NeL Development Site

Google's Summer of Code program for 2010 kicked off yesterday, March 8th, and NeL has applied. You can get more information about the program at their website and more about our [[GSoC2010Application|application]], [[GSoc2010Ideas|ideas]] list and [[GSoC2010WritingProposals|how to]] [[GSoC2010ApplicationTemplate|apply]] if we're accepted at our [[GSoC2010|GSoC 2010 Page]]. We will post updated news and in the forums if we're accepted.

Next steps: Mentoring Organization Application period ends this Friday (March 12th, 2010.) Google will then review the applications and post a list of accepted mentoring organizations on Thursday, March 18th. Full Timeline

The NeL team is proud to announce its much anticipated 0.7.0 release.

NeL is a toolkit for the development of massive online universes. It provides the basic technologies and a set of development methodologies for the development of both client and server code. It provides developers with a 3D engine, a network framework, a sound engine and much more. In addition to the librariesNeL also has a wealth of tools and plugins for the development of in-game content. NeL is supports Windows, Linux and Mac OSX under the GNU General Public License on both 32bit and 64bit platforms. To see NeL in action check out our technology demo Snowballs or the popular MMORPG Ryzom today! To get started with your own NeL-based project download the shell project and begin coding today!

Highlights¶

• New 3DSMAX Plugin: Tree Painter.
• New 3DSMAX Plugin: Advanced Patch Editing.
• New 3DSMAX Support: Installer available for 3DSMAX 2010.
• Linux Support: Expanded OpenGL support on Linux.
• Mac OSX Support: Added non-native OSX Support (requires X Windows).
• Added 64-bit platform support. (experimental)
• Added Qt-based Tools: Words Dictionary, Message Box, Tile Editor, NeLNS Launcher.
• Added XAudio2 Sound Driver.
• Completed OpenAL Sound Driver.
• Default build environment changed to CMake.
• Tons of bug fixes.

Download NeL¶

• NeL Windows Installer (32-bit): download
• NeL 3DSMAX 2010 Plugin Installer: download
• NeL Source Tarball: download
• NeLNS Windows Installer (32-bit): download
• NeLNS Source Tarball: download
• Snowballs Windows Installer (32-bit): download
• Snowballs Source Tarball: download
• NeL Shell Project: download

For a comprehensive list of fixes please see our 0.7.0 Road Map.

The purpose of the Ryzom Coding Contest was to use the new Ryzom API to develop the best application for Ryzom. After 3 months of hard work, here are the results of the Ryzom Coding Contest.

We received a large number of submissions, so we've taken plenty of time to test and deliberate before deciding.

These applications were made for you, players, and so we invite you to try them: All projects can be found at this address.

Winners:

• 1st place: Nenita. He won EUR 3 000 (USD 4 200) by creating the the fully customizable 'Banner Maker' and 'Maps' application which allows you to locate members of your guild, their mektoubs, or create static maps to plan trips. Furthermore, he had a hand in the creation of many tools that have allowed other projects to emerge. For all of his work that we have designated him the winner of this contest.
• 2nd place: Misugi. He won EUR 1 000 (USD 1 400) with zyRoom, a tool to view, filter and manage the inventories of characters and guilds.
• 3rd place: Nepherk, winning EUR 500 (USD 700) with YubOS, a virtual desktop capable of many things, try it to found out what it can do.

Congratulations to all participants and we will hope to see you again for the next contest! We can already announce that it will be a contest of Ryzom screenshots!

Here is the complete list of sumissions sorted by theme:

http://forums.ryzom.com/showthread.php?t=34636

The purpose of the Ryzom Coding Contest was to use the new Ryzom API to develop the best application for Ryzom. After 3 months of hard work, here are the results of the Ryzom Coding Contest.

We received a large number of submissions, so we've taken plenty of time to test and deliberate before deciding.

These applications were made for you, players, and so we invite you to try them: All projects can be found at this address.

Winners:

• 1st place: Nenita. He won EUR 3 000 (USD 4 200) by creating the the fully customizable 'Banner Maker' and 'Maps' application which allows you to locate members of your guild, their mektoubs, or create static maps to plan trips. Furthermore, he had a hand in the creation of many tools that have allowed other projects to emerge. For all of his work that we have designated him the winner of this contest.
• 2nd place: Misugi. He won EUR 1 000 (USD 1 400) with zyRoom, a tool to view, filter and manage the inventories of characters and guilds.
• 3rd place: Nepherk, winning EUR 500 (USD 700) with YubOS, a virtual desktop capable of many things, try it to found out what it can do.

Congratulations to all participants and we will hope to see you again for the next contest! We can already announce that it will be a contest of Ryzom screenshots!

Here is the complete list of sumissions sorted by theme:

http://forums.ryzom.com/showthread.php?t=34636

Looking for some extra cash? Need an idea for a school project? Bored sitting in the house doing nothing? Fed up of flipping burgers? Here's a great opportunity to exercise your development skills, win a first prize of EUR 3 000 (USD 4 200), have fun and develop something useful that the Ryzom community will thank you for.

We have created a new API for the Ryzom MMORPG. This web-based API provides players and developers with a wealth of information from the Ryzom world in real time, creating endless possibilities for new tools, widgets and websites!

In conjunction with the release of the Ryzom API, we are proud to announce the Ryzom Coding Contest to encourage players and developers to collaborate and create fantastic new free software applications for Ryzom players! For example, you can develop an inventory management system, or a brokerage where players can find crafters who can make the items they are looking for, or even more ideas.

More information about the contest.

Prizes:

• First prize: EUR 3 000 (USD 4 200)
• Second prize: EUR 1 000 (USD 1 400)
• Third prize: EUR 500 (USD 700)

Looking for some extra cash? Need an idea for a school project? Bored sitting in the house doing nothing? Fed up of flipping burgers? Here's a great opportunity to exercise your development skills, win a first prize of EUR 3 000 (USD 4 200), have fun and develop something useful that the Ryzom community will thank you for.

We have created a new API for the Ryzom MMORPG. This web-based API provides players and developers with a wealth of information from the Ryzom world in real time, creating endless possibilities for new tools, widgets and websites!

In conjunction with the release of the Ryzom API, we are proud to announce the Ryzom Coding Contest to encourage players and developers to collaborate and create fantastic new free software applications for Ryzom players! For example, you can develop an inventory management system, or a brokerage where players can find crafters who can make the items they are looking for, or even more ideas.

More information about the contest.

Prizes:

• First prize: EUR 3 000 (USD 4 200)
• Second prize: EUR 1 000 (USD 1 400)
• Third prize: EUR 500 (USD 700)

We have completed updating and importing the long-awaited missing tree vertex painter plugin for 3DStudio MAX. This plugin allows artists to paint vertex weights on tree models for use with the wind-tree system. Using this is a pretty simple process:

1. Model your tree as you would normally.
2. Apply the Modifier: Nel VertexTreePaint
3. Use the parameter rollout to tweak, activate and use the tool
4. When complete edit the Node Properties (Tools, NeL Export, Node Properties)
5. Change the VertexProgram to Wind Tree
6. Edit the Wind Tree parameters.
7. Click Export Model to export the tree as a shape.
8. Open the shape in Object Viewer
9. Turn on Global Wind and tweak the setting.
10. Open the Animation rollout and watch!

While we have not yet updated the CEGUI NeL Renderer to function with CEGUI 0.6.x we have taken some steps towards fixing the way it functions as a shared library on Windows based systems. To fix the issues with sharing singletons we have made the CEGUI NeL Renderer a Pure NeL Library. In the future you will need to load the library, retrieve the creation function and then create a new object using that handle. The sample in samples/3d/cegui is now fully functional with this new 'technique'. Here's a brief example in code:

// Load the CEGUI renderer and get a handle to the library.
NLMISC::CLibrary driverLib;
if(!driverLib.loadLibrary("nelceguirenderer", true, true , true)) {
    nlerror("Failed to load NeL CEGUI Renderer library.");
}

// Now retrieve the function for creating a renderer.
NELRENDERER_CREATE_PROC createNelRenderer = 
    reinterpret_cast<NELRENDERER_CREATE_PROC>(driverLib.getSymbolAddress(NELRENDERER_CREATE_PROC_NAME));

CEGUI::INeLRenderer *gGuiRenderer; = createNelRenderer(driver, true);

// Now you can use gGuiRender to start up the CEGUI system.

NeL now has a Continuous Integration environment through CMake's CDash integration. We're looking for volunteers with various Linux distributions, Windows boxes and even OS X available to do Continuous and Nightly builds to verify that changes do not break the builds or break any of the unit tests.

You can see the CDash we currently have running at : OpenNeL's CDash

Please add a comment to the forum thread about this if you are interested in volunteering a system for Continuous and/or Nightly builds.

I just wanted to post out to the community that the NeL project is planning on applying for GSoC 2009 on Monday, March 9th. We have began the process of building out the documentation, applications and processes necessary to get involved in GSoC and are keeping that public on the wiki. You can see the work we've done so far on the wiki at: http://dev.ryzom.com/wiki/nel/GSoC2009 Please note that this, at this point in time, is rapidly changing.

I would like to also ask that you look at the GSoC2009Ideas page and provide input. It's clear that there may be things we're overlooking and it would be superb to add things the community wants to the list for students to choose from. Please post your suggestions here on the forum for discussion.

Thank you and spread the word! Should we be accepted we'll be up to bat to find good, qualified students that will be excited to work with us!