Latest tutorials and getting started info??

[blahblahblahh]

Wanted to start a new Xith game, and I know a lot has changed since I last used it, so I went to xith3d.org (site not responding) and then xith.org, where I couldn't find a tutorials tab and the docs tab seems to have exactly the same contents it did last year.

Is there any way for someone to get started with Xith *NOW* - not using out of date info (that even a brief perusal of the top 10 threads on this forum shows would leave you way behind), but using whatever everyone else is using - without having to read through arbitrarily many of the threads on this forum until they "hope" they've found all the new stuff?

I would be delighted to be told I'm being thick and missed something obvious

[William Denniss]

I'm not sure what was up with the site when you checked, but I have not noted any extended peroids of downtime, perhaps you were just unlucky.

xith3d.org and xith3d.org appear both to be working.  If you click on the "Docs" page, you will see the installation guide, and getting started guide.

Cheers,

Will.

[Amos Wenger]

Maybe we should reread and correct the Getting Started Guide, and add some articles ?
I would be pleased to do that, if I find some time...

Games published by our own members! Check 'em out!

[William Denniss]

please do!

The GSG source is in xith-tk CVS.  We have used LaTeX.  If you want to add a tute, my advise is to grab an existing one to use as an example.

Cheers,

Will.

[Amos Wenger]

Could you tell me ONE tutorial subject that is completely lacking, not too difficult to make ( for a beginning ) ?

[wakeboardin]

ya quick note since where on tutorials none of the tutorials on the site will compile guess nobody has updated the code

[William Denniss]

there's one topic then

As for others, maybe picking would be good?  I don't think that's covered and a lot of people have questions.

What's your dev environment?  If Windows, probably the simplest way to setup latex is using cygwin if you are comfortable with a bash shell.

Cheers,

Will.

[Jens]

Please follow the hints on this page of the guide:

http://www.xith.org/tutes/GettingStarted/html/contributing_to_this_guide.html

Of course the best thing would be to have LaTeX and especially LaTeX2HTML installed, so you can run the ant build script in the xith-tk CVS and directly update the files in CVS (if you have the permission to do this). Especially if you want to do several tutorials or several small changes this is the preferred way.

However, if this is a real problem I think it is also possible to take an existing tex-file (see link above) and use it as a skeleton. There are just some simple commands (e.g. for including a code block or an image) listed in the link above, which are needed. If you have done a tutorial you can send the tex-file, java-file(s) and images (PNG preferred) to Will or me. (Currently it's probably better to send it to Will as I will have almost no time.)

[Amos Wenger]

I have no problem with LaTeX, because I'm using Linux...
I know LaTeX, so I don't have to learn...
Will, do you think the 10th tutorial about Picking isn't sufficient ? (http://xith.org/tutes/GettingStarted/html/picking.html)
I think it would be good to :
 - Do a tutorial on "How to use the Xith GUI system", when It'll be "useable"..
 - Extend the actual FAQ (Frequent bugs resolution, hints about shape attributes : polygon / transparency / coloring... )

[William Denniss]

Well people still ask a lot of questions.  They seem to be mainly about Ray intercection.

Will.

Games published by our own members! Check 'em out!

[Jens]

I think most questions about ray intersection are not covered in the picking tutorial. In the picking tutorial you have screen coordinates and want to find out, which object is picked given these coordinates. Ray intersection is a more general topic.