Subject: [Nel] A bit of news

From: "Daniel Miller" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 15 Jun 2001 17:56:21 +0200

For anyone who's interested, here's a brief view of what we're up to at
Nevrax.

Regards to all,
Daniel.

================================================
NeL Development Team Summer/ Autumn 2001 Roadmap
================================================

Summer 2001:
============

The teams are working hard on the technology code required for an important
internal milestone, for the Massively Multiuser Universe in development, for
next September.  The features listed under 'Coming Soon' (below) are on the
todo list for the internal milestone and will become available through the
summer.
During this period much of the code is being developed under Windows 2000
(predominantly AI and 3D) and is liable to be committed to CVS without GNU/
Linux testing.
Linux patches/ bug fixes will be readily accepted.

Autumn 2001:
============
Once the internal milestone is behind us, the internal pressure on the NeL
development teams will be reduced and we will open up discussion about
further direction, specification improvemens and so on.

Snowballs:
==========

Snowballs is going to be re-written over the next few weeks to reflect the
advancements and changes of direction in the NeL library since January.
There'll be postings as development progresses.
We intend to release a binary once the new code has been put together.

Net:
====

Done so far:
------------
- Layer 0 (Data transfer layer) implementation
- Layer 1 (Data block management layer) implementation
- Layer 2 (Serialised data management layer) implementation
- Layer 3 (Message management layer) implementation & examples
- Layer 4 (Inter-Service message addressing layer) implementation & examples
- The 'Service' Framework implementation & examples
- System services (Naming Service, Time Service, Log Service) implementaion,
API & examples
- Login system (Stand alone program, client API) implementation & samples

In development:
---------------
- Shard Administration system (Admin Service, Admin Executor, Admin Client)
implementation
- Improved debugging tools for services in a shard

Coming Soon:
------------
- Backup Service
- Account manager (stand alone)

On the list for later:
----------------------
- Robustness testing and improvement (robustness to common attacks)
- System stress testing and stressed performance improvement
- Profiling and optimisation
- Tuning of GNU/ Linux for NeL shard servers

3D:
===

Done:
-----
- A basic sub set of the materials (missing bump mapping, etc)
- Scenery rendering - Outdoors implemented with exception of geometric noise
and water
- Scenery rendering - Indoors with exception of light maps and portal based
culling
- Character and object animation and rendering with exception of IK
- 3DSMax Plugins and exporters for generating the data for the above systems

In development:
---------------
- Light maps for indoor scenes
- A particle and effects engine

Coming Soon:
------------
- Further materials
- Multi resolution mesh support
- Adaptive level of detail management system
- Support for super-simplified meshes in the distance
- Geometric noise in the landscape
- The first version of the audio engine (low spec)
- Portal based object culling for indoor scenes

Coming Later:
-------------
- Water
- Real time shadows (cast be characters and objects)
- Blend shapes (also called morphing) - for things like facial animation
- Further material types (bump maps, etc)
- Inverse kinematics (a very limited, simple and CPU unintensive model)
- Dynamic lighting
- A higher spec audio engine

On the list for later:
----------------------
- Optimisation
- Optimisation for NVidiaNV20 and similar cards (vertex shaders, etc)
- Better model for generating low-detail MRM meshes

PACS (Pathfinding And Collision System):
========================================

In develoment:
--------------
- System for generating collision and path finding information from outdoor
scenery
- Path finding system
- Object/ Object collision system
- Object/ Landscape collision system
- System for adapting character and object positions to landscape
tesselation

Coming soon:
------------
- System for generating collision and path finding information for indoor
scenery

AI:
===

Done:
-----
- Distributed autonomous agent framework infrastructure
- Run time agent definition scripting system
- Tool set for creation of hard-coded agents
- Finite state automaton plugin for agent framework
- 'Operator' based action planning plugin for the agent framework

In Development:
---------------
- Agent memory
- 'Classifier' based learning plugin for teh agent framework
- Priority and contribution management in operators

Misc:
=====

Done so far:
------------
- A huge number of miscelaneous and highly handy typedefs, macros, classes,
constants and functions that everybody at Nevrax swears by.
Further development:
- Development of the 'misc' library is chaotic - as little bits of
functionality are written to left or right they tend to be added.