I just wanted to point out that so far, I have been unable to learn how to implement deferred shading properly using OGRE. I have a working solution for the lighting itself, but I can't get the shadows working (see http://www.ogre3d.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=54883).
While this clearly is somehow my fault, I have to say that the material provided (the demo and this article: http://www.ogre3d.org/wiki/index.php/Deferred_Shading) isn't very helpful for understanding the key concepts of OGRE that are needed here. The demo/article represents a huge framework for on-the-fly material and shader code generation and even includes screen space ambient occlusion, while the important OGRE constructs are only partially explained.
Instead of teaching your users how to employ certain techniques, you present this giant application that can handle any thinkable use case (all light/shadow yes/no combinations) and is extensible for people that already understand all of that. I understand that the demo is also some kind of showcase for OGRE, but the Wiki definitely lacks newbie information about this topic.
I would be much more interrested in a minimal example that uses a simple material script file and compositor that can do nothing else but drawing one specific light type (maybe one for each of the 3 light types) with shadows. Users could then learn from this and implement additional ambient light and whatever they need. Especially with deferred shading, it's not hard to add something.
I do not even consider myself a complete newbie, but anyway, a majority of your user base will always be newbies. Please consider this when designing demos and articles. Thanks for listening to my whining.
