T3D Push

After talking in IRC, it is my understanding that a T3D push will be happening (SOON). The push is suppose to include more documentation, and demos including one for wheeled vehicles, not flying or hovering vehicles. I would like to offer my recommendations for some areas of this push.

First off, let me state that I sort of like the new mantra of Mich. Read, Read Code, Code. It's a very fine mantra a few very big caveats. One its fine to state that a person should Read the docs first if the docs are up to date and concise, and I will be honest the docs today are much better than they have been in the past, but they are still lacking, especially when dealing with the editors and supporting tools. Collada doesn't support actual blend animations, so it has to be done in the shape editor. How? Docs give a very brief overview but don't tell how to do this function. Others in IRC have run into the same issue and when its discussed in IRC the usual response is, just use DTS and DSQs. That is just one example of a hole in the docs.

Then we move on to the Read Code part. Read the Code, look at the provided examples, look at the scripts, look at the source. Once again that is good if the examples work. Lets take the buggy for instance. I want to do a wheeled vehicle, so I look at the docs, read up on the wheeled vehicle, see what nodes I need, what animations are needed, Look under the hints in the shape editor for the wheeled vehicle, then I look at the buggy example, look at the defaultcar.cs and look at the buggy.dts shape. Looks like everything is good, so I take my superduppercar.dae and put it in stead of the buggy shape, add my animations and put my wheels in. hmm.. only one spring is animated when driving around the mission, my wheels don't turn all the time, and my enginesound doesnt work. So I wonder what I did wrong, double check everything, go to IRC and ask, usual responses are "Dae dont seem to work right as vehicles, use DTS" or "vehicle code isnt very good in T3D you may need to do your own" or "yeah it's a known bug will have to wait" or the old standby "did you read the manual"

I am not trying to rant or complain in any major way, well sort of, but I do want to offer some suggestions. To prevent us Noobs from spamming the forums with all our questions and pleas for help or pinging everyone in IRC, in this next push when you are doing the demos and updating the documents keep us nonprofessional programmers in mind. When writing of animation priority not only tell us what it does but tell us if an animation set to pri 0 is high pri or low pri. Give us examples that work, include a flying or hovervehicle in the examples, if collada isnt to be used for everything then let us know in the docs, and in the editor. Give a demo on how to do Terrain in T3d that uses a single texture with various details to produce great looking terrain at long views as well as close up. Give an explaination of what metrics() does and what the different outputs are with out having to dig into the C code and look at the function. There are still binary versions out there, source isn't available to everyone.

Mich has been a great presence in IRC and on the forums and Chris Robertson has been really helpful in getting me to understand the collada system in T3D, and it shows the commitment members of GG have to the community I just wanted to bring the point of view of a noob to the scene and make sure with any upcoming push we are not left in the dust