
# Make the Best use of The Forum

The [Babylon.js forum](https://forum.babylonjs.com) is a fantastic place to get help or help others.
This short page is intended to help you get the best answer as quickly as possible.

## What to do if you have a question for the forum

The best way to get an answer quickly is to follow this 3 easy steps:

- Search about your issue on the [documentation](/search). Maybe the problem you have is just a matter of understanding how the API works?
- Search about your issue on the [forum](https://forum.babylonjs.com/search). Maybe someone else already had the same problem?
- Provide a reproduction of your issue within the [playground](https://playground.babylonjs.com). Questions with a playground are likely to get a answer within the next two hours. It is really hard for the community to help without a repro because of the inner rich nature of JavaScript, WebGL and Babylon.js. Consider this step **mandatory**.

## Go Explore

Thank you so much for taking the time to read through these first 3 starting pages of the documentation. We sincerely hope that they will help you get started off with a solid foundation and help you accelerate your learning.

The next step in your learning journey is entirely your choice, but if you're looking for suggestions, then we'd recommend either diving into the [Babylon.js Features](/features) category to start using Babylon and learn about the rich capabilities of the engine....OR....visiting the [Adding Babylon.js to Your Web Project](/workflow) category to learn how to get your Babylon.js web application set up successfully.



## How It's Organized

Having [started your journey](/journey) and having an overview of Babylon.js, the documentation is designed to take you step by step further on the journey of mastering all that this platform has to offer. The information is organized into an overview and 9 main sections, which contain chapters, together with a detailed API section, and search facilities.

1. [Babylon.js Features](/features) - Babylon.js is a fully featured game and rendering engine with a wide range of features. This section takes you through these features and helps you to, code and build with them.
2. [Adding Babylon.js to Your Web Project](/setup) - There are a variety of ways to use Babylon.js in your web application and get a Babylon.js project set up. This section will help you to understand the possibilities and provides you with some templates and support for doing so.
3. [Playground](/playground) - A detailed look at the central Babylon.js resource, how to use it and the many facilities it has to offer, including the ability to search all the playgrounds for examples of what others have done.
4. [Tools And Resources](/toolsAndResources) - Babylon.js has many incredible tools to make the development process simple and enjoyable. It also has several libraries of content available for you to use completely for free. This section will help you understand and leverage both.
5. [Preparing Assets for Babylon.js](/preparingArtForBabylon) - From models and animations, to textures, LUTS, and HDR images, in this section learn the workflows and methods to prepare content for Babylon.js.
6. [Babylon.js Cross-Platform](/crossPlat) - In this section you'll learn how to extend Babylon.js beyond the web and use it to develop native applications for just about any platform you can imagine.
7. [Contribute](/contribute) - For those of you who want to expand the boundaries of Babylon.js this section describes what is needed and how to contribute to both the code base of Babylon.js and its documentation.
8. [Guided Learning](/guidedLearning) - Sometimes it's best to learn while doing. This section helps you do just that. These step by step articles and tutorials will help you learn from some of the communities best and brightest teachers.
9. [Community Extensions](/communityExtensions) - In this section you'll find incredible resources and extensions to Babylon.js, built by the incredibly talented and passionate community.

## How To Use The Documentation

Babylon.js is a rich API designed to make it as easy as possible to leverage the power of the GPU for your web experience. You can leverage this powerful API by writing Babylon.js scene code in either javascript or typescript. For the purposes of consistency and maximizing accessibility of the documentation, all example code found in these pages will be provided in javascript.

The documentation page layout has several features that you'll want to know about in order to get the most out of your learning journey.

To start, the left most panel is the navigation pane. This pane is how you navigate to where you'd like to go.

![Navigation Pane](/img/home/home1.jpg)

Next is the content pane. It's in the middle, and you guessed it, it contains the main content and information.

![Content Pane](/img/home/home2.jpg)

Some pages have a lot of information that's organized into sub sections. The table of contents pane makes it easy to navigate lengthier pages.

![Table of Contents](/img/home/home4.jpg)

The panel on the right is the examples pane. It provides quick access to every playground (live examples) on the current page.

![Examples Pane](/img/home/home3.jpg)

Lastly, if you select any one of the examples in the examples pane, it will load that example inside of the playground pane at the top of the page content.

![Examples Pane](/img/home/home5.jpg)

## A note on versioning

The Babylon.js Documentation is written with the latest major version of Babylon.js in mind. [The API docs](/typedoc) are generated against the latest nightly build.

If you want to install Babylon.js locally using the latest version, please pick the latest release [from the npm page](https://www.npmjs.com/package/@babylonjs/core), and then run:

```shell
 npm i @babylonjs/core@preview
```

Don't be scared about using the latest version. Babylon's npm releases are considered stable and are fully tested by the team.

## The Babylon.js Forum

Next up is to learn about [The Babylon.js Forum](/journey/forum), the place where the community and dev team dive in every day to help each other learn and advance this wonderful platform.



## EVERYONE's very first step

Welcome to "The Very First Step." This document is designed for absolutely EVERYONE. Whether you're an expert web developer diving into 3D, an amazing artist wanting to create 3D experiences on the web, a student/tinkerer curious about programming, or an absolute beginner, this is your very first step to learning Babylon. We strongly encourage everyone new to Babylon to go through this doc before going any futher through the docs.

This doc will take you on a VERY brief journey of creating and hosting your very first Babylon.js Web Experience. You'll learn about the Babylon.js playground, scratch the surface of learning the core engine, and save your work as a ready-to-host .html file.

### The Babylon.js Playground

The single most important tool available to you as you learn and develop with Babylon, is the Babylon.js Playground.

![playground](/img/home/playground.jpg)

The playground is your toybox, your tinker environment, your laboratory. This simple website allows you to write Babylon code on the left, and see instant updates on the right. It's really that simple.

The playground is CRITICAL to your learning journey for two reasons:

- 1. An amazing cycle of code --> see updates instantly. Learn by doing!
- 2. It's saveable & shareable!

Why is saveable & shareable important for learning? Through your Babylon journey, you will undoubtedly come across something that you could use some help figuring out. It is important that you have a safe and welcoming space to ask for help! This is why the core dev team staffs the [Babylon.js Forum](https://forum.babylonjs.com/) every weekday, so we can be there alongside you to help you learn.

And when it comes time to help you learn or solve a problem, we need to SEE and UNDERSTAND the context behind the problem. Sharing your saved playgrounds is the PERFECT solution and is mandatory on the forum. When you're stuck, save your playground, head to the forum, reach out for help, and share the playground. We think you'll be pleasantly surprised at how quickly you'll get help by following this process.

So now that you know the playground is the single most important tool to start learning, let's open it up in a new tab.

[Babylon.js Playground](https://playground.babylonjs.com/)

### Your First Creation

Welcome to the Playground! Using the playground is as simple as modifying/creating code in the code editor on the left, and seeing updates in the live Babylon scene on the right! You'll also see a default Babylon scene that we've set up for you. Take a quick look at the comments in green font in the code editor. These comments should give you a basic idea of what's happening with each line of code that's written. Pretty simple right?

There's no better way to start learning than by doing, so let's make our first scene update!

On lines 20-24 you see the following lines of code:

```javascript
// Our built-in 'sphere' shape.
var sphere = BABYLON.MeshBuilder.CreateSphere("sphere", {diameter: 2, segments: 32}, scene);

// Move the sphere upward 1/2 its height
sphere.position.y = 1;
```

Go ahead and highlight those lines of code and hit DELETE! You've just made your first change! Feel good? But wait, nothing happened in the scene? That's because we have to re-run the scene with our changes. You can do that by either pressing ALT+ENTER on your keyboard or pressing the 'run' button in the UI.

![run](/img/home/run.jpg)

BOOM! The sphere is gone!

<Playground id="#2KRNG9" title="Playground 1" description="Goodbye Sphere!"/>

Quick side note - Throughout this document we'll add links to playgrounds showing you exactly what changes were just made. You can reference these playgrounds with your own progress if you ever get stuck. The little arrow symbol will open these playgrounds in a new tab.

Let's make another change!

Find the line of code that creates the ground plane and add these new lines underneath it:

```javascript
let groundMaterial = new BABYLON.StandardMaterial("Ground Material", scene);
ground.material = groundMaterial;
ground.material.diffuseColor = BABYLON.Color3.Red();
```

Run the scene again (ALT+ENTER, or run button)

<Playground id="#2KRNG9#1" title="Playground 2" description="The ground is red!"/>

Congratulations! You just created a new material, assigned that new material to the ground plane, and assigned it's diffuse channel to be the color red! Pretty cool huh?! Don't worry if some of that is still a bit confusing, the takeaway here is that you're making code changes on the left and seeing updates on the right.

Ok time for another change.

Find this line:

```javascript
ground.material.diffuseColor = BABYLON.Color3.Red();
```

Replace it with these two lines and run the scene again:

```javascript
let groundTexture = new BABYLON.Texture(Assets.textures.checkerboard_basecolor_png.rootUrl, scene);
ground.material.diffuseTexture = groundTexture;
```

<Playground id="#2KRNG9#2" title="Playground 3" description="The ground is checkered!"/>

Pretty cool! You've now created your first Babylon.js texture and assigned it to the texture property of your ground material!

Ok it's time for another addition to the scene. After all of your ground-related code, give yourself a little space by hitting enter and on a new line press CTRL+SPACE. This will spawn a list of playground templates. These templates are handy pieces of code that you will likely reuse over and over again through your Babylon learning journey. Go ahead and select the template that says "Import a Mesh w/Callback".

![templates](/img/home/playgroundTemplates.jpg)

You should see the following lines of code pop right into the playground:

```javascript
BABYLON.SceneLoader.ImportMesh("meshName", "url to the mesh parent directory", "Mesh filename.fileextension", scene, function(newMeshes){

});
```

let's do a few more things:

- 1. Delete the word 'meshName' but leave the quotes "".
- 2. Replace "url to the mesh parent directory" (including quotes) with this:

```javascript
Assets.meshes.Yeti.rootUrl
```

- 3. Replace the "Mesh filename.fileextension" (including quotes) with this:

```javascript
Assets.meshes.Yeti.filename
```

- 4. After the BABYLON.SceneLoader.ImportMesh line, but before the "});" add the following line:

```javascript
newMeshes[0].scaling = new BABYLON.Vector3(0.1, 0.1, 0.1);
```

- 5. Run the scene

<Playground id="#2KRNG9#3" title="Playground 4" description="Yeti on the dance floor!"/>

Whoa! Cool! You just added an animated .gltf object into the scene! And you also scaled it down to fit on the groundplane! Well done!

Let's change one final thing. We want our scene to be interactive, after all isn't that what why you're here - to create interactive web experiences?

Delete lines 5-9.

Press CTRL+SPACE to bring up the playground templates and create an Arc Rotate Camera.

Run the scene and click+drag or touch+drag on the Babylon scene.

<Playground id="#2KRNG9#4" title="Playground 5" description="Move that camera!"/>

WooHoo! You've added interaction to the scene! Great job! Go ahead and save your playground by pressing CTRL+S or hitting the save button.

![save](/img/home/save.jpg)

### The .html File

At this point, let's say we're happy with our creation, and we want to put the Babylon scene (without the code editor and UI) out into the world for everyone to play with.

Getting your Babylon scene ready to host is as simple as pressing a button. Either press SHIFT+CTRL+S or press the Download button to download an .html file of your Babylon scene to your system.

![download](/img/home/download.jpg)

That's it! You've got everything you need for the world to see your first Babylon experience! Now all we need to do is host it somewhere for the world to see it!

### Hosting Your Babylon Project

Ok time to host this experience. If you're not familiar with web hosting, it basically means putting your web experience in a place where the whole world can access/see it. The world of hosting web pages is HUGE and what follows is just ONE example of how to do it. It is by no means the only way to host a page.

For this first step into Babylon we're going to use something github pages, because it's easy and free.

Let's start by heading over to [GitHub](https://github.com/).

You'll need to log in (or sign up if you're new to github...it's free).

Next, we'll create a new repository.

![newRepo](/img/home/newRepo.jpg)

Give your new repo a cool name and make sure to check the "Add a README file."

![newRepoDetails](/img/home/newRepoDetails.jpg)

Congratulations! You've just set up a new GitHub repository! Yay!

Now let's add the downloaded Babylon Playground files to this repository.

Click on "Add file" and then "Upload files"

![uploadFiles](/img/home/uploadFiles.jpg)

Locate the file that you downloaded from the Babylon.js playground and drag it onto this page. Then press the "Commit changes" button.

![uploadCommit](/img/home/uploadCommit.jpg)

One last step and then your Babylon Experience will be hosted with a live url for anyone to see.

Hit the "Settings" button on the main repo page.

![settings](/img/home/settings.jpg)

Navigate to the "Pages" menu item, set the "Branch" to "main", and hit the save button.

![pages](/img/home/pages.jpg)

After your settings are saved you'll see the url to your new live website! You can share that url with anyone that you'd like!

![url](/img/home/url.jpg)

Congratulations! You just built and hosted your very first Babylon.js web experience!

### Documentation Overview

Before you take off and explore Babylon further, we humbly ask that you read one additional article. Babylon.js is a rich and powerful engine and we've worked hard to provide a LOT of documentation to help you learn it. The last part of the first step of your Babylon journey is to get an overview of how the documentation is organized.

[Learning the Babylon.js Documentation](/journey/learningTheDocs)



## Welcome - Your Journey Starts Here

Hello and welcome to Babylon.js! We know you're eager to start your learning journey, but before you dive any deeper or go clicking around, we'd humbly ask that you take the time to read through the following three very important documents. Reading these docs will set you up for success as you begin your Babylon.js learning journey.

- [Your Very First Step](/journey/theFirstStep)
- [Learning The Docs](/journey/learningTheDocs)
- [The Babylon.js Forum](/journey/forum)


## Welcome To The Babylon.js Documentation

Hello and welcome to the Babylon.js Documentation. In these pages you will find everything you could ever want to know about this powerful, beautiful, simple, and completely open-source web rendering engine. Whether you are just starting your Babylon.js journey, or you are a seasoned veteran, it is our sincere hope that the information contained here will help you bring your ideas to life.

We know that each person comes to Babylon.js with different backgrounds, experiences, and learning styles. We also understand that each one of you has a different goal in mind for your learning journey. We've done our best to organize these doc pages to help the most amount of people reach their learning goals as effeciently as possible. Though 2 parts of a whole, we know that many of you want to dive right into Babylon.js, learning about the engine and its features. While others of you prefer to start by understanding how to get Babylon.js set up and integrated into a web application. You'll find learning paths for both of these interests in the coming pages.

However, before you go any further, we strongly encourage (and humbly ask) EVERYONE to [Start Your Babylon.js Journey Here.](journey/theFirstStep)

![Babylon](/img/home/babylonjs_identity_color.png)

Your Journey Starts Here

Welcome - Your Journey Starts Here

Coming next

The Very First Step

Your first Babylon interactive 3D experience

Learning The Docs

A quick overview of how the Babylon.js documentation is layed out.

Make the Best Use of the Forum

Learn about the best place to get help, the Babylon.js forum.