Questions about 'Making a Game Part 1'

I am following the tutorial: Making a Game Part 1: The Character
and I am noticing there are some parts of the tutorial that don't match with what I'm seeing in the source files. I thought maybe some techniques or structure of Blend4Web may have changed since that tutorial was published, so I would like to ask about those parts.

Question 1) Where it instructs "Lets switch to the Blender Game mode" I was confused because I thought it should be "switch to the Blend4Web engine" or something like that. Just today I read that the Blend4Web engine switch menu is relatively new, so maybe using the interface of the BGE is the old way of doing it?



Question 2) There is a section that explains about the environment group inside of main_scene.blend, which is linked to by game_example.blend:
"The environment group of objects (from the main_scene.blend file) - this group contains the static scene models and also their copies with the collision materials."
What is meant by "collision materials", and why are they stored in the environment group?
My only guess what that somehow the material changes when a collision happens, but I think that can be done by animating just the materials (no need to swap the whole object). Is this a legacy technique being described here, or am I completely misunderstanding?

Question 3) Inside character_model.blend there is a mesh object called character_collider, and it is the parent of character_body (mesh) and character_rig (armature). The animations are stored in a separate file called character_animation.blend. The tutorial mentions these animations as components linked to game_example.blend:
"The baked animations character_idle_01_B4W_BAKED and character_run_B4W_BAKED (from the character_animation.blend file)."
What's confusing is that I don't see any data named character_idle_01_B4W_BAKED or character_run_B4W_BAKED.
Inside character_animation.blend I see character (mesh) and character_proxy (armature). character_proxy has one animation data block on it, but it is named character_run.
This is why I am confused about where the idling animation is stored, and why the names don't match what is described in the tutorial.



Thanks in advance for any help. I would really like to understand how this game demo works. Many questions arise as I study.

so maybe using the interface of the BGE is the old way of doing it?

Yes, the blend4web interface have many changes since this tutorial was written. It's in our to do list to rewrite some of tutorials. Now you can find all settings in blend4web engine mode.

What is meant by "collision materials", and why are they stored in the environment group?

Collision matials is a special material that need to detect collisions between dynamic objects and object that have this collision material. For example character collision or enemies. It's separated into separate object and material for more clean understanding what you are doing, you can use the same materal and mesh for rendering and collisions in one object.

Inside character_animation.blend I see character (mesh) and character_proxy (armature). character_proxy has one animation data block on it, but it is named character_run.

All animations are in charachter_animation.blend file, look at the animation list.

Now you can find all settings in blend4web engine mode.

Good to know. I suspected that, but wanted to confirm.

Collision matials is a special material that need to detect collisions between dynamic objects and object that have this collision material.

Interesting! I had never heard of anything like this before. I have only known materials to influence the appearance of objects.
I looked this up in the B4W Manual and it's listed under Static Physics Type. Does this mean it can't be used on a moving character, only things like ground, walls, and other unmoving geometry?

All animations are in charachter_animation.blend file, look at the animation list.

I see now - I was expecting all animations to be visible in the Outliner, but Blender will only show the active one.

Thank you for explaining these things!

Does this mean it can't be used on a moving character, only things like ground, walls, and other unmoving geometry?

Yes, right, it can't be used only for static type of collision like walls, floors etc.

Thank you for explaining these things!

You are welcome!