Re: [Nel] Ryzom and Nel questions

[Cyril 'Hulud' Corvazier]

Hi Mike,

> I admit I was astonished to see the screen shots for Ryzom and then learn
> that it is being developed with Nel. I had never heard of Ryzom, and I
> thought that Nel wasn't that far through the development cycle. I thought
> it was still in the early stages of development, so that was a nice surprise!

> So, my question is, is Ryzom using the standard Nel engine, with no extra
> core functionality (by core I mean networking, graphics etc)?

Ryzom is using NeL without extra core functionality. For the 3d part, Ryzom is 
using NeL trought the high level library user
interface. No trick possible.

> Does Nel include functionality for players to hold obejcts, such as weapons?

Yes, use getBones() / stickObjets () on a skeleton model. You can also use 
several models skinned on the same skeleton. For that,
check bindSkin().

> Also, do you have any plans to implement some kind of dynamic shadowing for
> the landscape? Currently I believe that it uses light maps, so I'm
> wondering how you would do day/night cycles with dynamic lightjng and
> shadowing. This would be a core feature in an MMPOG for me, so I'm
> surprised that it isn't already supported.

For the moment, it is not possible to change sun light direction over the 
landscape. The main reason is the landscape uses
softshadow lightmaps that take a lot of time to be computed. We have some ideas 
to upgrade that, but nothing planed for the moment.
Anyway, it is possible to change the sun color very smoothly to get dusk and 
night.

Cyril Corvazier