Starting a BGE tutorial/development website

Game Engine Game Engine Support and Discussion
1

Hi everyone,

While throwing ideas on another thread (“Where is the development?” by agoose77) I suggested that the community could start a tutorial website specifically on the BGE. Something like Blender guru or Blender cookie but almost strictly on the BGE. I was pleased to see that some great people were interested and so I’m transporting the idea on this thread.

The goal of the website would be to provide quality, and up to date, tutorials on the BGE from beginner to advance level. This would help the community to have reference material and bring a easy to access knowledge source to new users that would like to learn the game engine but can’t find good information on it(because right now, you have to admit it’s not easy for them). I think it could be great if the website could become officially supported by Blender foundation but that may be for later. Also, agoose77 suggested that this website could also be used as a developpment center.

Here is the method of progression that I suggested :

How about making a site like Blender cookie or Blender guru specifically on the BGE? Something like a tutorial a week, the tutorials goes on our progress on a common game project. Example :

Week one : Presentation of the project that have been decided in group or by the viewers
Week two : Presentation of simple movement(if we have a moving character) and collision
Week three : Setting an interactive lifebar, a hurt animation when touching harmful elements(like spike or lava)
Week four : Setting a simple AI that attacks the player and that the player can destroy
And so on until we have a finished project. Then we start another one.

It could be something like :
How to make a first person shooter(They are popular and seems easy to make in Blender)

  • Basic movement
  • shooting(creating destroying objects)
  • enemy AI
  • pick ups
  • Basic inventory(bullet, weapons)

How to make a platformer (Like zelda/mario. Interesting, not so hard(I think))

  • more work on the animation
  • pushing objects
  • jumping, falling
  • camera movement

Strategy game (why not?)

  • more camera knowledge
  • how to use the mouse
  • Units AI, path

Puzzle game (Like leonn’s games. They look pretty good!)

Horror game (how to set the ambiance, lighting work, music)

racing game (With pickups and items like Mario car to have more complexity)

and other(if I have forgotten some which I probably had)

We could firstly start with basic games with simple animations and models then going further with each new game. It could even not be games, just simple levels that demonstrate well a key element of the BGE. This way it could attract more attention to the BGE and get Blender more popular on this side. It would as well provide always up to date information on the BGE because I find those hard to access. I guess games are more complexes to set up and demonstrate than modeling techniques but I’m sure we could do something interesting with this. And our future requests as a group could have more power if we have follower and things like that.

As I mentioned after, I am currently not an experienced BGE artist. I’m not sayin I don’t know it at all, just that I don’t feel I’m at the level to teach other people about it yet. I am mostly throwing this as an idea to see who is interested in contributing and to what extend and see if together we couldn’t realise this project.

So now’s your turn. Tell me if you’re interested, if you like this idea, what you would like the website to look like or to offer. Tell me your ideas, what you think, to what extend you think you could contribute if you’re interested in contributing. We will discuss about it and start moving after.

Many thanks,
Guillaume

2

Maybe we ought to have posted this in the WIP section, people could contribute a design, which i’m happy to implement.

3

Fantastic! At some point I would like to contribute. My belief is once there is some proper templates for the Blender 2.5 for FPS, RPG, walkthrough’s etc. we will start to get a multiplier effect and start to see some quality games coming. At the moment there seem to be some really good high flyers, but for newbies like myself, it is a struggle to know the technicalities of the BGE, time balance with other life commitments to spend searching to find learning materials.

AGREED - THE BLENDER GAME ENGINE NEEDS A BLENDER GURU LIKE PERSON TO SPEARHEAD AND TEACH US THE COMPLEXITY OF THIS GREAT TOOL.

4

I wounder how much help blender.org’s project can be? I believe, but don’t know, that project get a wiki and a bugtracker? That’s a good start. I think just collecting organized links to existing tutorials would help a lot. The ability to host tutorials wold be good and a pretty front page even better - but the collaboration, collection, tracking part is needed first and blender.org might provide that for free.

I have start thinking if starting a blender project to keep track of all patches outside trunk (in blender svn, gitorious or just as patchfiles). And try to collaborate of a ‘edge’ build merging ‘good’ patches where ‘good’ have a far lower bar then inclusion in trunk (No crashes, no big memory leak, Give some useful functionality but need not be complete and meting all coding standards). To help getting patches tested - both for bugs and usability - before/while being cleaned up and considered for trunk. A wiki and a bugtracker fits this project good :slight_smile:

Maybe the two ideas can be merged?

5

I hope that this dont turn into a simplified, and uselles set of tutorials, really, even if a lot of guys want to help, that doesnt mean that they all can help on this. The tutorials need to be at least semi-professional in order for this to work, because there are allready a lot of tutorials on youtube some of them are good, other are quite useless or simple clones to other ones. So I think that for this to work the creator should show what they can do and how for select better candidates.
As I said before, maybe, befor start this you should contact the blender foundation to see if they want to help this project.

6

►If you can pull this up and get a site(more like a forum) running, it would be quite an achievement:):yes:. We could discuss many more things there(and cover them better), than we do here(for example, make more “BGE support sub-forums”, where we can have some cathegories(problems with scripts, physics, fluidity - I can’t really think of some good ones, but you’ll get the point) - for a more “in-depth” coverage of the discussed subjects)
►About blender foundation’s help regarding this initiative(as leonnn mentioned), it may prove to be quite a useful idea, although I wouldn’t really count on it(the people who could actually write some good tutorials may be quite short on free time - there also comes the issue of “motivation”(why would they help when they have better things to do))
►I for one, could help a bit - write/make some pretty decent tutorials, like various “how-to-do’s”, since I seem to be quite capable of making people(even small kids) understand things:yes:.
◄►I wish you luck in your attempt to create a new community.

7

OK, here is what i propose. I will establish a separate thread for brain storming some ideas. Then, find some willing contributors and set targets, and guidelines to follow. furthermore, i will hope to find a domain.

8

It seems lots of people think it would be a great idea to ask Blender foundation. I have nothing against but I’m not at ease to contact them as I have never done it before and I’m not sure who to contact. However, I could contact Andrew Price and Jonathan Williamson to see if they wouldn’t have any great advice for us.(Like a cheap domain name, a good procedure to follow, etc.).

Also, before contacting Blender foundation, I think it would be nice to have already a start. Like the general idea on paper, the main contributors chosen, a plan b if the foundation don’t want to help (or can’t). It would just make us look more professional and prepared.

I will start a few lists of things I think are needed before starting the project. If you think that keeping all these lists in the same thread would make it chaotic, please feel free to take any of them and make another thread with it. You can copy my text or rewrite it as you wish for the first post of those new threads. I will then delete the parts of this reply that are repeated in another thread. I could do it myself, but it would have to wait tonight as I must leave soon. (I actually wrote this after the following.^^’)

Resources list

Okay, here are the resources I have found and used for my learning of the BGE. I propose that each one of you post what think is quality information and I’ll make a file with all of them that we will be able to use as example, reference and suggested learning for the watchers. Here’s mine :

  1. http://www.blendenzo.com/
  • The site seems out-dated to me but the tutorials on the lifebar and the realtime text are still working
  1. http://www.blendercookie.com/
  • David ward made a great 3 tutorials series on the game engine that is the best reference that I have found.
  • There are some great tutorials on low poly items and normal map baking
  • There is also some scripting tutorials, they are not on the game engine, but can help learn python
  1. http://www.tutorialsforblender3d.com/
  • At first look the site seemed outdate to me so I didn’t look at it but I went deeper the other day and there is still some good actual tutorials and material
  1. http://www.youtube.com/user/irakrakow
  • Even if he doesn’t seem to have uploaded any tutorial in a while, Ira Krakow provide some good tutorials on how to learn python
  1. http://www.youtube.com/user/Phymec
  • The plank game tutorial of this user looks good and give a nice idea about how to start with the game engine. Also, the audio quality is good. There is some of his work that I haven’t watched yet.
  1. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SRXoFLG9XR8
  • A good start. The audio quality isn’t perfect, the quality of the learning method isn’t perfect either but it is still one of the best video I have found.
  1. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vfFznB1KC5w&feature=related
  • This user is one of the only person I have found to show how to use a script, to write it, and to explain it, clearly, for the BGE. I recommend it to all the new users that are willing to learn python for the bge.
    And that is all for my references. Write yours if you have some, I’ll compile them somewhere so we will have a nice bank when needed.
 Contributors list

I think it would be good to have a list of willing contributors to see if there are actual people who are interested to work for this idea or if all we do is throwing ideas(which is not completely bad either). I will write what I think are the principals needed people and please submit your help if you’re interested. However, please note that this is a primary list, it might change to assure the overall quality as leonnn suggested. Also, don’t be shy to tell me what should be there and is not and what shouldn’t be there and is.

Site managing:
(Interface, bugs, and other)

Tutorial writters:
(This is more for planning, what we want to teach, in what order, project leading etc.)

  • Christiani_if (Tutorial writing)
  • Guillaume Côté (Tutorial writing, team/project management)

Watchers:
( Because having a starting audience would give us immediate visibility)

Teachers:
( People who will actually record the tutorials. I think video tutorials are better than written tutorials, for the watcher/reader)

  • Guillaume Côté (Will need help for mid to advance level teaching but is willing to help)

Fund raiser:
( I guess this project will have some cost. I would be great if some people would like to donate once we’re started)

General helper :
(People who will answer comments and questions, suggest ideas, and other)

  • Guillaume Côté (Answer comments and questions under the videos)

Others :
( Because I can’t think of everything)

  • Guillaume Côté (If not taken in the other categories or if they don’t ask him too much efforts, could help with modeling, rigging and other stuff like that)

P.S.: I know, I’m speaking about myself at third person but I just want to make this text impersonnal so everybody can use it as his own.

I also suggest to have a relatively small team on this project, or a small “leading” team. At least for the beginning. Because I think we will have to make some outside reunions to be sure we all have the same idea(same direction) and to assure coordination for the beginning. Once the site is started and running smoothly, we could accept more people to contribute.

Idea records

I think it would be nice to keep a track record of the ideas that came out to be sure to not forget any and keep a general idea of what we want.
General ideas :

  • BGE support sub-forums
  • Having support from Blender.org
  • One tutorial a week on the current game/level project until it is finished. Then we start another game/level project
  • Blender project to keep track of all patches outside trunk
  • A part of the site reserved to the development of the BGE
  • Having shorter tutorials(tips) in addition of the week’s tutorial on the paches, releases and quick tips.
  • Ressource base for game templates
  • include python in game tutorials

I thinks this is pretty much it. Feel free to add more cathegory or to start new thread, I will do my best to keep record of everything and put them in files so it will be esier and less confusing in the futur.

9

Hi
what are the sites with more documentation? (on BGE)
(I say ordered, no generic tutorial , I would thisI’m tired of “treasure hunt”)

10

I could contribute to the site if it starts up. I have many years in developing games in numerous game engines including blender.

I would say that we could do a few large scale tutorials spanning 10 or so segments (I would prefer text). A basic FPS and RPG wouldn’t be difficult at all to tutorialize (assuming that it would require a basic knowledge of python)

Ex.

11

I’m on python tutorials, from basic upwards

12

So there was a lot of ideas on the two threads… but where are we now?

Here is the list of everybody who said wanted to help :

  • agoos77 (Well, I didn’t read anywhere that you were volunteer but I guessed it)
  • Excalaberr
  • pez263
  • Guillaume Côté
  • Marco IT
  • strub (offered himself for the web management)
  • christiani_if

On the side of ideas, I haven’t put them together yet but it seems to me there are some opposite ideas.

I suggest all people interested in making the site meet (on audio conversation or real-time messaging) and discuss about how they would make the site and if they think it is a something they can do right now. We don’t want a start-up project that would die in midair now do we? I suggest we meet on skype or msn but if everybody feels better with another software I’m open.

You can response here or contact me by personal message if you’re interested and want to take part in the discussion. But only people who want to join the working teem, or else the discussion would be too big.

That’s all folks.

13

Guillaume, wouldn’t it be a good idea to make/find a “meeting place”, where we could start doing something?
I, for one, can be contacted via skype, yahoo, google mail/talk, teamspeak and blenderartists PM. Well, Let’s first state our local time zones, so we can set up a meeting time(if possible) - my local time is now GMT/UTC + 3, Bucharest, Romania(it will be GMT/UTC + 2 when the “clocks are re-set to match with the seasons, and light conditions”.)

14

I always liked good docs as a way to communicate, it has both chat for realtime conversation with people in similar timezones and the actual doc which you can edit and everyone else can see/edit when ever they get on.

My timezone is -6
Ex.

EDIT: I meant Google Docs not good docs :stuck_out_tongue:

15

yes, that would be the best way forward.

16

We’ll need some kind of forum, since it seems to be one of the best types of sites for tutorials(at least for organisation). The tutorials themselves could be written on Google Docs as you’ve said - I hope it has an option to make our tutorials read-only to our readers(with the rights to write applied only to us, the “authors”, as a definable group)?

17

Instead of having endless discussion on how to things, just simply start doing it.
http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Main_Page
Maybe wikibooks is a nice start for collecting ideas, writing tutorials and so on. Everyone could make tutorials, discussion and communication is also possible.

greetings,
moerdn

18

But Wikis are a bit uncomfortable to handle, they often fail because no one wants to keep them up. :confused:
Besides, if you want a Platform where everyone and anyone can upload a Tutorial (which might lead to a Free4All Effect => Quantity instead of Quality), you already have enough YouTube Tutoial Videos.
The Concept should rather keep reduced to a rather small Goup of Pros and Semi-Pros doing some well-structured Work. (That also is, Besides, why I do not offer my Help even though I would like to.)

19

Indeed, i dislike WIKI’s.
What we could do is host on a free host, but buy a domain name, to save money.

20

I’m thinking of breaking my character systems into small tutorials when I get time as life gets in the way more often than not.

I’d also recomend a retro section for 2.49 users. I personally save the webpage and blend files of tutorials I find the most informative for reference on my external harddrive.(I also save blends with new names like this AifromExcaliberr.blend so the proper people get credit.)

Just some thoughts,

Kuro.