Hello everybody,

since the release of the next Beta is near I thought I would quickly collect some information for you on how to learn Visual3d.net best. Please note that this list is only meant to collect the information that gives you a basic overview over the engine.

Overview

Scene Navigation Play Modes This video tutorial by Greg Smith tells you EVERYTHING about navigation in a scene. I watched it today and even though I am working with this everyday for almost a year now, I learnt a lot.

Avatar Navigation Same author as above, some awesomeness.

Design Mode Manipulation Same author here and definitely should be watched by everyone.

Import your Assets

First thing you need to know here is that Visual3d.net currently only imports Collada and Ogre Mesh. So if you have exporters for these in your modelling application you should be fine, though there are guides going through the details of this process available for the major modelling packages:

3ds Max 2009:  Collada Ogre Mesh

Maya: Export from Maya

Softimage (Autodesk) XSI: Ogre Mesh

Milkshape3D: Export from Milkshape3D

Blender: Blender to Visual3d.net

Basic material stuff

Normal Mapping from a texture This should give you an overview on how the material editor works.

Hooking up your model

Keymapping This one let’s you recreate the Lizardman from Demo Assets yourself.

Physics

How to configure the Physics System This one is the starting point when trying to work with physics.

Adding objects to a Physics System Same author, same tutorial series, now uses the created Physics System to simulate the dynamics of some primitives.

Physics Body Goes into the details of the properties of a physics actor.

These three are must read for everybody using Physics.

I got a tutorial in the works as well, I hope it will be finished soon.

Scripting and Cinematics

Simple Scripting Tutorial This one is by myself and it goes over the basics of scripting. A must read.

A second one is in the works.

If you are searching for a sample on scripting check out the Scripting sample that comes with Tech Demos. This is really worth some hours of investigation.

Cinematics Tutorial This video tutorial has been created for use with Beta 3.3 but the GUI and concepts are still the same, we only added some more features.

Environment

The new water A must read if you want to unleash the new water system.

Object Brush This contains some overview of a tool you probably would never use otherwise, but which is very useful.

Importing your terrain Goes into some details of the process and is really the howto guide on terrains.

If that all did not help you, we got other places to find help:

• Tooltips: These popup at many places in Visual3d.net, explaining you the features. Just look out for them, there are really a lot of these now.
• Xml documentation: A lot of the Visual3d.net API is now explained by the comments that popup when using IntelliSense in Visual Studio.
• Forums: Of course you can also post your question on the forums.

I hope this helps you all a bit. If you think I missed something or something is wrong, please post a comment below.

-Chris