I am a complete beginner.
Xenko is the first 3D Engine I’m using and before I had only experience with various RPG-Makers (though I did mess around with the UE3 and even before that with Genesis3D a long time ago, but I gave up quickly and never tried anything serious with them).
So far I’ve tried looking around in the engine, but I didn’t really manage to find a good point to start and I feel lost.
What is the most efficient way of learning to use Xenko?
I would first recommend (if you have not already) that you learn C# as best you can. That is what I am in the process of doing myself now. There are a lot of resources out there for that, from books to online tutorials. It has been recommended to me that I try out MonoGame first, which is an open source implementation of the Microsoft XNA 4 Framework, before diving into Xenko.
MS no longer actively supports XNA, so that is how MonoGame was born. It is more of a framework than a game engine (Xenko being a game engine), but it might be a better way to get your feet wet. I’m still debating that myself, but I’m too busy learning C#, and how to create 3D assets in Blender, so I’m not really ready yet to dive into Xenko or MonoGame, or any other game engine for that matter.
Sadly, Xenko is just too new to have any really good tutorials out for it yet. Xenko supposedly has some UI similarities to Unreal Engine and Unity, so having worked with either one of those a lot, using the large number of tutorials either one of those engines has out there, that would give you leg up for getting into Xenko. I think most current Xenko users started with a different game engine, one they were frustrated with using, so they have migrated over to Xenko, which doesn’t have quite as many issues.
I think Xenko is oriented somewhat more toward Unity users, rather than Unreal users (though that is debatable). You can use C# for programming games in Unity, but it is apparently a pain in the behind engine to create a full game in. There are a lot of Unity users who are frustrated with it, but Unity and Unreal are just about the only free to beginner options out there that are so full featured and (generally) well documented, with lots of tutorials, etc.
In some respects, though there certainly are people making games with it, Xenko just doesn’t seem ready for the masses just yet. It is getting there, but it will take some time. In the meantime, I would recommend honing up on your programming and other game development skills. By the time you are ready for it, it will likely be ready for you.
If you want to learn C# or at least get a taste of if I suggest you use this free video course https://www.coursera.org/learn/game-programming (you need to pay if you want certificate and assignments)
As there are no Xenko video tutorials you can use this as inspiration:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_lP6epjupJs&list=PLX2vGYjWbI0SLoX3q1tUf3RJU_WzcLcHL
You don’t need to understand the code from the above video, more understand why the code is there and what it is doing. Then you use the Xenko manual to get the C# code you need for your Xenko project.
Also get inspiration from the Xenko sample projects.
Best way is to practice and try it as per your idea. So if you start from the scratch, in that case just take a serious course from any repute institution like EduHelpHub and after that with the guidance of expert you can implement the knowledge of using Xenko.