Managing Scenes

[UpandComing]

Okay, so I'm having a little difficulty getting my head around managing scene nodes. I get that to be displayed scene nodes have to be children of an active ISceneManager, but what about when changing scene, for example from a main menu to starting the game, if all the menu nodes are stored under the active scene manager does a new ISceneManager have to be created for the other levels?

[greenya]

You do next:
SceneManager
|--- MenuSceneNode --- ... menu structure
|--- LevelSceneNode --- ... level structure

Then you can use it like layers and change visibility of all the menu or game level.
For new levels you can delete children of LevelSceneNode and fill it with new level data.

(*) where MenuSceneNode and LevelSceneNode are an empty scene nodes created via addEmptySceneNode().

P.S.: i suppose your menu made of SceneNodes (but in general menu is drawn (as all the GUI) using IGUIEnvironment, which is similar to SceneManager, but used or UI).

[UpandComing]

So you don't ever change ISceneManagers but change the level of visibility of each scene node?

[randomMesh]

I'd use a state machine.

[greenya]

So you don't ever change ISceneManagers but change the level of visibility of each scene node?

Its up to you.
If you want new distinct SceneManager, you can create it via createNewSceneManager().
So the answer on your question:

does a new ISceneManager have to be created for the other levels?

No. You can clear all the nodes via clear().

[Brainsaw]

I also prefer a statemachine, and when a state is deactivated it clears the scenemanager, and on activation it loads it's scene. From time to time I need a second scenemanager for level preview.