Webinars on Unigine engine

[binstream]

We are considering introducing webinars (trainings via internet) on the technology from the key people behind it.

If this is interesting for you, please suggest some specific topics you would like to be covered.

[steve.brodie]

Thats great Denis.

 

Topics I would like to see.

- Terrain Creation for washington demo, from Global to World Machine and into engine.

- How to use Schemer/Skinner

[lars.saalbach]

Hey, 

I realy like this update!
I like to get in touch with whole Unigine ;).

I mainly develop GUI at QB and would like to get more in touch with the GUI and its interactions with the world.

Like interaction points, triggering, bitmasking, between world and the GUI.

Also I realy want to get deeper in touch with the GUI like: How to draw a minimap, point the players on the minimap, and get this all into an "easy-piece" together. (I know there is already a question for this in the GUI section, which was answered, just as a sample above.)

 

Great stuff to hear!

Lars

[maimonides]

Advanced topics on terrain optimization

[honya]

What you must check and do for properly import .smesh files with separated animations in .sanim files and how work with it.

[demostenes]

Generally each topic is interesting, it depends if you are developer, artist...So all areas should be covered. I would only suppose to prepare such webinars as something for advanced users in given area, because basics are clear a can be easily learned from documentation/forum.

[snow_zhangy]

Great new! I also would like to see:

1: Workflow to generate huge terrain from real world. (from heightmap to veg mask, detail map...etc)

2:Optimization tips/tools/tricks

3: uniginescript optimization/debug

4: AI / Vehicle script tutorial.

[ulf.schroeter]

Now there are new plans for webinars...what about the planned series of video-tutorials ? Only the first one made it and then it seems that the idea was completely dropped...to be honest I would prefere some straight-forward follow-on video tutorials 

[binstream]

Now there are new plans for webinars...what about the planned series of video-tutorials ? Only the first one made it and then it seems that the idea was completely dropped...to be honest I would prefere some straight-forward follow-on video tutorials 

 

Ulf, our guys have recently successfully delivered several trainings for customers and it was useful due to direct feedback, so the idea is to bring this format online as well.

 

Regarding the video tutorials you are right, somehow it took forever to make more, our fault. We have revisited text ones, but it doesn't seem too useful to make video tutorials based on already available text ones.

[ulf.schroeter]

I would only suppose to prepare such webinars as something for advanced users in given area, because basics are clear a can be easily learned from documentation/forum.

Fully agree with demostenes, only that webinars according to my experience are good for some general overview presentation, but advanced topics are much better covered by technical articles (because it takes time to test complicated things on your own = real learning only by own doing).

 

One recent excellent example was http://unigine.com/articles/130605-procedural-content-generation/ But same issue here: 2 parts announced, just 1 released...new idea announced...

 

Denis, regarding your mentioned direct feedback for your own UNIGINE developments the forum already provides soooo much feedback on features customers would like to see in the engine...but unfortunately very often these general ideas/request are not even commented by unigine crew for weeks/month...

 

To be honest, right from the start we always got very often the feeling, that UNIGINE perception of the forum was more 'we have to provide this, but it's even more workload' instead of 'tremendous way to stay in close contact with our customers to solve their problems and get their requirements'.

 

Of course there were a lot of exceptions to this, but still in several-years-summary the forum looks more like a burden and very often announcement were made, but never or only years later provided. Just my personal perception, might be wrong here, but at least for me a little bit frustrating :mellow:

[binstream]

Ulf, I got your point. BTW I also agree that webinars are good for some kind of overview rather than for in-depth covering of the topic, text articles is better here (and they are introducing regularly in the documentation).

 

Forum isn't a burden, we do appreciate feedback from our customers a lot and the whole team is set to help customers as much as possible. The thing here is that we have a lot of different requests from different industries, so it's hard to implement all of them with limited resources.

 

Regarding the articles: second part is completed and published in Russian: http://habrahabr.ru/company/unigine/blog/184614/ now it's in translation into English.

[ulf.schroeter]

Regarding the articles: second part is completed and published in Russian: http://habrahabr.ru/company/unigine/blog/184614/ now it's in translation into English.

 

Denis, even though I can't read the text it is quite obvious right from the screenshots and overall structure that this will be once again an excellent article, exactly what is needed: in-depth information on real-world projects, workflows and overall tool chain tips and tricks (although it took 8-9 month to surface and I don't really understand why such kind of information is not published first here on the customer forum, but in some unknown blogs in Russian...)

[binstream]

Unfortunately it's easier for our artists to write in Russian first and it takes time to write in-depth article. Anyway, we have recently hired one more technical writer to speed up documenting the technology. That's what we can do for now.

 

Regarding the topic: webinars can be delivered a little bit faster (because we have some topics prepared), so the question is to understand whether is it interesting for developers or not.

[ulf.schroeter]

Forum isn't a burden, we do appreciate feedback from our customers a lot and the whole team is set to help customers as much as possible. The thing here is that we have a lot of different requests from different industries, so it's hard to implement all of them with limited resources.

 

Of course I fully understand this challenge as you have to act according to business demands. In fact it brings us back to the interesting discussion of general engine development strategy in a challenging competitor environment: try to be a "one fits all" general solution or focus on a high-end specialized solution.

 

I don't belive that both is possible at the same time and I still believe that far too much efforts are spend on supporting too many operating systems and shader languages causing more and more complex testing and hindering next-generation features. But of course there might be quite different views on the "the best" way of ensuring future business success, time will tell :)