Serious Proposal: Let us Write This Python-Ogre Tutorial!!

magicmyshu

02-05-2007 04:44:51

Python-Ogre's Teaching Materials are Lacking

Hi, I'm new to this forum, however, I've been involved in amateur game making for years now. I've learned how to use other systems such as Sphere which uses JavaScript for its programming. And also the Blender Game Engine. However, the documentation of Python-Ogre is just the worst. I can't find anything at all - I don't know who to talk to for help or anything. People say, "Everything's in the demos" but the demos make me feel really stupid. The web page addresses with useful information are organized like a labyrinth where there are a dozen different variations on the arrangement of the words "python" "ogre3d" "forum",and "wiki" that all lead you to places that deal with the subject at hand via random versions, random dates, random exporters, random API... in a... random manner - at least from a n00b's perspective - and it just isn't very very helpful. I spend more time looking for info than studying it. I'm not used to this degree of difficulty when it comes to finding things online.

I'm Prepared to Help Write an Extensive Beginner Tutorial, but I need... Help!

So I've decided that I can try to help myself by trying to help others. And so, I was hoping that a more experienced person with Python-Ogre would team up with me and make a simple game together while documenting all of the scripting and exporting work that we are doing - sort of like a tutorial/blog. That way, new people can have something more tangible to scratch their teeth on rather than those demos - which tend to seem a lot like gazing stupidly at a rose while trying to understand how in the hell God had created the Garden of Eden. (no blasphemy intended)

I know a little about Python - but I'm learning more. And I've spent the past 10 months of my life learning about character modeling and animation using Blender. So I was thinking that if someone with more experience in Python-Ogre would agree to work with me; they providing most of the Python-Ogre aspect of the game (I want to help where I can also) - while I provided the Blender/3d aspects - that we could put together a step-by-step blog/tutorial that can stand the test of time and also be somewhat easy for new people to understand.


People want to use Python-Ogre, and I imagine that's why the program was written in the first place - let's help fulfill the circuit =)

Because - it isn't that Python is so hard to understand... and it isn't like I've never scripted a game before, it's just that once you combine the task of exporting, and scripting, plus learning the API, adding physics, lighting, accessing exported data properly - it's just so much that I believe people need more help if they are going to be using this Engine to do rendering work for their projects.

Not everyone's brain works the same - so some people need actual tutorials for learning such technical material. Even Pictures!

Sphere has Fantastic Documentation

I can remember when I was learning Sphere. I was very fortunate because the guy who MADE the program would email me personally, and also they had an extremely extensive manual with step by step tutorials. It was AWESOME. It wasn't easy. But it was great and the materials I've found on Python-Ogre are horribly inadequate compared to those - and there was only ONE guy who made the Sphere program, and he got a few of his buddies to write a 250 page manual with him! It was great... I could go on and on.

Python-Ogre needs *something* such as this. Something for newbs and borderline idiots such as myself. Who drool over Ogre's awesomeness and yet who don't understand how to use it.

I tried waiting on the impending Ogre-Blender fusion that everyone is talking about in the blender forums, but I have no idea how many years that is going to take to happen, so I will just learn the standalone stuff if at all possible.

I hope someone can understand what I'm saying and I also hope that someone will agree to help me write a tutorial for the good of the Python-Ogre community!

I'm sorry, I went to university for Political Science, not Computer Programming - so for those of you who find this sort of thing natural please try to understand that it's not that way for everyone.

Thank you -

In other words, I'd like to work with someone to write a tutorial

But nothing too ambitious. We are talking very basic small potatoes that will show people how to do the very most essential of Python-Ogre tasks. Just a tutorial that will guide them on in to a point where they can actually begin to wade into the demos and understand how everything is organized in there.

I was thinking the tutorial should showcase and explain these things:
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
A - title screen with simple menu
B - music
C - at least one sound effect
D - a simple water shader and skybox
E - a bump mapped/UV'd etc. Wall and floor
F - some simple physics that involve collision detection (such as push a box along the floor)
G - one character who walks around and plays through some basic animations
H - pause button
I - In game clock
J - one obligatory "enter the password" puzzle
K - Success Screen for winning the tutorial/game

"But we've already got beginner's tutorials on the wiki"

Yes I've seen the other basic tutorial - however I believe that we should have a more hands on approach that features less theory. A simple blog like text with pictures that tells the reader what to do and how we did it. The rest of the technical explanations we can link them to if they want to read about that kind of thing. I'm thinking of making a a How-To as opposed to a How Come.

Using the Sphere documentation as a comparison, I'd say that with Sphere docs, I learned how to make things work. And from actually making things work I could learn the basics. That's the model I'd like to follow as opposed to the ones that are currently outdated on the wiki.


That's my proposal and I hope that you take it seriously =)

my email is magicmyshu@gmail.com - if you would like to discuss

Here are some examples of models/ rigs I've made in blender - most are for the game engine in blender

Game_Ender

02-05-2007 04:46:48

Can you please shrink your pictures to make your post easier to read?

bharling

02-05-2007 22:45:49

This is along the same lines as what we're trying to do with the techDemo project, although I hadn't really thought to make it a tutorial as such. I'm intending to document as much of the demo as possible, as the project progresses, and a development blog sounds like a good idea.

I have submitted the project to sourceforge to host it, and if its approved you're welcome to contribute (TBH I think what we really need is modellers and texture artists for the techdemo, there is already interest from the more code-oriented PO users). I agree a full tutorial is much needed, but remember python-ogre is not even officially at version 1.0 yet, so we ought to wait for the final release before embarking on a major documentation project.

EDIT: We've now got SVN access sorted (thanks to Andy).
https://svn.python-ogre.org/trunk/Community/TechDemoProject/
if you're interested (Note, my code aint that great ..)

TwoD

04-05-2007 17:09:34

I'm a newbie here as well. And even tho I didn't take the time to read your entire post (sorry), I think I agree with what you're saying.

I would love to help write a tutorial and more in depth-explanations of the samples to help answer all those whys and hows.

However, I'm currently part of a short, but intensive, project so I won't have time to help for another 5-7 weeks or so :(.