v2 TUTORIAL engine Thread

I am in the middle of creating the modDB v2 tutorial engine.. actually i've finished it and i'm just wondering what tutorial categories and sub categories their should be?

at the moment i have

2D GFX
3D GFX (modelling)
Coding
Model Animating
Model Skinning

however to me the Model Skinning / 2D GFX etc.. overlap and will be confusing

so i'm wondering what your thinking? i'm thinking something along the lines of

GFX (graphics)
- Concept Art
- HUDS
Coding
Modelling
- Player Models
- Weapon Models
- Animating
- Skinning
Mapping

something like that i'm not certain i'm not a MODDER!! i create websites so i dunno.. what do you guys think?

as for how the tutorial system works.. well lemmie just say its sexeh and its like the news system, anyone can post a tut

- Edited By intense! On Wed 4th, Aug 2004 @ 2:44:10am

Perhaps several links on "How to make a Successful mod" including information about Necessary members, resources and contacts.

will add that, to help people out and avoid stooopid questions but yeah getting back to the question at hand... comon guys suggestions plz

Hmm, you might want a "deformations" and "wieghting" sections as a sub catagory for animation and modeling.

for example you have HUDS in your list.

HL and HL2 will be different. HUDS in Doom3 or lets say Farcry will be different to. So you can say HUDS but then youll sub catagories to each game respective rules to adding them.

You must have a tutorial that helps modders know to set up a mod. I know many games out there that are moddable, but people don't know how to set up to make a real mod.

Well, so long as it doesn't look like we're spoonfeeding them mods. They need to be ready to make a mod, not just be told how to.

I suggest taking all the stickied posts that help modders and put them into the tutorial. All of them are helpful one way or another.

For the 2D Gfx, you could have tutorials on concept art for a mod, and how to color them. For Skinning, you could find Photoshop tutorials. There's a strict line between 2d art and skinning, seeing as how I know a lot of people who can draw but not skin

I would also think you'd need a small website catagory.

Just simple things really like uploading to a server or finding hosting.

Most of the advanced graphics stuff would go else where, but maybe little html tips (dont use<blink>) or stuff like using php includes do make a sidemenu without frames. Some of the webdesign stuff would more go under features though.

What about debugging and stuff or would that fall under coders? And what about beta testers although they are not really necessary.

"Deformations" and "weighting", I'd say both would just go under animation... Unless you want to have lots of little subcategories? In that case to "coding" add 'weapons', 'enhancements', 'gameplay', 'misc'... err I don't know.

Just make absolutely sure tutorials are also sorted per game, or perhaps have the game icon in the table with the tutorial list. Of course there should also be a 'universal' type one too, a tutorial that would work for any game.

Also tutorials should be able to be rated 'easy' 'medium' or 'hard' by the author... perhaps even 'short' 'midsized' or 'long' too?

BTW I will be a hopefully regular contributor to the Quake tutorial section

edit: Oh... and there should probably be a 'Design' category, right? You can add tutorials there about stuff like starting a mod, designing a mod, designing mods of a certain genre, etc.

- Edited By SeienAbunae On Wed 4th, Aug 2004 @ 2:42:27pm

SeienAbunae wrote: "Deformations" and "weighting", I'd say both would just go under animation... Unless you want to have lots of little subcategories? In that case to "coding" add 'weapons', 'enhancements', 'gameplay', 'misc'... err I don't know.

Just make absolutely sure tutorials are also sorted per game, or perhaps have the game icon in the table with the tutorial list. Of course there should also be a 'universal' type one too, a tutorial that would work for any game.

Also tutorials should be able to be rated 'easy' 'medium' or 'hard' by the author... perhaps even 'short' 'midsized' or 'long' too?

BTW I will be a hopefully regular contributor to the Quake tutorial section

edit: Oh... and there should probably be a 'Design' category, right? You can add tutorials there about stuff like starting a mod, designing a mod, designing mods of a certain genre, etc.

thanks for the feedback guys, sein thats sorta what i'm after.. ok so i will add the 'Design' Tutorial category

as for breaking down into sub categories.. i want to keep things fairly generic, and let me quickly explain how the tutorial system works

You load the tutorial page and it lists all games.. you click a game then it lists all the tutorial categories for that game i.e. coding, mapping etc... then you click a category and it lists all of the tutorials sorted by difficulty level

But you can choose your own sorting right? Like, click on the table headers for length, difficulty, name, author, whatever and sort it by that.

lol what about just concepts in general maybe stress the importances of a mod that isn't a cliche of so many others out there :/

Well, I can see that Intense had already taken cared of sorting. Its a typical thing to do when making a tutorial database.

Just make sure that tutorials are sorted by game, since all games do things differently.

The Structure of the tutorials should look like this in my opinion:

- Texturing
- Skinning
- Modelling
- Animating
- Coding
- Level Editing
- Design
- Misc

And of course, I'll post UnrealScript tutorials.

this is what i decided on, do you think this is acceptable? because i quite like what you came up with SCM

Coding
GFX (2D graphics)
- Concept Art
- HUDS
- Textures
Mapping
Modelling
- Player Models
- Weapon Models
- Animation
- Skinning
Sounds
- In-game (general)
- Voice Acting

Yeh, good idea intense!. Basically what youve done is made simple categories and added sub categories. Making things much more simpler to navigate. Good job. Though I qould recommend adding a category called "General Modding", which is basically the central information which will help mod leaders get started.

yea very cool

Looks like a great plan INtense, and it should work with even the older games. One question though: will there be game-specific tutorials? For example, mapping for Fallout 2 or Warcraft 3 is much different than for Half-Life or Daggerfall.

Read back frosty.

ShortCutMan wrote: Read back frosty.

Doh!

*me slaps head

Two mistakes in one day, that can't be good. Oh well, at least we have that aspect covered. ;D

just make sure there is a decent search function... all those cathegories are nice but in my experiences are less worth the troubles unless there is a good search.

cathegories => troubles
search engine => rules.

People Resource tutorials...

Video Tutorials, like on www.3dbuzz.com

no search functionality as of yet but i will implement it eventually..

(not high priority at present)