Updated Blendigo Manual

[Soup]

Alright here's the primo updated Blendigo manual, with added pictures!
Let me know if you spot any spelling/grammer issues/massive holes in content and I'll get right on it.

You can grab it from here: Blendigo Manual

[dougal2]

Thanks Joel!

[Doug Armand]

one suggestion - rename the file something like 'blendigo_manual.pdf' because in a month or so i'll find this file on my harddrive and thinks it's a manual for Blender not Blendigo

[Silmä]

It still needs better pictures... The ones used now just don't do justice to the amazing power in Indigo. And aren't exactly professional looking...

Maybe start a new competition: sample images for different options in Indigo, that could be used in all manuals.

[Soup]

It still needs better pictures... The ones used now just don't do justice to the amazing power in Indigo. And aren't exactly professional looking...

Maybe start a new competition: sample images for different options in Indigo, that could be used in all manuals.

That's not a bad idea Silma, might as well show off Indgio in the manuals too

[fbrunell]

Regarding typos... would you like them here or through e-mail? Here's one :

"Indigo is physically based" page 8
Indigo is a physically based renderer, that means that if "***** it *****" is possible to
construct a photo in the real world...

[Soup]

I think you misunderstand the phrase, Indigo itself is not 'physically based', but its theory is: based on the physics of light.

But if you find some other typos fire me an e-mail at joel@indigorenderer.com
churs

[SaphireS]

Apart from the quality of the pictures (could be much better, I'm sure many of us would gladly help you there) I would like to see some comparison-images!
eg. aperture diffraction or DOF, I think it's better to see the difference between the same scene with aperture diff. enabled and disabled,
with just one picture for each feature it's kinda hard to get what the feature does.
This applys to nearly all pictures explaining features in this manual (except clay render iirc).

Just curious, what's the reason not to show the full material object but just a part of it when explaining the different material types?

Other than that it looks good!

[Soup]

It's supposed to be a 'light' version, and if you really want to know more read the Indigo manual.
But you're right, the images could do with a bit of polish.
One day it would be nice to have it all online with links going everywhere

[dougal2]

It's supposed to be a 'light' version, and if you really want to know more read the Indigo manual.

Can I disagree slightly?

Seeing as (to a Blender user) Blendigo is the 'major interface' to what's available in Indigo, I think the Blendigo manual should be just as complete as the Indigo manual, except showing things from a Blendigo point of view.

e.g. The Indigo manual might say that a type of material called 'Specular' exists, and what its parameters are, however the Blendigo manual should say that 'Specular materials can make shiny, transparent, glass and skin materials, and to do each of those you need to push these buttons and enter these values in this order in these boxes here *point to screenshot* ... etc ... ' ?

[Soup]

Yeah I think you're right Dougal, users probably are only using one 3d package to export to Indigo so only need info tailored to them.

Well it's all there, the specific blendigo stuff, and the Indigo stuff - just need to merge the two together I guess
An online database type manual I think would be best, the Autodesk Maya one is really great and I use it all the time.

[SaphireS]

It's supposed to be a 'light' version, and if you really want to know more read the Indigo manual.

Ah I see, so the goal is to write in the blendigo manual: "Click here in blendigo to enable Apertue Diffraction",have a pretty picture next to it and a link to the main Indigo manual where ap.diff. is explained in depth?
That sounds reasonable to me, I really like online documentation, like autodesk does it or a wiki.

However for the time beeing there are only pdfs.
Why not take the Indigo manual as a basis and write the blendigo manual on top of it?
Just add a screenshot and an explanation of how to enable this in blendigo to every feature explained in the Indigo manual.

[Godzilla]

So, here's what I've been doing this weekend.

First, new covers for all the manuals, because currently they are all completely different

(Right click + view image to see full size covers)









And new images for the Blendigo Manual (Or all manuals):

Aperture Diffraction on/off-

(F-Stop 64)





Clay Render on/off-





Depth of Field-

(Close monkey is 20 cm away, far is 1m away. 8 F-Stop)



Environment types-





(HDRI by HDRI Labs)


Subdivision on/off-



(2 Subdivision levels)


Alpha Render-

[Soup]

Awesome stuff Godzilla, you da man!

These are going straight in, thanks heaps!

*edit: Hey I was wondering; do you think you could do those same scenes but with some generic object instead? I don't want Indigo to look like it's icon is the blender monkey
The monkey ones will go in the Blender manual, but something else would be great for the others

[Godzilla]

Yes that's what I was thinking... perhaps the Utah Teapot?