I’ve been learning armory for a while now and it’s very very frustrating. The doc doesn’t have enough information to work with. This leads to very little tutorials on the web and the code examples I find or get redirected to are too hard to understand. The only way I’ve been able to learn armory so far was by bugging people in discord. Which is every inefficient: The more I have to talk to people working on armory the less time they have to work on armory. I urge everyone that is part of the core team and/or understands armory well enough to work on the documentation and tutorials. I’m pretty new but I’m willing to help with this.
The lack of learning sources is costing armory a lot of users and potential donations. The more users get interested in armory the more they will ask in discord and the forums. This ton of extra work can be avoided by providing a solid base to learn from. In my opinion the documentation needs the same amount of time put into as the coding of the software itself.
There is examples, but you must guess how they work.
For example i didn’t paid attention navigation needs a bundled class or soft body physics needs mesh faces smooth.
Tutorials showing important things would help.
Also note that some things are not in the documentation like for example a new logic node “look at” not available in Armory distribution.
It’s too much work, this should be done by users and not Lubos.
Perhaps Lubos could provide tutorial template and guide we could follow to create new tutorials for Armory 3D learning documentation ?
Is lubos the only armory developer? Users can only document what they have learned. If documenting isn’t lubos forte we need some that understand armory as much as possible as lubos does but work on the docs instead.
I’ve been working on some logic examples that we can add but other than that I don’t know armory well enough.
As far as I know, yes, Lubos is the only full time developer. Anything else is being added by the comunity. There is already the ability to go on github and edit the documentation. You may have to wait for Lubos to approve it but it is already being done by others.
If you have ever worked with other projects at this stage of development, the documentation is always lacking or lagging behind. Is it tough to get threw? Yes. But this is the nature of the beast. We can only ask if others want to work on the documentation. We can’t force anyone to do that. So you can make the request, but then you just have to hope others will come threw or do it yourself.
With a project that is not even in Alpha, the host program in the midst of a major over hall and not everything working quite right tutorials will be hard to come by.
Yes, the docs need work, but a thing to understand is how much the engine is changing all the time. The fact that a lot of the examples work is actually pretty impressive when you consider how much is being worked on and potentially changed to accommodate new features and fixes. Lubos is the only core developer and if he spent the time to document everything he wouldn’t have the time to actually experiment and change the engine as he works stuff in and changes stuff up. It is a lot of work do manage and keep documentation up-to-date and he has done the best he can at that while still working on the engine and making it worth documenting.
I have gotten a pretty good understanding of some portions of armory by using it and checking out/hacking on core code. If you ask questions on the forum about how stuff works, you might get answers from me or somebody else who might understand it, and if you get an answer you could work on documenting it if that is what you wanted to do. I don’t have a whole ton of time to actually work on the docs because I have stuff that I need to do, but it is easier for me to answer questions on the forum.
Armory is lot more capable and advanced than many other free 3D engines (visual script with easy to create new logic nodes, shader editing , modern visuals, animations blending with events, navmesh, vertex paint, all Blender tools to make levels).
It just need some bugs correction, but it’s already very capable.
I don’t know about next updates, i suppose it will support only Blender 2.8 as previous versions will be too different and obsolete.
About documentations, the best is tutorials showing all steps to create something in particular, as some features may change.
Yeah, Armory is changing, a lot 0.6 will be released Dec or Jan and then 0.7, 0.8, 0.9, 1.0, if this is how it going to go and 1.0 is the stable release then doc should be started. It not easy to make doc and it not too hard either.
It would not be problem for me to change doc every update because on 4 updates left till stable release.
Armory 0.6 is going to release after blender 2.8 beta come out and will ditch blender 2.79.
Armory Tutorials are must needed or it will be like other new game engine where they lack tutorials(Xenko, Luberyard), making more tutorial then mentioned game engine will have high possibility of snatching users.
It for lubos and it community to decide whether Armory need to grab spotlight now or sometime after(I agree that lubos is the only main dev and it hard for him to handle big community).
From my point of view, a working Armory software is the first measure of progress.
Then this forum+the github/pulls requests are available in order that changing requirements are embraced for the user’s competitive advantage.
Thus I think that Lubos, as an alone developer, has to keep the simplicity, that maximizes the work that is not done, and it’s essential for him to keep time.
More, the available examples is a good way to make tests/debug of the software as well to train the growing community of users and get feedbacks on thoses examples.
Adding more creation/maintenance of documentation seems to me premature in this sense, unless it’s taken care of by the community.
In this sense, a section of the forum on tips/advices/essentials could be created and help in the meantime.
I think if there is anybody who wants to help with the docs and tutorials we should work together as a community to get that done. Those who are good with writing docs can start that while we collaborate on stuff that needs to be figured out on the forum. It would also be good if we put together a list of tutorials or examples that should be created. As we work through creating the missing examples/tutorials it will also help reveal bugs and things that need to be fixed in order to create a functioning game.
As said before it’s perhaps too soon for docs as many things can change, but anyone can make docs right away if they wish.
While i find example tutorials very helpful, and people can ask author when they don’t understand something.
I am actually updating the entire logic nodes doc. Of Course, if anybody one to help with it then I will be more than happy. Thing like Animation and Physics need really much attention when it comes to tutorial and examples.
If you like to help me now, then can you please:
Make doc on Logic Nodes’s Value and image of the nodes with blender 2.8 and with .JPG format (This needed to be split into two part i.e., logic_nodes_value1.md, logic_nodes_value2.md).
Do same for Native and Animation Nodes doc as mention above.
I can help making small examples when there will be “tutorials”.
Let people download and test before some could become included in Armory examples package.