I posted this in User Contributions, but I thought it would be good to place here as well:

Hello all!

As promised in my thread about the new book I am authoring about GameStudio, the section on WED will be released for free and released this week. Here is the cover:



The manual is in PDF format, so you will need the free Adobe Acrobat reader to read and print the file.

Vertually every aspect of WED is covered in this 69 page manual and many topics have graphics and screen shots to help explain the concepts. Here is the link to download the ZIP file that contains the PDF file:

http://www.m3dd.com/3dgs/WedManual.zip

This is an initial release and there may be errors. If you find any please report them to me by sending me an email to the following email address:

contact@master3ddesign.com

There was one thing that I did not have an explanation for and perhaps one of you could help me out. When you go to the file menu and click on PREFERENCES and go to the ADVANCED tab you will see a check box for Sky Cube. What exactly does that check box enable/disable? Obviously it deals with a sky cube, but in what manner? Does it enable WED to display a sky cube in the 3D view if it is defined in an attached script?

Well, what are you waiting for? Go and get it and let me know what you think (if you don't mind).

Well, this is the longest explination of the absolute basics of WED I have ever seen. It does a good job of covering EVERYTHING when it comes to the basics, and ventures into slightly, but not very, technical topics a few times. I would only recoment this to the developer who just bought Gamestudio last week, seeing as it contains only basic material.

That being said, the style and orginization seems to work nicely. I did not read word for word, of course, but it seems like the flow and setup are functional. I really like the link index at the beginning, as it works nicely for me to start out whereever I want, with a single click. I was hoping for more of a "level desigh" guide, rather than a "this is where the build button is" guide, if you know what I mean.

Keep it up. I hope to see more hands-on topics... I am assuming that this is only the introduction to give the reader a feal for where things are on the interface. Again, good work, thanks for the contribution!

Thanks for the feedback! I should have posted a link to the following thread at the very beginning:

http://www.coniserver.net/ubbthreads/showflat.php/Cat/0/Number/654930/an/0/page/0#Post654930

I am in the process of writing a very comprehensive book on 3D GameStudio from a design perspective (i.e. no programming, but level design, model design, lighting, etc). The list of what I intend to include is in the link I just posted. The WED portion of the book I am releasing for free. The reason I am doing this is two fold.

First of all, the current GameStudio manual is very lacking. Many features are not covered AT ALL in it. I have seen many posts no the forum where people ask how to access a certain WED function or request a feature that was already in WED. They didn't know about it (most likely) because there is little to no information about it in the "official" manual.

Secondly, this manual is a sort of advertisment for my book. It gives readers and idea of my writing style and how in-depth I am willing to go. In other words, if I am willing to go in-depth on the tools, then what about when I talk about lighting issues or level design aspects?

I hope this helps you to understand where I am coming from with this WED manual.

Quote:

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I was hoping for more of a "level desigh" guide, rather than a "this is where the build button is" guide, if you know what I mean.

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While I can understand this, please note that the PDF book is called a "WED Manual". That should lead one to think that it is a manual about WED. A level design manual might be called something like a "Level Design Manual" .

And how is the book coming along?