[Nel] More news from the nevrax teams...

[Cedric Valignat]

Network
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- Modified behaviour of service main loop to avoid exploding input buffers.
  The user 'update' callback is now not called until all incoming messages
  have been processed.

- Improved responsiveness of API for naming service
  Each service now keeps a local cache of the addressses stored by the naming
  service.  They are automaticaly updated whenever new services are registered
  with, or old services removed from, the naming service. This means that the
  API never needs to contact the naming service in order to find addresses.

- The message type compression has been dissabled
  An automatic system made string/ uint32 associations for message types that
  were repeatedly sent from one executable to another, so that the uint32
  value could be sent in place of the string.
  This system was causing problems (due to a specification problem) and has
  been removed.
  An alternative compression mechanism will be implemented later.

- New example for using 'login system'
  It can be found in the samples directory

- Improved performance of log messages
  Under Windows services are now Win32 applications which means that large
  numbers of log messages no longer bring the system to its knees

- On a transformer les services en appli Win32 pour des raisons de
  performance. les log sont maintenant dans un fenetre Win32 au lieu d une
  console "DOS" (commite la semaine prochaine)

- New debugging aid
  There is a new system for recording all of the input to a service in
  situation and for playing back the input to the same application running
  stand alone.  This allows the application to be traced, etc.
  The system will go up on CVS within the next few days


PACS
----

- First version of path finding functional (still requires work), Windows only
  at the moment.


3D
--

- The header file have moved!
  The private header files are in the /nel/src/3d tree (allong with their
  respective source files)
  The public include files are now in nel/include/nel/3d

- System for generating object positions on the landscape completed
  This system works out which patch the object is attached to and the position
  within the patch. It then generates a 3D world position based on the patch
  tesselation.  Objects using this system will stay attached to the ground
  regardless of the level of detail that the landsacep is displayed at.

- In development...
  Light maps for interiors, collisions (for interiors and exteriors) and the
  editor for the particle system are in development.


Audio
-----

- Work is starting on the audio library.
  During the next couple of months we will develop the base of the system and
  a Direct Sound driver implementation. We will have a look at doing an OpenAL
  diver in the autumn.


AI
--

- Silence from the AI team
  The AI team are plunged into product specific code right now.  There will be
  little news from them for a few months