Nevrax - Reinventing the wheel

[Guest]

Is anyone aware of the NeL project? Here\'s a 3rd party review praising it.

I was very interested in creating a project like PlaneShift awhile ago, and NeL seemed like the wisest choice for a MMORPG engine. NeL consists not only of a 3D graphics engine, but also networking, AI, audio and other code necessary for the development of a MMORPG.

Compared to a commercial MMORPG 3D graphics engine like EverQuest, NeL, or so its developers claim, gives artists more flexibility for modeling outdoor settings, with better rendering, and lighting model capabilities. Its major features include:


* A landscape renderer that creates environments with \"patches\" of land,
blending together these sub-divisions with vertex shaders.
* Landscapes that can extend for more than 1 kilometer (0.62 mile) of virtual
distances.
* Physical ground features in the landscape, such as holes in the ground and
tunnels.
* An efficient lighting system for indoor and outdoor environments.
* A traditional indoor portal clipping system.
* Multi-Resolution Mesh (MRM) technology that can automatically scale down
the complexity of a character model to conserve processing power.
* An efficient and powerful special effects manager.
* A large set of interpolators which users can use to animate most model
parameters.
* A Level of Detail (LOD) balancing system that provides the best possible
rendering quality for the number of character models and special effects that
need to be rendered.
* Continuous streaming of textures from the hard disk during the game.


The most impressive (and of course proprietary) project that uses NeL (made by the same people- nevrax) seems to be Ryzom (screenshots).

Looks very nice :-p Almost as nice as PS ;)

Anyway, I hope we\'re not reinventing the wheel. A functioning demo of the NeL system is Snowballs (windows binary in zip)... looks smooth. :)

I\'m not sure what exactly I am proposing, to remake PlaneShift under NeL is rather time-consuming, if not impossible... I guess I just want to know why the developers chose CrystalSpace over the other options availible.

[Kixie]

yeah i saw that game a while ago. i signed up for beta testing ryzom but they havnt gotten back to me. its too bad cus it looks quite beatiful...

[zedd_owd]

i agree with Guest\'s view entirely as NeL stands for Nevrax Library it\'s url is http://www.nevrax.org/ is far superior and more mature game engine compared to crystal space. that\'s it will be easier and better to use the Nel engine for this game  :rolleyes:  

 )

[zedd_owd]

i hope those who regualarly visit these boards consider the advantages of Nel in the above post. i want to thank  guest for bringing this up!!!  :]
the nel enngine rocks man!!!

[Kiern]

Well, I don\'t know the initial reason for them picking Crystal Space, but I do know that the people who develop it work with the PS devs and help them out if they need something added for the game...which, I think, pretty much keeps them covered...although I do know nothing about these things

[Axsyrus]

Like Kiern said, the PlaneShift dev team works very closely with the CS team, I don\'t think they\'ll just switch to another 3d engine..
The screenshots of that game look really nice though, the grass etc. looks good and i don\'t think CS has this yet, but as PS, CS is still under construction and I beleive it will be just as good(or better) as this engine one day.

EDIT: I just read the NEL faq, and this is what I found:

Have you checked WorldForge/Crystalspace/QuakeForge/others... ?

We have looked carefully at the other Free Software projects available, before reinventing the wheel. They\'re all more or less compatible with ours, on a purely license level, thanks to the GNU GPL, but that does not mean they can fit in our development. We (the NeL maintainers) are a commercial entity with a specific product to be delivered on time.

We want to keep a tight focus on the game we are doing right now, and thus did not want to get involved in political struggles to get the code we would need in, and did not want to create resentment by \"taking over\" and steering other projects toward our goals, or creating a code fork for our own purpose. Our timetable requires us to be more or less in control of things.

[Guest]

hm... so the PS team and the CS team are very very close, and probably won\'t jump boats... and according to the PS lisence (quoted below), all artwork, sound, 3d models, etc. seem to be pretty much owned by the PS Dev\'s...

2. You may not copy, modify, publish, transmit, sell, participate in the transfer or sale or reproduce, create Derivative Works from, distribute, perform, display or in any way exploit any of the Material released under this License unless expressly permitted by the PlaneShift Team.

3. You may use the provided Material, for personal use only, to connect to an Official PlaneShift Server only in conjunction with a Planeshift Client, distributed by the Planeshift Team. Offical PlaneShift Servers can only be designated by PlaneShift Team.

that seems harsh, very very harsh...

they say they do it to prevent people from splitting off and for specializing work on a single project, yet CS itself seems inferior to other Free Software projects out... which sounds just a little hypocritical to me...

the point of GPL is NOT to reinvent the wheel (which they are doing with the CS engine) and to ALLOW people to split and not be stuck to one project (which they are prohibiting with the PS lisence).

personally, I would think twice before submitting any artwork or music to PS, publishing it under GPL may seem a much wiser choice to me, and if PS dev\'s are too arrogant to use GPL\'ed material (which they seem to be- anything submitted must be covered under PSL:(), they will fail.

I\'m sorry to say it, but looking again at the game, it matches the quality of EQ1 at it\'s very beginning. Any MMORPG with a release date around the same date blows PS out of the water .

My suggestion would be either to ditch CS and work on NeL... or relax the PSL to allow the artistic work being put into PS to not be wasted if the project turns out to not be as amazing as the developers would like it to be (seriously look at what EQ2 is going to be like! The dev\'s mentioned a particle system that reads 3d models to make spell sparklets take shapes of animals, etc... If PS is to compete with this, we need to insist the devs either loosen up the PSL lisence or switch to a superior game engine.

[Kixie]

im developing some theme music for planeshift at the moment and really when im done ill probally just donate it to the devs. credit to me isnt really important. if i hear my music in the game thats enough satisfaction to me..

[acraig]

Originally posted by Guest

personally, I would think twice before submitting any artwork or music to PS, publishing it under GPL may seem a much wiser choice to me, and if PS dev\'s are too arrogant to use GPL\'ed material (which they seem to be- anything submitted must be covered under PSL:(), they will fail.

We\'ve never really had a problem with this.  The source code is all under GPL and the art is not.  Why is that arrogant?  If somebody writes a novel in Open Office are they required to give it away for free? There is a difference between function and content.  The functionality of the engine is GPL.  The PlaneShift content is not.   And I don\'t see us failing anytime soon.  

I\'m sorry to say it, but looking again at the game, it matches the quality of EQ1 at it\'s very beginning. Any MMORPG with a release date around the same date blows PS out of the water .

To me that is a high complement.  As just a group of people working in our spare time with 0 pay and in different time zones we are already at the quality of EQ1 which took years to develop and had a large paid staff.  What other MMORPG games in the same area ( ie free, volunteer based, nobody on salary ) do you see that will blow PlaneShift away?  If you mean games like World of Warcraft and EQ2 then probably yes since they have  millions of dollars to pour into it.  

My suggestion would be either to ditch CS and work on NeL... or relax the PSL to allow the artistic work being put into PS to not be wasted if the project turns out to not be as amazing as the developers would like it to be (seriously look at what EQ2 is going to be like! The dev\'s mentioned a particle system that reads 3d models to make spell sparklets take shapes of animals, etc... If PS is to compete with this, we need to insist the devs either loosen up the PSL lisence or switch to a superior game engine.

Again you are trying to compare apples to oranges here. Of course there is no way we can compete with a game company with millions of dollars.  That would be like somebody creating their own operating system and maybe trying to compete with Microsoft.... oh wait.  

Everybody working PlaneShift is very dedicated to it.  This is not some group of glassy eyed kids thinking \'Woot, we\'ll all be rich after this\'.  We are doing this because we like to.  If PlaneShift becomes world popular then that is great. If PlaneShift is only popular with a small group of people then that is great too.

[Kixie]

hehe acraig pwns... lol. Good points made by acraig. You cant just blatantly compare a game like planeshift to games that have had millions of dollars to develop with. its not only unfair but just retarded. hopefully more and more people will find planeshift and contribute to its efforts and maby make it one of the best mmorpgs of the next decade.

[Guest]

Originally posted by whemyfield
im developing some theme music for planeshift at the moment and really when im done ill probally just donate it to the devs. credit to me isnt really important. if i hear my music in the game thats enough satisfaction to me..

what i disagree with is that if you ever wanted to use this music in any other project, game, etc. You\'d have to ask PS dev\'s for permission.

We\'ve never really had a problem with this. The source code is all under GPL and the art is not. Why is that arrogant? If somebody writes a novel in Open Office are they required to give it away for free? There is a difference between function and content. The functionality of the engine is GPL. The PlaneShift content is not. And I don\'t see us failing anytime soon.

It\'s arrogant because as I see it, you will not be creating a lot of the art.

From the PlanetShift Lisence: \"PlaneShift Team grants to the author of such material the right...\"

This sentance baffled me... YOU are granting the author that donated something to you rights s/he is to have with his/her donation?

Again: \"The [donated] material should not be given to or reused in other games or software products without the express approval of all the members of the PlaneShift Team.\"

If I donate anything to anyone, I expect to keep copyright to my donation, which is not what the PSL says.

I was hoping to see a project where art is created by the creative community, for the creative community, not donated and monolopized by one project. I guess I\'m looking in the wrong place :-p I\'m sorry if I\'m being bold, I know I\'m new :-p

[Kiern]

Seeing his proposal turned down, Guest turns defensive....anyways, aren\'t those kind of names not allowed?  That has been bothering me...

The art thing has been an issue, they\'ve heard the arguments, you will not be adding anything new.

[windwalker]

its rather simple.  If you want to donate art to the PS team then they claim full rights over it because they dont want it showing up in another game.  Its your choise to donate it and fall under there rules, dont like the rules dont donate.  simple

[Guest]

Originally posted by whemyfield
You cant just blatantly compare a game like planeshift to games that have had millions of dollars to develop with. its not only unfair but just retarded. hopefully more and more people will find planeshift and contribute to its efforts and maby make it one of the best mmorpgs of the next decade.

1st: lol you put a smile on my face, thanks

2nd: I didn\'t mean to compare PS and EQ. That was a conclusion in my argument. I really do hope more people will contribute more and more to Free Software projects, but I don\'t see any serious person donating COPYRIGHTS to their art. If you ever expect to seriously compete with anyone, if you ever expect \"more and more people will find planeshift and contribute to its efforts and maby make it one of the best mmorpgs of the next decade\" take a second look at your licensing and the definition of Free Software and see how it also applies to your art (since the art is created by the community, not only you).

[Vengeance]

There are several other projects out there that plan to have GPL or Creative Commons artwork that any kid can use in his Pr0n mod of your future game.  I suggest you check out Arianne or Once, which are a couple that come to mind with \"free\" artwork.

Most serious artists actually view it as a plus that we have this license because they know that the purpose for which they are donating their work will be the only purpose it is used for.

Regarding NeL, we have certainly known about it for years.  I think the reasons we don\'t use it were stated quite well by Nevrax themselves:  \"We want to keep a tight focus on the game we are doing right now, and thus did not want to get involved in political struggles to get the code we would need in, and did not want to create resentment by \"taking over\" and steering other projects toward our goals, or creating a code fork for our own purpose. Our [long term goals] require us to be more or less in control of things.\"

Keep in mind, furthermore, that PS was started 3 years ago and NeL didn\'t exist then.  We like CS and intend to keep using it indefinitely.  CS is not a competitor to NeL, however--CS is just a 3d engine.  PS codebase is more of a competitor, but we don\'t really view anyone as competition, as acraig alluded to earlier.

Also it just isn\'t any fun to work with something that is already done. :-)  The whole point is to build it and see if you can do it--that is why Arianne and Once haven\'t merged with PS and never will.  The journey is the point.  Using NeL would turn PS into nothing more than a big art project.

- Venge