I have had the idea for a while: a documentation project based upon how to do very specific tasks in blender, similar to the “noob to pro” tutorials, but more specific and extensive, being a “cookbook” for the creation of animations, meshes, lighting, etc.
The idea is from looking at the gamemaker versus the blender game engine, and noticing that while both were relatively easy to use, gamemaker had documentation showing how to make specific games (their tutorials: http://www.yoyogames.com/make/tutorials) while the blender game engine did not. Those were how I learned to use game maker, versus the formal documentation which I used to fill in the gaps. The blender game engine, though capable of creating incredible games, had documentation, but tutorials on creating games were hard to come by ( This is the closest, and is quite helpful http://blenderartists.org/forum/showthread.php?t=11430). I began to wonder if such game tutorials, showing how to create close to completed games were available in blender, would there be an influx of games being created by blender like there is for game maker? (http://www.gamemakergames.com/ has over 3000 such games)
With other areas of blender, animation in particular, if start to finish guides to specific projects were available, I doubt they would go unused. Far from it, I think it might lead the the proliferation of more works created with blender.
The idea is that showing how to create specific things in blender will be a great aid to new blender users and old alike. However, this is just an idea so far. Any thoughts?
Instead of answering you directly, I can tell something about my experience in writing documentation.
Basically you will have to do the work yourself. It’s very difficult to find people who are willing to commit many hours per week over a period of years.
The best chance to find other authors is to go to a place where there is already some content. People prefer to work on a project that is well renowned.
Your best bet is probably to work at the “Noob to Pro” wikibook, or join the documentation team at wiki.blender.org and work on the “Go Pro” book - that would be really great.
Many people will read your work and you will be quite well known in the blender community. And after a while it may be that someone will join you.
At this point I would like to bring out a toast to roger (Papa Smurf)! Three cheers and a hip hip hurray
Any and all documentation on Blender is useful. A blender Cookbook could prove useful, as reinventing the wheel constantly is time consuming.
But keep in mind, just because it is useful, doesn’t mean that others will contribute as quickly as you would like. Most likely, you would need to get the ball rolling yourself.
