Sugestion - tips&tricks

[MarianG]

Hello my friends. I have a sugestion, as the title say.
I would like to have a pinned topic called tips and tricks. I know, this is one of the most well documented frameworks that I used, but I think this can be usefull. Let me explain why:

Reasons:
1. People usualy check the documentation, if they didn't find what they want they ask here, usualy without a search here. I hope if there will be a topic like tips&tricks they will search there and after that will ask, or if they will search on the forum that topic will be on top of search most of the time.

3. There are a lot of "tricks" that have been discussed on this forum, but it is extremely hard to find them, or you just forgot them. 
example: I have an object, I tried to animate its rotation with babylonjs functions,  it was rotating strange, and I spend a few hours till I found that it has defined rotationQuaternion property, and I have to remove it or play with quaternion instead of rotation. And if I remember corectly there was a topic on this, but I didn't find it  And this is just a simple example.
4. There are a lot of "new" functions - I called new because I didn't know about them  , like

 BABYLON.SceneLoader.CleanBoneMatrixWeights = true;

I didn't know about this and maybe I could not even find out if this was the topic. I tested it and yes it works. Yes, usualy I bookmark the interesting topics, but I think it will be easier something like: 
BABYLON.SceneLoader.CleanBoneMatrixWeights = true;-- fix wrong weights/matrices - related to topic 
or 
metadata - the best solution to add your own properties on mesh,camera,light,etc - related to topic
It can contain playgrounds, not only topics. 

And all of us can update the topic with "tips&tricks" that aren't in the documentation, but he know because he used, and he think in this way can help another users. -whitout spam
Or if a topic is not a good idea, maybe a tip&tricks page on the documentation ?
Huh, I'm just tring to help others and myself :))
Anyway, it's just an idea, ...and sory for my english, I'm still learning

[adam]

2 hours ago, MarianG said:

And all of us can update the topic with "tips&tricks" that aren't in the documentation,

And then update the doc:

 

[Wingnut]

  Adam is SO talkative, eh?  heh.

There IS a gray/wobbly line... between what should be included in docs, and what is over-kill.

Docs can get "cluttered" and heavy... and a tips'n'tricks sub-forum or pinned thread... might do the same.

Even IF "CleanBoneMatrixWeights" would have been mentioned in a TnT area, you would not know what to search for.  You didn't know that 'term', yet.  Who would?  It's a strange name. 

A person MIGHT enter the "classes" area of our docs site, and visit the SceneLoader Class... and somehow discover CleanBoneMatrixWeights, but... there's even MORE "buts"...

SHOULD a sceneLoader... ever be able to modify the scene it is loading?  "By definition"... hehe... umm... setting the weights to zero is a job for SceneInit Class, right?

Sooo... a person might not even SUSPECT that an audacious and ballsy move like clearing the weights... would EVER be allowed to exist on a SceneLoader Class.

Maybe on "LoadFilter" class, though.  hmm.  Wingnut is talking out his butt, surely. 

MarionG... we talked about a "glossary" of common terms... over in a thread called Tutorial Talk (unpinned).  That idea died due to lack of team spirit.  Tips'n'Tricks.  TnT.  Hard to collect, hard to verify if they are WISE TnT, hard to determine what IS a TnT and what is a youngster over-excited about his first particleSystem, wanting to teach it to the world, pixel-by-pixel.  (It's a 12 part series on how to use a particleSystem.  heh)

Oh wait, that's me.  Ooops.  

You got good ideas, Mg.  Terminology is EVERYTHING.  Once you have the right search term... just rake the playground, docs, and forum searcher... harvest. 

We're always looking for good ideas for better bridges between the questions and the answers.  Your ideas are thought-provoking and worthy of serious consideration... absolutely.  How to manage it, though.  SHOULD it be "custodianed"?  Feelings could get hurt if a TnT is rejected by moderator (12 part series on how to make a sphere)   

Perhaps we could use a "thread moderator" position or team.  No forum-wide power, but power in one thread.  Interesting.  Thread Czars.  heh.

Oh, there were some other things talked-about, once upon a time.  Five big fat "things".  Everything you ever wanted to know about... Scene, Mesh, Material, Light, Camera.  It was decided that it would take a team of about 100 people working 30 minutes per day on it... to keep it current.     (just kidding, maybe).

[babbleon]

A T&T page would be good for ppl like me who know what they want to achieve but can't quite get their head around how to get there.

The PlayGrounds represent many hours of effort and they are the richest resource.

Wikis are probably the best for this type of thing though, not an endless thread of posts.

[brianzinn]

1 minute ago, babbleon said:

Wikis are probably the best for this type of thing though

I like to think of the current docs as a wiki, since anybody can "edit" them and they are evolving documentation (some even updated from source code changes).  Lots of links to appropriate PGs from the docs.  It feels to me that if you create a T&T page then you end up in the same place we are now, but with one extra big page.  Your example in #3 about rotation vs rotationQuaternion - I think everybody has been caught there or setting a position of one mesh to another mesh's position without .clone(), or forgetting about mesh.computeWorldMatrix(...).  Still feels like those kinds of tips + tricks belong in appropriate places in the how-to docs.  I have wasted spent lots of time on things that are now blatantly obvious to me.  I've seen comments about missing information in the documentation and often the documentation is updated right away.

[babbleon]

How do we add to docs?

Maybe a notice on docs page about how to add would help others?

Oops, i see now. In any case showing on docs page how to edit them, would help

Edited February 24, 2018 by babbleon
Not reading the thread properly

[MarianG]

Ok guys, I got the idea.
@adam The goal was to not be as "offcial" like the doc, and refer to a specific topic or topics.
@Wingnut Yes, as usualy you are right  btw, I read all 50 pages of you cronics on this forum :))
Thanks for you feedbacks.

I think I'll create my own page with things that I think are tips&tricks, maybe here or on a blog page.

[adam]

19 hours ago, MarianG said:

CleanBoneMatrixWeights

This should be in the shadows troubleshooting section:

https://doc.babylonjs.com/babylon101/shadows#troubleshooting

It does seem a little odd to me that cleanBoneMatrixWeights isn’t done behind the scenes. 

[Guest]

I did not turn it on by default because of back compat and performance cost on large models