Anon, that cute avatar you got is that a render of something modeled by you or just a draw?
@Praios cool link, tnx for shared it
thanx Reinier - you’re always fast and impeccable 
Instead of making the models better, why not make the tuts better? I always thought it was harder read and follow them with the manual jumping around with different code styles.
Aka, we should redo the manual to follow the Hello World example and keep going using that method to the end. What I mean by this is to keep adding more, and more to the list and reshow how we can go from a simple ugly world to a bright, colorful, nice demo showing off all the features of panda 3d.
Good idea!
Examples extending the “hello world” would be great especially if they are as readable and understandeable. (Didnt understand the the current examples that good.)
So i strongly second that idea.
to not just talk but to be more pragmatic: what do you guys think should need, to be better, the hello world tutorial? I mean, should be wrote better, more comments, more stuff into and if so what features should fit into that is actually missing?
Im very happy with the hello-world tutorial but i wish the examples were more like it. the biggest difference for me is that they are not buit up step by step so you kinda have to understand the whole thing at once.
I personally like it much more if the (mabe even same) comments/text/… is not just inline comments in the code but the codeblocks are in the text (like in hello-world). For me it looks much better and is also more readable.
agree, very good point - that should be a sticky point to follow doing tutorial of any kind, these included.
yep I hate that way to comment like death as well - You’ll never find a single line with inline comments in my scripts - here and here you’ll find a couple of ‘ported’ (sorta) tutors from the official bunch I did time ago with all the comments normalized - a very tedious job but had to be done.
I just installed the smoking hot 1.7.0 and I see that we still have no significant progress on the samples.
Since I am totally bad at designing and drawing, I will be putting together good stuff that I will find on the forums that have been cleared by their authors for “any” use and try to make them usable for/as tutorials/samples.
So, could someone also tell me exactly how “contributing” should practically happen? CVS?
And yes, I am also making an attempt to revive this discussion.
I have started adding some simple models here
github.com/treeform/panda3d-sample-models
Maybe they can be shipped with panda3d like the teapot and included in the samples.
I feel we need to muster up and create some nice looking demo for panda3d. Sort of what this guy has done:
ali-rahimi.net/pages/portfolio.html
I know that 3d engines are not about art used. But pretty art does draw people and developers who should know other wise.
I think one good showcase including all the major panda features should be enough.
Before to start we should first focus on which panda features we would put in enumerating them.
Then we should talk about what models needed and how the scene should be look like.
im not comparing with treefroms statement, do you really think this is a nice style? it looks more like a 8 years old kid was playing with mudbox. sorry, i dont want to hurt this artist feelings, but its really not smooth. neither for a 8 year old kid!
if im doing a hardwork model, can we be friends again? 
The current stuff we have for samples is coder art. I think that’s the biggest panda3d obstacle now. The site was a big factor - but now it looks very nice. Now we need to attack the samples.
I dont think that the sample graphics really matter. When I found Panda I didnt choose it because of how the samples looked, I just saw the fact that it was free and that it could render 3d graphics. I think that on the site their should be pictures of some samples using better graphics to show that Panda can render really well, however I think that the samples should stay the same. That being said, I think that sound should be added to most of the samples to show how to incorporate sound and also there should be one sample that uses shaders etc and high quality textures etc to help coders learn how to use the tools.
EDIT:
On a personal note, I like the more cartoony graphics and I have some games that I’m working on which require cartoony graphics 
not bad for coders! really some models are really nice -> ralph, nik-dragon, the creature in the motiontrail demo, the aiming model… i meant with the 8 year old kid, the link you have post above. and i think its not age related, so thats why i have to relativate the age statement. i think 8 year old kid can do better und deeper things!
ok the boat in the distortion demo is a bit boring and the environments are also not that great. specially the normalmap demo, there we could do a better enviroment for. and wait, at 1.7 - whats about a parallaxmapping demo? or in overall a shader generator demo?
@hobbit: you have right, its not important at all, but panda got in the meanwhile such advanced that it would make sense. im sure you know the stanford bunny, what you think would it be equal famous if they had scanned a pen or a book? graphics is nearlly similar important like the code behind.
and of course, there is nothing where the word creativ fits more to like to programming! but this will need time till the human accept programming as art. in overall digital art have this problem. but this will change. its just up to us, if we doing serious things or just funny things (like monsters and elfs).
and the biggest problem is the condition, the consumer expect in the meanwhile that only elfs and monsters are coming from the digital art side. this to fix will be the hardest job. so i saying, just tiny step in a serious direction, first a mix between (seriousity and nosense) till the human accept also serious things too. the digital art had a good beginning, but nearly everything in da between 1990 and 2010 was destroying the fundament of da.
Well I wanted to make a new Roaming-Ralph terrain.
But I really don’t know what I can and cannot add.
For example I wanted to add a skydome, but that would require additional lines of code, which isn’t what will make the samples more helpful. Add river and youll need to add a scrolling normalmap in code or something, same with any water. The only thing I could do without additional code is terrain ‘splatting’ with stenciling textures, but that has lightning issues, at least when using filters.
And I think the ralph model was ment for a wintery scene.
Of course even making proper trees will make it look better, but I think we need a lot more than that to contribute
[edit]: sorry, i deleted the link, its better if you go in touch with bradamante. so, please go in contact with Bradamante, he did some models for panda3d. a nice viking scene. and he asked me about doing a demo out of it. at the moment, i do not have much of time for. but maybe someone wants to work with him/her this things out.
and…
maybe its not just about to improving the existing demos, i think more in the direction of complete new demos. like clcheung aquarium, treeforms fps (with a improved graphics),rbd´s instancing,…
A couple of (IMHO) better textures for Roaming Ralph sample:
ground.jpg
tree.jpg
rock03.jpg
hedge.jpg (replaced by another rock texture)
