Hi all. I am new here and would first like to say that I have really enjoyed Panda3d since I downloaded it last Saturday.
I have modified the Roaming Ralph sample so as to learn some python and panda. I have made my own wasd + mouse camera control system, I have added my own avatar and animations. It looks good. Now I want to make my own environment from scratch using 3dsmax. I have searched everywhere for a tutorial but cant find any.
Please help!!
First of all: Hi Joe.
I have to disappoint you a little, afaik, there aren’t any bigger howto’s on modellers here because there are tons out there you can use for Panda3D.
But maybe I am wrong and someone else knows a tut here that I am not aware of… 
Regards, Bigfoot29
Alright. Do you know of any code or even a level model I could look at and load into max and figure it out from there? All the environment’s in the samples seem to have a .py extension at the end of them and won’t import into max.
Due to the fact that I don’t use MAX (btw: Where do you all get that from, officially? ) I can’t tell what model types the program can import.
But yea, its clear, that you can’t import .py-files due to the fact that it are code files for the programming language python to work with. 
But I know of exactly one environment that has no py-extension… the environment from the official “hello world” example here with the running panda. You can find that by browsing the example file. somwwhere there should be a line saying something like
loader.loadModel(sthhere/environment)Search for that file in your filesystem (Windows: should be somewhere in C:\Panda3D-what\folder\ever . I expect it to be a .bam or .egg file. And there should be converters for it to make them import-able into MAX. But I am a bad company here. My last P3D-experiences were with the 1.0.5 Release of Panda3D. 
(no time, no time…)
Regards, Bigfoot29
Thanks very much man. I’ll hav a look at it. It’s a shame there are no official level editors because this is really a great engine. I believe one is in production though. I hope it’s ready in time. I hope to use this engine for my MSc projects.
Oop! A correction tomy earlierpost. The extension is .pz not .py, still, can’t open them though.
There is no official Level editor as such because its hellufa work to make something like that. There was one made by an student at CMU in the 1.0.X days, but thats broken because it was too much time consuming to maintain it. And due to the fact that there are tons of good 3d tools out there (just to mention two: wings3d or blender), there was no real big need to write something own for Panda3D. And, as mentioned, it would have slowed down the feature development/stability of the other parts of the framework drastically. 
As for the Max thing… I have to apologize again… someone of the more active devs might answer that in a couple of hours, I think. So please be patient.
Regards, Bigfoot29
There’s a level editor in development by _Hypnos:
discourse.panda3d.org/viewtopic.php?t=5330
As for your modeling questions: this question is not really related to Panda3D development - you can probably find better information about that on 3DSmax-related websites.
PS. egg.pz are compressed .egg files - you can use the punzip utility to convert that into .egg. Search the forums or manual - this question has been asked many times before.
PPS. I don’t think theres a way to convert from .egg to .max. Maybe through the .x format you might be able to get an .egg into 3ds max.
Legend! Thanks for that. Now at least I can examine the world.egg file in notepad and see how tomake my own. Thats all I wanted. Cheers!
Eey, there ARE maxeggimport*.dle plugins.
Yeah, I have been using the plugins, I just didn’t know how to get a look at the compressed sample .egg files. Now I can. Have a problem though.
I have managed tomake my own terrain, a simple plane with texture, no bumbs, just flat, andmy character wont move from the starting point!? Same code as roaming ralph sample except mouse and keyboard controls. It worked in the roaming ralph world but not mine???
That question has been asked many times.
discourse.panda3d.org/viewtopic.php?t=6014
discourse.panda3d.org/viewtopic.php?t=3961
discourse.panda3d.org/viewtopic.php?t=1504
Yeah I looked at all of these posts but they all seem to point towards people not naming the terrain correctly. I have as far as I can see. I dunno whats going on.
That’s not all, you also need to insert the {Polyset keep descend} in your top node.
Its weird. I managed to fix the problem by copying a piece of code from the forum and subbing in my stuff. Here it is:
{ Z-up }
Tex2 {
“models/woodwall6.jpg”
}
terrain {
{ Polyset keep descend }
terrain {
0 {
4.661018 4.661018 0.000000
{ -0.769286 1.769286 }
}
1 {
-4.661017 4.661020 0.000000
{ -0.769286 -0.769286 }
}
2 {
-4.661020 -4.661018 0.000000
{ 1.769286 -0.769286 }
}
3 {
4.661018 -4.661019 0.000000
{ 1.769286 1.769286 }
}
}
{
{ Tex2 }
{ 0.000000 0.000000 1.000000 }
{ 0 1 2 3 { terrain } }
}
}
start_point {
{ net }
{
{ 1 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 1 0 0.0 0.0 0.0 1 }
{ 0 0 0 }
}
}
The above code works fine. As soon as I try and use a terrain with more than four verts it stops working again. Anything I’ missing?