with _leadersList count:
" + " " + itemsInTheLeaderboard.Count);
_leadersList = itemsInTheLeaderboard;
// Loop through each item in the leaderboard list, and draw it to the log
foreach (var item in itemsInTheLeaderboard)
{
GUILayout.Label("Name:" + " " + item.username + " " + "Score" + " " + item.score);
}
});

49. We use a lambda function as the first parameter, which serves
as an anonymous (unnamed) function.
i is as each object in our leaderboard list, and we are looking
to pull out the scores, so the argument within this lambda
function is i.score.

50. Azure.where<LeaderBoard>(i => i.score <=
_minScoreToReturn,

51. The next parameter in our Azure.Where() function
is itemsInTheLeaderBoard
You know those items we just returned from our leaderboard?
Well they all get stored in this variable, which serves as list
that we can now manipulate.
itemsInTheLeaderboard =>

52. I’m not quite sure if I’ve been able to return anything at this
point though, so why not draw it to our log, just to be sure?
First we take the itemsInTheLeaderboard, and use the count()
function (given to us by the fact that this is of type List), and
verify that we have some things being returned.
Debug.Log("queried all scores <= 100 has completed with
_leadersList count: " + " " + itemsInTheLeaderboard.Count);

53. Next, we need to loop through each leaderboard item in this
list and draw it to the screen, because what’s the point of
having a leaderboard if folks can’t see how they compare to
everyone else, right?
Using a foreach loop, we iterate through each item in the
leaderboard ad draw it to the screen, including the username
and score.

54. // Loop through each item in the leaderboard list, and draw it to the log
foreach (var item in itemsInTheLeaderboard)
{
GUILayout.Label("Name:" + " " + item.username + " " + "Score“
+ " “ + item.score);
}

55. NOTE: You MUST use lowercase values for username and
score. You’ll see in our leaderboard class that I even use
lowercase values.
That’s because the node.js backend we are using on our
Azure leaderboard is expecting lowercase values.

56. NOTE: All of the functions in this sample require you to be
connected to Azure before you do anything.
You must hit the “Connect Azure Service” before anything can
take place!

57. if (GUILayout.Button("Insert To Leaderboard"))
{
Azure.insert(_leaderBoardItem,
() => Debug.Log("inserted" + " "
+ _leaderBoardItem.username + " " +
"to leaderboard"));
}

58. I’ve entered “Unity Tutorial Test” as the user name and “70″ as
the score for the inputs.
Hit “Insert To Leaderboard” AFTER you connect, and you’ll be
good to go!

60. To update or Delete an item in the leaderboard, we need to
perform a few steps:
1. Connect to the Azure Mobile Service
2. Retrieve results from the leaderboard
3. The Update & Delete buttons will now appear on screen,
beneath the newly returned results.
4. Grab the latest results from the array in the leaderboard

61. // UPDATE the first (latest) thing in the leaderboard
if (GUILayout.Button("Update latest Item"))
{
// Grab the first item in the leaderboard list
var leaderToUpdate = _leadersList[0];
// Set the item's UserName to what we entered in the UserName input field
leaderToUpdate.UserName = GUILayout.TextField(_leaderBoardItem.UserName);
// Update the item in the leaderboard
Azure.update(leaderToUpdate,
() => Debug.Log("Updated leaderboard item:" + " "
+ leaderToUpdate.UserName));
}

62. // REMOVE the first (latest) thing in the leaderboard (then delete it later)
if (GUILayout.Button("DELETE LATEST ITEM"))
{
// Grab the first item in the list
var leaderToRemove = _leadersList[0];
// Removes item at the specified index
_leadersList.RemoveAt(0);
// DELETE it from the leaderboard
Azure.delete(leaderToRemove,
() => Debug.Log("Deleted latest item from leaderboard:" + " " +
leaderToRemove.UserName));
}

63. So after we've returned our results, and the update button
appears do the following:
1. Enter a new name (for example, Johnny Quest)
2. Hit the "Update Latest Item" button
Now you'll see top item in the leaderboard list says Johnny
Quest. Head to your Azure portal just to verify, and you'll see
that it works!

66. What other options exist?

67. rave overview
• Free!
• Requires Newtonsoft.Json
• Same project works on Win8 & WP8
• Runs across:
UnityEditor
Windows 8 Store
Windows Phone 8
iOS
Android
Probably everything else Unity runs on

68. rave
• http://www.bitrave.com/azure-mobile-services-for-unity-3d/
• www.DaveVoyles.azurewebsites.net
• http://www.parentelement.com/assets/json_net_unity

69. Json.NET Unity Plugin
NOTE: You will need the $20 Jon.NET Unity plugin to serialize the
JSON data if you are running bitrave on non-Microsoft
platforms.
Microsoft platforms can use the Newtonsoft.JSON nuget
package (download it from within the nuget package manager
Visual studio), which is a free .DLL that is referenced from within
your Visual Studio project.

70. rave vs. prime[31]
• More platforms
• Both free

71. • What are Azure Mobile Services?
• Creating a mobile service in the web portal OR Visual Studio
• Compiling our project – exclude .DLLs!
• Other Options – bitrave
Source Code: https://github.com/DaveVoyles/prime31-azure

72. @DaveVoyles
DavidVoyles.wordpress.com