Hi, i’m new to this website and panda3d. I was just wondering if you can model and animate with panda3d?
Hello,
this is a 3d game engine forum.
Modelling and animating is done in a 3d modeller ( blender.org ) and exported to a format which can be read by a 3d engine.
Merging a modeller and a game engine together wouldn’t make much sense. Much like having an image editor or audio program together.
true, it wouldn’t make much sense adding a modelling tool within Panda BUT considering most users of Panda are noobs, with little programming experience, AND the market audience for same is HUGE, it would be nice and very helpful if Panda at least had a set of Motion Captured animations that could be rigged to imported meshes.
Also, while where on the subject, the days of developing an entire game in low level languages like C++ or Python is well and truly passed. TO develop a large game in Panda sounds very time consuming and difficult, exactly what noobs don’t need.
PANDA seems a great game base, all it needs now is a development control front end and animation, sound, texture and multiplayer modules / libraries etc (just like Torque3D). Point and click / module drop-in could easily develop 80 - 100% of a game while minor programming adjustments might be used to change some generic features?
I understand point and click developing might be beneath highly skilled university grads etc but think about your market audience, they just want to build a quick and simple game without too much hassle.
… BTW, yes I’m a noob! LOL!
It is the way it is for a reason.
Read the first page of the manual and you will see that the engine in fact does suit the intended audience:
http://www.panda3d.org/manual/index.php/Introduction_to_Panda3D.
You wouldn’t put a fancy dress on a horse!
So am I… I been learning python, 3d gaming, modeling, and so on for many years now. From what I have tested of different engines… this one seems to be one of the most helpful ones out there, but that doesn’t mean it’s one of the easiest… If you want to just have a 3d point and click work setup, there are other engines out there that does that, but I have a feeling you know why they don’t go very far if you’re here. Simple point and game engines are very limited in what they do or can do. While, as you can see around here, Panda 3d isn’t 
I think a lot of the problems come from people thinking they can just jump right into this with out any learning… or they want other people to do it for them. This is the first mistake you’ll have with programming ^^, and one that you will take to heart when you use other peoples’ programs and say they’re not good or useless lol.
Programming is very hard, python just makes it less hard, but it’s still hard.
That’s exactly what they do need because it sounds like you have no clue what you’re talking about. A lot (I mean a lot) of the work is all ready done or is being made for you all ready. Mainly, you just have to know how to put it all together. Most games don’t need that many lines of code to get things started. Take my Jump Em Cube game. Less than 500 lines and that’s with me putting all sorts of comments and or spacers in the file. 500 lines may sound like a lot, but that’s cheap compare to the number of lines “point and click” engines do behind the scenes.
They’re not, but you have to understand they’re very limited use… or otherwise you probably be there… and so would I …Panda 3d is all ready pretty much like this, but instead of Point AND Click it’s Point AND Code.
Thats why we need more people with 3d/sound/texture experience The more people that donate to panda; the more we have to offer other people Panda isn’t ran by a team, but ran by the community: the people that come here to share and help out. The only down side is, most people feel like they don’t have much to offer or they don’t want to share what they have because they work hard and took a lot of their time and money to do which is very understandable… I’m the same way my self.
You also have to remember this is a 3d engine site; even if a lot of people say this is a 3d game maker, it’s still a 3d engine not a 3d game maker.
Sorry, but panda3d is for programmers. If you are searching for some point and click rad engine, well… you came to the wrong place. Note that I’m not saying point and click is better or worse or anything.
Having a bunch of models and animations in the SDK would be pointless and just waste space.
But actually there is an archive of models as a separate download (but they are not so great).
Of course there are thousands of free models in the internet which you can convert to egg format.
Having some ‘base’ code (game logic) with the SDK would be waste of memory too.
Though there are many community games with their source in the Showcase and Code Snippets section which you can learn from.
Actually adding links in the wiki for those games would help. There are not so many but still can be hard to find in the forum.
Don’t forget people from Disney and Carnegie Mellon University
ok, thanks, pity … all it needs is a front-end and some libraries.
2002, Woh! that’s old! but I like the concept of tight error checking … if you’re programming a large game in a low level language, you’ll be doing ALOT of error checking! LOL!
What?
Can you define “libararies”? Or did you mean “game” packs (testures/sounds/so on)?
I’ll probably be setting up something soon for most people to use for their games, but it’ll be a while before I can do anything. Still working very hard on my game, and I come across a lot of things that still blow my mind lol. I also have to see what can go out and what I don’t want out. Most things were made from other people I know or temp use from other games till I have a replacement use for (aka copy right).
Maybe a lot of error checking, but a lot more control in what you can do:)
Also for the record, I wouldn’t consider python being a low level lang, maybe a more middel to high lang, but nothing like C/C++ (even if they’re both perty fast).
Well… CMU works on developing panda, and they also have (a quite famous) huge motion capture library: mocap.cs.cmu.edu/
c++ and especially python… low level!? thx for the comment. that one just made my day 
. seriously point and click engines are nice if you want to create yet-another-looks-all-the-same-fps. panda , as stated on the landing page, is intended for professional use to allow maximum flexibility with minimum overhead. c++ isnt really low-level , it’s a bit difficult,that’s true. but not low leve. and python is neither difficult nor lowlevel.