Tutorial Talk

[GameMonetize]

Done

[Wingnut]

Thanks guys!  Route #66, open for traffic!    Looks great!

Does anyone want to take a shot at http://babylonjs-playground.com/#UAG5H#2 ?  First run... this._trackedGroups is undefined.  Subsequent runs... this.fontTexture is null. 

This is a children of children of children version. 

Likely a Wingnut mistake.  But I'm not beyond begging for extra eyeballs (to help me see my screw-ups).    Thx for help from anyone who wishes-to.  Sorry for off topic.

[Nockawa]

1 minute ago, Wingnut said:

Thanks guys!  Route #66, open for traffic!    Looks great!

Does anyone want to take a shot at http://babylonjs-playground.com/#UAG5H#2 ?  First run... this._trackedGroups is undefined.  Subsequent runs... this.fontTexture is null.  Likely a Wingnut mistake.  But I'm not beyond begging for extra eyeballs (to help me see my mistake).    Thx for help from anyone who wishes-to.  Sorry for off topic.

It's a bug because you create the tracknode inside the Canvas' children:[] statement. In English, if you first create the Canvas, then you create the Group with the Canvas as parent you will be fine.

However, it's still a bug, and I just fixed it with your PG copied in local, I've made the PR and merge it, but @Deltakosh will (again) have to update the PG... 

[Wingnut]

Ok, thanks.  Yeah, for tut... I wanted to use ALL children[] or all-parent... no mix.  *shrug*  I don't know which way is more noob-friendly.  Deep indenting can be rough on us kids. 

But yeah, all-parent version works fine, thx.  http://babylonjs-playground.com/#UAG5H#4

Is this the MasterK PG?  http://babylonjs-playground.com/#WZTFY#4

OnEnter working?  Initial tests here show no.  But but but... I wasn't really concerned about in/out/over, etc.  I'm concerned with changing the shape of the pointer... when mouseover of click-observed prim. 

You know... the CSS style cursor thing.  Will we need to use our observerHandler... to make our own "pointing hand"?  (Perhaps with a Sprite2D or Shape2D, eh?  Cool)

But yeah... changing the pointer arrow shape... on mouse over.  That's what I'm curious about. 

Who's job is pointer maintenance?  Is that a union position?    (Only if anyone has time or info.  If not, no sweat.)

[Pryme8]

Yea when I get my internet Thursday we will talk.

[Pryme8]

So I finnaly get the internet in my new fancy office today woot woot, @Wingnut do me a favor please and send me a list of stuff you were wanting from me I made so many "I'll help when I get internet back" statements that I gotta figure out where to start now.  And @Adem I'll be starting your thread hopefully today and we'll get your learning project off the ground here.  I mention this on here because wingnut will prolly be interested in this process I'm gonna take you through and it's basically going to be a step by step lesson with a final project and we will be going over all terminology and have dissections about correct structure and what I like to call cat skinning.  Tech should be here around noon PST so y'all should hear from me soon.

[Wingnut]

Hi P8... congrats on the new office and soon wire-up. 

In this subject, I was only wondering about your label-making system, if you have one.  Briefly.    (Look who's calling the kettle "black", eh?  I'm about as un-brief as it comes. heh)

I WAS excited about your "Everything you ever wanted to know about BJS materials" doc... but... that would be 2-6 months of work, and I don't wish that on ANYONE.  It's right up there with "Everything you ever wanted to know about BJS Scene" and BJS Mesh... tumor-causing docs.    More encyclopedia than tutorial.

Nope, I have no dependencies or assignments set for you.  Be free.  I'm interested in everything, but mostly, I hope for the ULTIMATE materials tutorial.  If you ever pull that off, grinding right down to talking about orienting the odd Babylon.Plane used for mirrorTextures, then... well... I'll crap my pants (yet again).    Materials is a HUGE subject... and a great materials/texturing tutorial will require MUCH patience, wording, and organizing skills.  It is likely best-written... in pieces... modules.  *shrug*  Not like I'm any kind of expert, though.  But there are LOTS of aspects to materials.  LOTS.  "Comprehensive" is the word, I believe.  I think it means "covering every tiny detail", when applied to tuts.

Three days after you start writing it, vertexColors will change from Color3 to Color4.    Static tutorials like these (The Book of BJS Materials)... almost HAVE TO come with a permanent custodian... to maintain them for life.  Ready for that kind of devotion to a cause?    Got your spellchecker warmed-up?  It's best to write them with .md, so you can pass those storage costs onto Deltakosh (j/k), and never worry about having your HTML tutorial off-the-air for ISP reasons or domain name changing.  I happen to think https://github.com/BabylonJS/Documentation is a real nice address.  I think of it as the swimming pool for our resort.  We all gather around it, swim in it, spit in it, pee in it, and drink from it.  Yum!  heh

[Pryme8]

whoa, ok Ill get back on that material tut and yeah Neatflax's tagging system is ready to go, Ill post a write up of how to add to the database.  Its being hosted on github so its a flat database just in a json object for easy contribution.

As long as you follow the JSON format the tutorial/thread will popup on Neatflax and Ill show how to do the preview image as well.  I think if we can start putting more on there it will be a good asset.  And as soon as there are a few more tags active Ill enable the filtering system and pagination that is in place but just not turned on yet.

I have the material tutorial on the back burner but ill take a re look at it here once I can wrap up some of my things with Legends of BJS and get ready for the kickstarter.  I think the idea of being able to see the changes to the material as your learning about it with sliders will help people that need visual cues to burn ideas in. 

If you could be so kind, I kinda have a disconnect between what people want to learn with materials and what I may eventually publish might not match up so like you kinda just did in the last post what are some of the fuzzy areas for people?


also on a side note you dont have to go to Pryme8.github.io/Neatflax to get there I went ahead and bought the URL www.Neatflax.com and the url masking is active.


Ohh yeah and if you were ever wondering why NeatFLAX; it stands for Neat Forum Links and Examples

[Wingnut]

21 minutes ago, Pryme8 said:

If you could be so kind, I kinda have a disconnect between what people want to learn with materials and what I may eventually publish might not match up so like you kinda just did in the last post what are some of the fuzzy areas for people?

Comprehensive.  Gotta cover it all, and in baby talk.     To collect ONLY the stumbling points of materials, you need to gather every forum question ever asked... about materials/textures.  Then do trend analysis and graph the results.  Then... write a tutorial called "Common problems with materials".  (yawn).  OR... take 6 months of your life... an hour here, an hour there, and cover every single nut and bolt.  Not shaders, though.  Just... talk about the material channels, and how they are added/combined/subtracted from each other... such as ambient + diffuse = endresult, etc.  Does a diffuseColor show-thru an emissiveTexture?  How 'bout a specularTexture?  Cover all the .useAlphaFromblahblah properties, too.

(I love that datGUI materials experimenter thing ya got, btw.  Yep, great way to learn... see it happen "right before your very eyes."  It's essentially multi-lingual, too!  Good stuff.)

You KNOW how large "The Book Of Materials" could be.  HUGE.  You know what a hero you'd be if you actually slowly and carefully built such a thing (and didn't talk about yourself ONCE during the whole endeavor)?  Superhero, my friend.  Superhero.  To be frank, I don't think ya got it in ya.  I sure don't have it in me.  I think it will take a team... and that's why we do it at github... on our docs site.  We sculpt it... tiny piece by tiny piece, over time... and grow a great "manual".  But I'm in charge of wording... cuz... I'm just that kind of power-trippy. 

[Pryme8]

don't threaten me with a good time.

so what your saying is take this and noobify it and tailor it for learning just basic materials scratch the procedural part right?

http://www.neatflax.com/Tutorial_2

[Wingnut]

Interesting piece.

Nah, I'm saying you should do whatever you wish.    I have no assignments for you.  Do what you feel is good and right.  (or evil, if that turns your crank)    I really have no right to say how people write tutorials.  I just rattle-on aimlessly, for the most-part.

[Wingnut]

A SWEEEEET new document... by @Deltakosh, I believe.

http://doc.babylonjs.com/overviews/gui

Cool new system, cool new doc.  Power WOOOT! 

(he woots better than I do... I'm still learning to woot)

Also, we once talked about mesh-labeling methods.  I thought-up 4 ways, and Deltakosh thought-up a 5th way, in the next post.

Now Deltakosh invented a 6th way!  6 ways... to do mesh-tracking clickable labels.  The yet-unwritten Labeling Tutorial is getting fatter! 

I'm still waiting for @Nockawa to code-up a one/two-step createLabel() that automatically turns-on a screenSpaceCanvas2D if one isn't present.  Some kind of easier createLabelButton calls.  Currently, it takes a big bucket of code to activate a Text2D inside a border-making Rect2D inside a mesh-tracking Group2D.  I almost got a tumor... typing that previous sentence! 

An advanced dynamic texture.  Hmm.  It's got the "big-5 observables", too!  (clicks, mouse move/over/out/etc)  Nice.  Very complete.

This allows the 9-image borders around box-models (with a little coding).  Cool.  (Not called box-models, though.  That is a CSS/HTML thing.)

In fact... this advanced dynamic texture... allows anyone to "mirror" CSS style functionalities... as much as they wish.  We could draw fractal borders around stuff... by writing into the context2d image buffer.  We could generate foliage borders.  Pretty!  heh.

We could grab renderTargetTextures from extra cameras, and actually use live scene views from those cameras... as the background or borders for some gui.  Demented-grade fun!

[GameMonetize]

If you are interested by writing a small tutorial around GUI, I'm all in

[Wingnut]

I want to play with it. 

I've been thinking "HUD", lately (actually for a long time).

And dashboards. 

DK, your tutorial is pretty nice.  Do we need another?  Nah.  The tutorial I think-of... is "All About Labels" - all 6 types.    That tutorial is awaiting an "EasyLabel" from Nockawa... < 4 lines of code. 

But for now, what we need... is some summertime fun! 

Completely dynamic HUD, really techie-looking... with cam position readouts and mesh tracking targeting-brackets as the camera pans past them.  Distance measuring to target, current velocities, estimated travel time to target, spacecraft mode indicators, hover-drift, engine thrust indicators, yaw, pitch, roll, radar, proximity sensors, etc.  Maybe weapons selecting... perhaps 4 types.  Target reticle changes for each type of weapon.  Mostly all-green HUD-items.  Coooool.  BattleZone 2017 - The Legend Continues  (old tank game... green vector gfx HUD)

And, we need our HUD in both Babylon.GUI, and in Canvas2d.  Wow!  SO much fun!  SO much work.  A guy would learn a TON from it, though... and it might be a nice torture test for new GUI system. 

I need a nice HUD for the flying bobsled space taxi project.  Probably no weapons.  My HUD needs things that a space taxi driver might need... navigation aids and space weather alerts... and a gas gauge, and taxi fare meter.  "Hey Taxi...  Pad 3 Please"

I need inset and outset borders (button 'depress' when clicked), and easy button text/background flashing, you know... cool spacecraft dashboard stuff.  I suppose the first step would be "advanced widgets framework for Babylon.GUI".  A template for making advanced controls/read-outs.  Maybe 10 of them. Maybe one of them is a "meter" (which is probably the most difficult no-image-allowed, pure-dynamic-generated/updated widget EVER)

Actually, air traffic control screen, or fake radar screen... might be a MORE difficult widget.

Dynamic analog meters suck to code... but look cool.    WidgetMakers Toolkit v1.0  Yeah!  An extension for an extension.

 

[TammySmith]

@Wingnut thanks for the info 

[Wingnut]

All these 'thank you's... @TammySmith... you are giving me a swollen ego.    Very kind of you.  I probably don't deserve them.  heh.

Your project sounds very interesting.  I look forward to seeing your ideas.  Your post is kind-of hidden, though... underneath a thread with a different topic.  Feel free to start a new Q&A thread, or even paste that post text into the Wingnut Chronicles, a talk-about-anything thread.

Our good friend @Alby was building an odd 3D thing... different clickable "nodes" (mesh) floating in space... interconnected with 'connectors" that had text written on them.  Sometimes it looked like a giant space station... many modules connected by triangular tubes.  Unfortunately, Alby wasn't able to finish his idea.

Relationships between technologies.  You are going to try to visualize those relationships... using graphics?  Too cool. 

Have you seen a TV show called "Connections".  Pretty fun.  Takes LOTS of research. 

Did you ever hear of a markup language called 'Resource Description Framework' (RDF)?  I don't know if the system is still alive, but it had to do with "ontology", in a way.  MetaData.  Data about data.  And some of that data about data... when analyzed... can show commonalities/relationships.

RDF/Ontology can be used to "discover" shared characteristics.  Example:  All red things (they share red as a characteristic).  All vehicles is another group that share a characteristic.  All red vehicles... share two characteristics/criteria - red and vehicle.  Ontologies map DIFFERENCES just as well as they map similarities/common-traits.

I don't think RDF was ever intended to map/categorize all stuff on the planet, and especially not the overlap/shared characteristics of different areas of study.  I think it ended-up being a system of "resource discovery", whatever that means these days.  Information is found most easily... when there is large amounts of metaData (data about data) for the information.  Search engines use this... to return links to information that more-precisely satisfy the search criteria.  (huh?)  (The more data a search engine knows ABOUT a document, the easier/better it can decide whether/not a document should be returned in the search results.)

Anyway, all that is a little off-topic for this thread.  Feel free to use The Wingnut Chronicles to post about ANYTHING.  But you can talk here, too... about anything you wish.  I don't think the other forum members will complain very loudly.  This is a great forum... all nice folk, and good inventors/idea-folk.  So, it's all good.

Best of luck on your project.  I bet you have a vision.  I hope you/we can make it come to life.  We're here to help, if you have questions/problems.  Thanks again for the kind words.  Talk again soon. 

[Wingnut]

Hi gang.  Do we have a tutorial that talks about camera rig modes? 

If anyone would like to teach that (create tutorial), preferably with illustrations, that would be excellent.  Thanks!

[GameMonetize]

I don't

[Wingnut]

I wonder if we can beg @davrous into teaching us about all the rig modes... on his blog (or in a .md doc).  In French, even.   

I would be willing to translate to English... as best I could. It is quite an important area of BJS usage, I think.  Techniques/specs might be changing often, which makes it difficult to document.

Same offer for you too, DK.  Write in native language on your blog, I will be glad to try to translate into English .md.

We just need somebody to teach WHICH rig modes to use for WHAT purposes... and then we're on our way to a thorough tutorial.  I would help, wherever possible, but I am short on knowledge... to understand/write rig mode basics.  thx for consids, guys.  Offer open to ANYONE who understands rig modes well.

[GameMonetize]

The thing is: you should not have to use rigs directly but cameras instead.

Like WebVRCamera or AnaglyphCamera, etc...

[Wingnut]

Yeah, good point, thx.  With custom inputs, users get lots of flexibility, too.

Ok, nevermind that tutorial, guys... I understand the big picture better, now. 

[Wingnut]

Hi guys, welcome back to Tutorial Talk.  Once upon a time, Deltakosh told me how to use a non-minified BJS... in the playground.  It was a modified URL, I believe.

Well, I forgot how to do it, and I can't find the post where he told me how.

If anyone knows how to use BJS 'max' version in playground (which allows BJS error line-numbers in console... to be pertinent and correct), please remind me?  Thx. 

This time, I am adding it to the Playground Tutorial ... so I don't forget again. 

[adam]

http://playground.babylonjs.com/debug.html

[JohnK]

Just in case anyone is interested I am suggesting a re-organisation of the documentation  which would also include pages from the guide I did. Makes sense, IMHO, to keep things in one place.

This http://guide-calvin-50377.netlify.com/overviews/about gives a picture of how  the organisation goes

EDIT not any more am developing a new version of the documentation at http://guide-calvin-50377.netlify.com/ currently (Sept 2017) contains a lot of broken link and pages that need to be re-written

Now completed.

[Wingnut]

Categorizing is cool, and needed, but...

...when it comes time to figure out WHAT goes WHERE, you're going to fall into a pile of poop (again).

That pile of poop... are the un-answered questions...

What IS a 'tutorial'?  Do all tutorials need to be a step-by-step follow-along thing, by definition?

What is an overview?  What is an introduction-to?   What is an info doc?

And then, do our documents need "massaging" or complete re-formatting/re-write... in order to FIT those definitions?

Poop pile!    Way down at the lower levels of your new categories, you will need...

Click for a list of videos about this.
Click for a list of tutorials about this.
Click for a list of overviews about this.
Click for an introductory-level doc about this.
Click for an advanced-level overview about this.
Click for a playground search about this.

Suddenly, you are cleaning-off your boots with a stick.    Nasty stuff, at the lower levels.  heh.  I like the enthusiasm, though. 

I say GO FOR IT, J!   Good idea!  Try to see far-reaching ramifications of changes (duh, wingy)... and wear boots.  Grab a hammer, too, because some of our "tutorials" are really overviews, and the camera tutorial is SO outdated that it needs a complete re-hammering.  Or does it?  Is it an "introduction-to"?  hmm.  Poop warning!