Multiplayer

Create or join shared painting rooms, use passthrough, and align colocated play spaces.

Multiplayer lets several people paint in the same Open Brush sketch. You can collaborate on new work or invite other people to watch while you create.

Create or join a room

1. Open the Multiplayer panel from the Admin panel.
2. Enter a nickname.
3. Enter a room name, or keep the generated name.
4. Choose the room options and maximum number of participants.
5. Join the room. If the name is not already in use, Open Brush creates it and makes you the room owner.
6. Share the room name with the people you want to invite. They enter the same name and join it.

Room names and nicknames are remembered for the next session. Rooms can contain between 2 and 12 people, with a default maximum of 4. Everyone should use the same Open Brush version to avoid feature or sketch-format differences.

Voice chat

Multiplayer includes spatial voice chat, so another participant's voice appears to come from their position in the room. Open Brush needs microphone permission to transmit your voice.

Use Manage Room while connected to see the participant list. You can mute an individual participant for yourself without changing what anyone else hears. The room owner can also make the whole room silent or mute a participant for everyone.

Manage a room

The participant who creates a room becomes its owner. Open Manage Room from the Multiplayer panel to view the participant list and room controls.

1. Mute for me silences a participant only on your device.
2. View only prevents a participant from editing while still allowing them to watch.
3. Mute for everyone prevents a participant's voice from being heard throughout the room.
4. Kick User removes a participant from the room.
5. Transfer room ownership gives the selected participant the owner controls.

The room owner can apply view-only or voice settings to the whole room. Controls that affect other participants are available only to the owner.

This multiplayer permission applies only while participating in that room. It is separate from the application-wide View-only Mode, which replaces the normal editing interface for exhibitions, demonstrations and dedicated viewers.

Passthrough rooms

Multiplayer supports passthrough environments. Each participant sees the shared Open Brush content over their own headset's camera view; camera imagery is not sent to the other participants.

1. Make sure each participant is using a headset and Open Brush build that supports passthrough.
2. Select a passthrough environment.
3. Create or join the multiplayer room normally.

Open Brush keeps the room in passthrough while remote participants are connected. Leave the room before changing back to a non-passthrough environment.

Manual colocation

Manual colocation aligns the virtual scene for people who are physically present in the same room. See Manually align colocated play spaces for the setup and alignment procedure.

Current limitations

1. Network delay can make remote brush strokes or widget movement appear slightly behind the person creating them.
2. Participants should avoid editing the same object at exactly the same time.
3. Passthrough aligns the shared virtual scene but does not by itself align different headsets to the same physical position; use manual colocation when that is required.

Getting help

For multiplayer support and testing discussion, join the Open Brush Discord.