Irrlicht Documentation: Irrlicht Manual Community Input

[dejai]

I am looking for community input on a revision of the Irrlicht Wiki Manual to encompass a wider range of topics. This project was quite active when I first started it, but the index was lacking. The project is currently undergoing major changes and I thought what better place to ask for input than the irrlicht forums:

The project can be found at: http://www.irrlicht3d.org/wiki/index.ph ... ichtManual

Chapter 1 -2 are pretty much done and have had a lot of activity and therefore only minor changes and corrections should apply.

Chapter 3-4 are new chapters that have yet to be developed, based of bitplanes original ideas, these chapters can be moved around but I would like to keep the topic with possibly only minor changes.

Chapters 5+ are up for complete change including topic.

The Current Index is as follows:

Preface:

1. The Creators ( Credits to the book creators and Niko and his TEAM!)
2. The Search button


Chapter 1. Introduction

1. What is Irrlicht?
2. What is an API? Is Irrlicht For me?
* Irrlicht's Advantages
3. What Do I need to use Irrlicht?
* Other Options, Compilers, Etc
4. Setting up your first project
* Making it portable
5. Creating your First Project (Tutorial 1)
* In Depth
* Conclusion
6. Chapter Conclusion


Chapter 2: Learning The Basics

1. How to read the Documentation
* Namespaces
2. Learning About Meshes
* Learning About Nodes
3. Setting Node Properties
4. Camera Basics
* Normal Camera
* FPS Camera
* Maya Camera
* Third Person Camera
5. Initializing
6. The Game Loop
7. Importing Media
8. Skybox/Skydome
* Skybox
* Skydome
9. Cursor / Other Basics
10. Creating your Second Program (Tutorial 2)
* In Depth Explanation
11. Chapter Conclusion


Chapter 3: Understanding Irrlicht

1. irr IrrlichtDevice, SEvent, etc
2. irr::core f32, s32, etc. vector, matrix...
3. irr::scene scene manager and nodes, animators, meshes, animated meshes, skinned mesh
4. irr::gui env, elements, fonts...
5. irr::video driver, textures, materials...
6. irr::io files, xml, serialization...
7. Chapter Conclusion


Chapter 4: Hacking Irrlicht

1. Compiling from source
* You will need...
* IrrCompileConfig.h
* SVN
* Working with Patch Files
2. Extending Irrlicht
* Making Scene Nodes and animators
* GUI and skins
* Adding new file formats
* Writing IrrEdit plugins
3. Chapter Conclusion

Chapter 5:
Chapter 6:
Chapter 7:
Chapter 8:
Chapter 9:
Chapter 10:

If you have any suggestions as to what else to include please post them here and we will discuss them as a community and decided what will be added / removed/ modified. Thank you.

P.S Maintainers will also be required and you may put your name down for this, however I would ask you to wait until after we have decided on the index. Remember this is a community document its been around for about a year...

[Yoran]

I would like to see
- irrlichts memory management
- memory management with custom scene nodes
which covers the create and drop method, the reason why it is important.

As i saw in almost all competition entries, no one cares about memory management and just creates and creates, but never drops

maybe i'll come up with something more later

[3DModelerMan]

How about dynamic reflections? I know what the theory about dynamic reflections is, I just am having a hard time implementing them.

[eye776]

Here's my uncalled for oppinion.

Split Chapter 3.3 "irr::scene scene manager and nodes, animators, meshes, animated meshes, skinned mesh"

Into several chapters. If this is going to be a USER'S MANUAL like I understood it will be, the ISceneNode and ISceneNodeFactory need MAJOR exposure (a separate chapter).

Basically, if we would all stick to Irrlicht's (and NIKO's) philosophy, most of the stuff we incapsulate in classes should be scene nodes. That way, we can insert them in irredit directly (as entities), and not have to worry about updating various managers (given that ISceneNode has the render() and onAnimate() methods).

EDIT: A special chapter detailing IGPUProgrammingServices, shaders and such would be a nice addition too.

[MasterGod]

A topic about how to make your application look great with cool shader magic etc., but for the simple man so you won't have to learn everything just to have awesome graphics.