Any Timeframe for a manual?

General Discussion
1

Josh -

Quoted from May, 2005

Any timeframe?

2

…if there is nothing in the manual, you will have no luck. Panda3D is a free project - everyone can feel free to mess around, experiment, and when he thinks he got the point, make a manual page of it.

However, thats what only rarely happens. Thats also why the networking sector isn’t covered very well.

However, feel free to experiment and when you got it working, tell us how :smiley:

I don’t want to insult you here, but normally the real programmers of the code aren’t the best people in teaching what the code does and how it has to be used. Josh IS a programmer - and even when I don’t know his skills as teacher, I would love to see him develop Panda3D instead of writing huge articles :laughing:
That means: Its up to us. Rally some people together and try to get the terrain thingie going! :smiley:

Regards, Bigfoot29

3

Yeah, I gave up this idea a while back because as drwr posted, polygons are polygons, why do we need special “terrain” polygons?

I’ve sinced moved onto modeling the environments in Maya. My only problem is occlusion/portals. I also use the C4 engine and it currently has no “terrain” capability. You just build your terrain like in Panda3d use it in their world editor, however, there I can use portals to speed things up.

I remember some posts a while back from drwr regarding portals and such. One I think involved editing the .egg file directly. Another way was to control parts of your model that loaded to provide some sort of occlusion while your inside a large building for instance.

Both of those ways are hard for me to understand currently. The portals in C4 are a little easier for me to pickup.

I guess Professor Yelon (Josh) has been knee-deep in a lot of stuff. I believe he still works on “A Tale in the Desert” also still in addtion to the ETC so I’m sure he has his hands full!

Steve

P.S.

If you want to read the answer to my question on portals and Panda3d from drwr go here

4

I was merely keying on the point that the manual was “forthcoming”.

I also understand coding vs documenting and I hate documenting. I have an agenda, a plan and a goal and the lack of documentation is greatly slowing the project. Sadly, I could tinker with the networking code for a year and not figure out enough to ACCURATELY document. I think the only ones who can ACCURATELY document are people who either wrote the code or use that section cosntantly. Someone like me whe is starting fresh has no hope of writing code for something I barely understand. Where is the sense in that?

Generally, in a professional environment, tech writers work with programmers who at least document the API with a standard so the tech writers (who generally do not understand what they are writing) write the docuimentation, which is reviewed by project managers.

I know thats a pipedream, but you do not take a junior, applications programmer and ask him to document system-level code… Thats insane.

With that, I know that Disney HAD to have better documentation when they developed toontown. I am wagering they took it all with them.

5

As for networking documentation:

You are right. I doubt that they don’t have complete documentation, but as you said, they took it with them (what is their right as developer). Maybe they didn’t want to have a clone of toontown using the same technology… :wink:

And you are also right… normally its insane to let a “newbie” write a documentation, but its a fact that we won’t get much more docu as long as they don’t really have spare time. Actually I am writing my apps using the basic python networking capatibilities. - Not those of Panda3D.

Note that there IS a basic documentation for the networking code in the C++ files. There are also a few examples.

But I also understand Disney here… its their work. Nobody can force them to make public what they don’t want to…

All you can do is hire a l337 haxx0r and let him write the networking tut… we will appreciate it :wink: (cookie 'n stuff…) g

with best regards, Bigfoot29

6

I believe we have to be careful what we complain about. I for one am glad that Disney allowed the VR group to release the code to Panda3d to begin with to us. The fact that I have the potential to make a game and charge for it with Panda3d which I didn’t create just boggles the mind to be honest!

As far as networking in Panda3d goes, I think people should look at using the Twisted networking framework for their applications that require network functionality. There is a good book from Oreilly on Twisted and it has been used in some MORPG type games with success.

I know when I started using Panda3d I was looking for networking functionality that was implemented by Disney and forgot about the fact I could implement the networking myself with Python.

Steve

7

sorry if it came over as “complaining” - I never intended to complain. :slight_smile:

Just a few facts. And if some ppl believe I said something against Josh - thats also not true. - but meh, my english isn’t that well and nettiquette is a missing feature… :smiley:
Maybe its coming with Bigfoot29 2.0 - expect a beta as soon as its ready :wink:

Regards, Bigfoot29

8

Im not trying to “complain” either…

I was just following up on another thread where it was stated that the documentation was “imminent”.

Im looking at using either twisted or Pyro. I like the looks of Pyro, if it will do what I think it can.

9

Oh, sorry you two, I guess “complaining” was a poor choice of words.

English is my native tongue, but I sometimes have trouble expressing myself with words. :slight_smile:

And I just learned about Pyro from your post ta2025 :slight_smile: I may take a look at it as well.

Steve

10

all good I guess :smiley:

Regards, Bigfoot29