BROKEN Tutorial 6 -- working tutorial needed for how to build a first OGRE application

[James_W]

http://wiki.ogre3d.org/Basic+Tutorial+6
Tutorial 6 is very appealing because it promises to let you build a very basic application from scratch. For someone who has coded a lot of GL before this is exactly where I want to start. I am not interested in the earlier tutorials because they rely on the "tutorial framework" which is not relevant for a basic stand-alone application. My experience is that such things are a waste of your time precisely because they hide critical components for building real applications.

I think it is *very* important that Ogre have a well supported and functional basic application tutorial. I have noticed lots of fretting about the future of Ogre in these forums. Ogre's future relies on gaining users. You will only gain new users if it is possible to smoothly learn how to use Ogre via real applications. Things like the samplebrowser are a gimmick -- sure its fun to play but anyone who wants to get serious will quickly want to move on to tweaking their own applications.

So my progression as a potential user:
1. Install and compile ogre -- somewhat painful but tolerable, definitely not easy or kind to new users
-- used cmake and VS2015 on windows 10
I found several issues, mostly related to CMake failing to find and link all the needed libs
On a related note -- many help pages are really old now, for example referring to VS2010 or older
OUTCOME: Most samplebrowser demos work (but not all -- a bit uneven depending on the renderer choice)
2. Get code and try to compile tutorial 6 -- first standalone "basic app" in the tutorials
-- used VS2015
Not easy or kind to new users
I had to edit the source quite a bit to get it to compile,
It also relies on this OIS library which is 1) unmaintained and 2) broken -- I had to fix the code myself
I strongly recommend just using SDL2 which is already there for such a basic tutorial
OUTCOME: The app fails at runtime.

Runtime failure:

InvalidStateException: RenderSystem does not support
FixedFunction, but technique has no VertexShader:
Ogre/Earring in SceneManager::_setPass at
C:\ogre3d-1.10.11-src\ogre-1.10.11\OgreMain\src\OgreSceneManager.cpp (line 1035)

I am now stumped. I have no idea how to debug this. I know the OgreHead model works in the samplebrowser so I assume the model is fine. This is a perfect illustration of why the samplebrowser/tutorial framework demos are dangerous and limited for the purpose of gaining new users. If you want people to use ogre you must have a basic application that just works. Not "tutorial frameworks" -- just src you can compile.

I'd be grateful if someone could fix tutorial 6 and/or point me at a working "basic application" tutorial for Ogre 1.10.11

Regards,
James

[paroj]

what is the issue you see with:
https://ogrecave.github.io/ogre/api/1.10/setup.html

OgreBites is a Component just like any other.

If you want to dig deeper, you always can look at its implementation:
https://github.com/OGRECave/ogre/blob/m ... xt.cpp#L67

[James_W]

Coincidentally I googled for demo's for Ogre and found that a few hours ago, after I posted. I spent time getting that to work. It isn't set up for windows but by ripping code from the Tutorial 6 code I was able to get it working. It is a rather stunningly boring demo but it didn't crash!

It would be kind to people interested in Ogre if the Tutorial 6 was either
1) Made to actually work 2) Had a warning placed on it that it's horribly broken (lose OIS!) or 3) (BEST OPTION) replaced with something more up to date like a the link you just provided. However (see below), the link you've provided used Ogre Bites so it doesn't do what Tutorial 6 claimed to do -- it isn't a general application approach but embedded in the sample framework instead.

Right now a naive interested party is likely to go to your Tutorial page http://wiki.ogre3d.org/Tutorials
because it looks official and maintained and get burned like I was.

Then they may ask for help and get ignored completely (like: danielspengler99) was here:
viewtopic.php?f=2&t=93669&p=541045#p541045
I presume Mr. Spengler is long gone at this point and you've lost another rather keen potential user.

The remaining question is whether this OgreBites approach is general or another set of training wheels. According to this page:
http://wiki.ogre3d.org/OgreBites
It seems like Ogre Bites is not really intended as a framework for general applications.

If so -- what is wrong with it so it isn't good as a general framework?

Assuming it isn't the good general approach, is there an actual demo of a general application with Ogre 1.10?

Thanks,

James

[paroj]

I am adding warnings to the outdated wiki on per-case basis as looking at each page for outdated content would take too much time. Thanks to this thread I added some more.

Using OgreBites for general applications is perfectly fine. (You can even use it for normal applications)