Indigo Renderer Forum

thednx wrote:Maybe we can work on a license discount once it is finished

Sure, email me about it

I've read through it last night and will provide some more feedback tonight.

Very nice start and very well written. The way you have started, however, almost seems to be more like a fully fledged handbook rather than a collection of Tutorials on the most pressing issues.

Perhaps a good mixture of both would be interesting. I've written a little installation tutorial for Blendigo and Mac OSX as its; different from Windows, or Linux and although not many Mac users are around, I've answered some of the same questions more than once and that little document clarifies some of the usual questions.

It is attached in zipped Open Office (ODS) format.

Wow, the ball is rolling now!

I just got some feedback for using light layers, am rebuilding that section as we speak.
...will have a look at your document and implement it!

ABout the document being more of a manual than a set of tutorials...i will put some more thought into the layout (make it tutorial focused, with the details as an add-on).

will update you soon!

thx.

Thank you!

Here is some serious activity going on... Nice writing!

Keep it up please!
This is really helpful!

@thednx

When I said it looked like you were going to write a full blown handbook that was no critique, just an observation. What I could imagine alongside a certain feature, is a reference to a little side tutorial.

For example, a handbook would explain what an Exit Portal is and that the volume must be fully enclosed and that the surface normal must point into the room etc.

Problems then arise because a user attempts to generate a simple scene. Sun shining into a room, through a glass window with Pathtracing chosen as the render method. That combination of Exit Portal and render mode only renders indirect lighting so the sun patch on the floor is missing. That is not explained anywhere. The poor soul also forgot to enable "glass acceleration" and the walls were full white

I would imagine a short tutorial explaining features in the context of a not too simple scene. This is probably bordering on heresy but I could do with something more ... ummmm... applicable than a Utah teapot or Suzanne.

There are other little scenes that new users often grind their teeth on. Caustics in a pol of water for example, or the first wine glass that unfortunately has a size similar to the Blender default cube thus the wine renders nicely black and what the heck was precedence for ?

This stuff is almost exclusively found by sifting through years of forum posts and there is a host of valuable little tricks that would be very nice to see written somewhere. I'll start digging for applicable forum threads and posts.

Also, you asked, nicer renders would be...well... nice. My quad core iMac mostly does nothing so I'd gladly render nicer images for the tutorial.

I think the idea of a "scene drill-down" is great!

...does anyone have a "full" scene that isnt too overgrown, but nonetheles good for a tutorial?

(if noone has a scene to "give up", then you will have to live with my humble circumstances and indigo finesse and i will create one )

that scene could then be broken down into a step-by-step basis....yes, i love that idea!

call me weird, but writing technical articles / books is really fun.

I picked out a scene from blendswap...and work with that. lets see how that goes
http://www.blendswap.com/blends/view/57034