Re: New Tutorials ! [updt:2011/03/29: geometry shader cubes]

[madmarx]

update 2011/03/29 : http://www.ogre3d.org/forums/viewtopic. ... 69#p423669
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Hello Everyone,

I have begun to wrote a tutorial serie for Ogre3D1.7, with visual studio projects. It contains currently 10 tutorials.
Each tutorial is made in a easy to follow fashion. Lots of comment, and brick per brick construction.
> 9 tutorials are beginner tutorial (the rendertexture tutorial is funny though).
> 1 tutorials is a not-beginner. It is the manual window updating. I think most people here don't know the new 'possibilities' of Ogre1.7 in terms of manual updating, so it's right there, if you are looking for examples.

All english comments are generated from a txt file, so its very easy to write a translation in another language, if some of you are interested.
I will already do the french language. I could also try a google translate on the file . Right now I think only the beginners tutorial need translation, since its enough to do a lot of things.

The project also provide a file with the ogre chm API for 1.7.

https://sourceforge.net/projects/so3dtools/

More are to come each 1-2 weeks ( and they are already ready )!
If you want to see a particular system demonstrated with ogre, you can ask me. I can't say I will do it, but I will consider it.

Next week : How to load a mesh without going through the resource group thing + How to load a mesh from a char* buffer.

Best,

Pierre

[jacmoe]

Why did you do that?

Is it because you are using them in your classes as teaching material?

[Rhynedahll]

Thanks for the tutorials!

I've compiled them without problem.

Now I just have to figure out what I have done to make them all not run.

[madmarx]

Now I just have to figure out what I have done to make them all not run

1/ copy the dlls from Ogre in the bin\debug & bin\release directories
2/ either double click on the executable in bin\debug or bin\release after compilation, or setup each project :
project->properties (for 00_Simplestbeginning for example)->configuration property->debugging->work directory->$(SolutionDir)bin\$(ConfigurationName)
This has to be done for debug and release. And then you can debug.
3/ does it work now?

[Rhynedahll]

Now I just have to figure out what I have done to make them all not run

1/ copy the dlls from Ogre in the bin\debug & bin\release directories
This has to be done for debug and release. And then you can debug.
3/ does it work now?

Doh!

Everything runs fine now, thanks!

[madmarx]

Cool, I will add a FAQ + a .bat that generates correctly the data for it.

Why did you do that?

It is a very good question. And I am myself wondering. I found the original tutorial series not really focused on 'rendering engin', and the inverse framework pattern (<=> ExampleFramework) was not trivial for beginners. In this tutorial series there is no input for example at the moment (no OIS calls, but it will come later).

I also found that many articles on the wiki are not up-to-date / working at all. If the examples were in a program, they would be easier to maintain. Some feature are regularly requested (picking/simple deferred shading/allow a pass to do a rtt / full feature 3dsmax exporter / IK / realtime shader-compositor edition), while they are stuff that most of us could have provided. So that is basically what is happening here.

[xarlock667]

Um, this might seem like an incredibly stupid question, but where are they? I looked in the wiki under tutorial and did not find them there, can you please steer me in the right direction? I have not tried to do anything in C++ since 2003 when I failed to learn to run it, so I am in desperate need of a tutorial!

[evilshadow]

Cool... It's a very great news for the beginner...Especially for the beginner who work with the OGRE1.7...
I can commend these tutorials to my new colleagues who is planing to learn OGRE...

[madmarx]

As expected, I release today a new tutorial :
"How to load a mesh without going through the resource group thing + How to load a mesh from a char* buffer."
This can be very handy :
1/ if you like to manage the multithreading yourself, and keep the Ogre stuff mono-thread .
2/ if you are doing an editor
3/ if you have encrypted your .mesh with your own algorithms and decrypted them in memory.

(well I know ... I am providing a very mainstream point of view, but that should get people to use Ogre3D more, isn't it?)

As before, the page is situated here :

http://sourceforge.net/projects/so3dtools/

And the next tutorial is somewhat extremely basic, and not directly related to ogre3D :
Next tutorial to come : Very basic input, simple camera control, realtime.
At first, I was not sure if I should put so basic tutorials like that, since the OIS wiki article is already perfect. But since some people on the forums still want to manipulate cameras with 2 nodes, I'll show how to do it simply with only one node.

I have also added an .bat installer, that copys the ogre dll, and modify the visual studio 2008 files, so that it works directly for everyone. So you just need to un7z the files, and double clic on the 0_Easy_Install.bat.

Best,

Pierre

@evilshadow
That's great to know!

[Rhynedahll]

Seems like you said you also have created these in French?

If so, it would be interesting to see them to learn the french terminology for 3d graphics. I just finished my degree in French and though my spoken French is not great, I can read the language fairly well.

[boronwe]

Very good tutorials for beginners... like me .

Continue with this work please, there are no many tutorials about ogre (wiki included) so simple and so well explain.

Thanks again.

[guyver6]

Great stuff up there! I used Ogre for so long and I didn't know user can control when buffer swap is done!
Keep up that awesome work.
edit: typo

[madmarx]

Thanks for the critics, I am very happy that this works and is appreciated.

@Rhynedahll
I won't do the French version before october. But it is planned. BTW, everyone understand 'vertex'/'mesh'/'textures' in France, even if some prefers sommet/maillage/texture.

[jacmoe]

Awesome tutorials, Madmarx - I've added them to the External Tutorials page.
Thumbs up!

[madmarx]

Today, I release the tutorial about input and realtime. There is nothing transcendent here, but I think that it's on the 'must-have' list of any beginner-tutorial serie.
Next tutorial to come : how to call opengl directly from inside Ogre3D.

Best,

Pierre

@jacmoe
Thanks a lot jacmoe! I am happy that you like it !

[jokoon]

I have a problem, the .bat does not work, how do I set the variable ?

[madmarx]

I have a problem, the .bat does not work, how do I set the variable ?

on vista (I try to translate in english) : configuration panel->user acount -> change my environment variables

then you create a new variable called OGRE_HOME and you give it the value : absolute path to the directory of your ogre1.7 sdk.

You need to restart visual studio 2008 after that.

When it works, it copies some ".dll" files into the bin/release and bin/debug directory.

[jacmoe]

That's not how a real Nerd does things.

Or a lazy Geek for that matter..

Take this:

Code: Select all

setx OGRE_HOME %CD%
pause

And save it as OGRE_HOME.bat.

Put that file in the root of your OgreSDK directory and double-click.

If you have more than one OgreSDK - I do: I have five different OgreSDKs here: mingw, vc9 Cthugha, vc10 Cthugha, vc9 Byatis, vc10 Byatis.

I have an OGRE_HOME.bat file in all those five directories.
When I want to switch my 'global Ogre SDK', I just run the right batch script.

[madmarx]

Hello everyone,

Here comes the "direct opengl call within ogre" example. This one could have been a lot funnier, but I did not want to put too much code in a tutorial. So I only draw a colored triangle .

Next tutorial to come : "about material schemes", and exchanging / creating materials at render time.

I will also work to translate the beginner tutorial for the new Ogre wiki. Since there is some non-windows-only code to be changed + new comment system to integrate, there is some work here to do (2-3 fulltime days I suppose).

Have fun!

Pierre

@jacmoe Thanks, that is a nice tip!

[madmarx]

Hello everyone,

This is week is a bigger tutorial about schemes, and how to change materials without going through all your entities manually.

Since the wiki thing is taking lot of time, next time the tutorial will be mostly an upgrade.
Next tutorial to come : the render to texture tutorial again, but with FBO's and texture blitting !

Hope you will like it!

Best,

Pierre

[madmarx]

Hello everyone,

This time the render texture tutorial 2 is here, and it gives some examples of copying content between textures on the GPU. It also uses FBOs, instead of copy.

The wiki thing is taking all my time, but I still have content for the next time :
Next tutorial to come : Manual Resource Loader.

If you have other ideas of tutorials that I could do, don't hesitate to propose.
Hope you appreciate the 'plog' as jacmoe says,

Best,

Pierre

[madmarx]

Hello everyone,

I just released the ManualResourceLoader tutorial. I also wrote 11 wiki tutorial this week end (not released yet)). I hope I can come up with a working cmake version by the next week.

Next to come : tutorial about viewports visibility (rendertarget listener + visibility masks).

I was surprised that my project has a "100% down" rate on sourceforge, but well I can't please everybody .

Hope you will like it!

Best,

Pierre

[madmarx]

Hello everyone,

I have released three weeks ago the viewport visibility tutorial. I have also finished porting the tutorials I wanted to the wiki (which was a huge work, because of cmake). The project will now gain more 'example of uses' than tutorials. Of course if you want a tutorial on a special subject, post here and I will consider it.

Next to come : how to do frustum slicing (to simulate deep Zbuffer).

Hope you will like it!

Best,

Pierre

[madmarx]

Hello everyone,

The frustum slicing example is uploaded. I have also prepared a few forum requested examples, but these are not uploaded yet.
Next to come : forum request : a geometry shader to generate 1 cube per vertex, allowing thousands of moving cubes

Have fun!

Pierre

[Kissy]

I have started the first tutorials it's really nice and easy to understand.
I hope you will increase the number of advance tutorials for non-beginners

Good job !