From Till:
i started the project at the end of february with a simple idea: move all
3d-model loading to the DatabasePager-thread. my first attempts looked
promising, though they were a little too optimistic (or naive?). the patch
has evolved a lot since.
currently it does the following things:
1. revive SGModelLib, move functions for xml-model-loading there
2. replace all calls to sgLoad3dModel with calls to either
SGModelLib::loadModel() or SGModelLib::loadPagedModel()
almost all models will be loaded by the DatabasePager. the few exceptions are:
your own plane, shared models in scenery, random objects, AIBallistic models.
3. simplify mode-loading functions (avoid passing around fg_root)
4. avoid supurious MatrixTransform nodes in loaded models
5. fix some memory leaks
The new multiplayer patch with an extension to transmit some properties with
the base package. The properties are transmitted in a way that will not
immediately brake the packet format if we need new ones.
Even if the maxmimum number needs to be limited somehow, that format might
work well until we have an improoved packet format which is even more compact
and that does not require to retransmit redundant information with each
packet.
That part is relatively fresh and based on that what Oliver provides on his
multiplayer server web page.
The properties are transferred to the client and I have modified the seahawks
rudder animation property to use a relative property path to verify that it
works appart from the fact that you can see it changing in the property
browser.
The movement is still a bit jerky, but that can be fixed/tuned later without
again braking the packet format.
This patch is a combined effort by Gregor Richards, Oliver Schroeder, and
Vivian Meazza (and code cleanups and improvements by Erik Hofman). It corrects
the bug in which a Multiplayer model responds to local inputs, and the view
number bug which caused certain aircraft to appear as cockpit only models. It
passes remote properties over the net, and all major control surfaces and gear
are now animated correctly, providing that the local ~model.xml file contains
no leading "/" in the <property></property> data entries. MP objects
are now extrapolated using 1st and 2nd derivatives to make their movement
appear more smooth. The sim is now halted while a new client joins the net.
Known problems with MP are non-display of the remote client under certain
circumstances of starting/resetting, and a freeze on starting. These bugs are
long standing, and are not addressed by this patch.
Special thanks must go to AJ Macleod for his patient testing of this patch over many evenings.
We have also moved part of multiplayer into AIModels as part of the ongoing
development of MP.
there was the situation where four directories contained jst two files,
of which three directories were aircraft related, and one directory contained
test code from Curt that might be better of in SimGear anyhow.
This is just a patch to move a bunch of files to new locations. In case of
local changes to any of them you can do the following:
move replay.[ch]xx from src/Replay to src/Aircraft
move control.[ch]xx from src/Control to src/Aircraft
move ssgEntityArray.[ch]xx from src/Objects to simgear/screen
In addition it has been decided only to use .[ch]xx files in all directories
unless it's contained within an FDM specific directory, in which case the
author is free to do whatever (s)he wants.
In this repspect the following files have been renamed in src/Multiplayer:
tiny_xdr.[ch]pp has become tiny_xdr.[ch]xx
multiplaymgr.[ch]pp has become multiplaymgr.[ch]xx
