Getting Started Guide For The Absolute Beginner (UPDATED!)

General Discussion
21

tiptoe, keep up the good work. Jo seems competent but lacking in social graces… 8)

22

Mr. Ouchie, do you mean I am rude ?
He…he…he…, whatever, I just tried to motivate by burning people up.

Seems that you never get burned up… ?! :smiling_imp:

23

Just a small hint: “burning up ppl” may be a good idea to motivate them - but others just leave because they did what they could and get flamed away for that. :wink: :slight_smile:

Don’t expect everyone here having the same level. drwr for example - you can be sure that he is at a far higher level than the average user. But you don’t see snobbish behavior. Why? Because he is willing to help. And thats the sense of the community (hopefully g). One helping each other (like you did with your Tutorial if I remember right) but without bragging around (the Showcase is for showing off… g)

Well, it was hard for me at the beginning too (finding my place and a style how to write)

Regards, Bigfoot29

24

Well, you know, I’m not just a brain. I have spirit too, and that’s what keeps me alive.
So, I will keep it around. I don’t think I need a style to write here, all I need to do is be myself, and GO !!

:bulb: (BTW, motivation always a good thing. A man with motivation is a lot more dangerous than 10 men without one.) :laughing:

best regards,

JO

25

That compiler looks dirty, i suggest SPE, just google Python SPE

26

when i try and call the first script from the command line i get an error saying…


'ppython' is not recognized as an internal or external command
operable program or batch file.

any help? =/

EDIT:
I have to be in the \bin folder for it to work, so how do i get this to work in other folders SUCH AS “mystuff”.

27

I believe the command is ‘ppython’.

Oh… there are two p’s there :blush:

28

Yup…and it doesn’t work.

29

Your Panda3D installation location may be not recorded in the environment variable PATH. Try to check that first.
Reading the error message, looks like you’ve used Windows, so you may want to read this :
https://discourse.panda3d.org/viewtopic.php?t=1447

Good luck.
JO

30

great, thanks

31

What should i do :cry:

I can’t set the cd, strange :confused:

32

specify the drive first without using cd

C:\Documents and Settings\admin>E:

E:\>cd Panda3d1.2.3\mystuff

E:\Panda3d1.2.3\mystuff>ppython myscript.py
33

It was working, believe me.
When you executed

C:\Documents and Settings\Administrator>cd E:\Panda3D-1.2.3\mystuff

it didn’t generate any error, did it ?
It means you have succesfully set the default location for drive E: to E:\Panda3D-1.2.3\mystuff.
From there, you only need to jump to drive E:

C:\Documents and Settings\Administrator>e:

Or, to simplify your jump, you can create a batch file to bring you there. Create the batch file (a simple text file) with the following lines of code :

e:
cd Panda3D-1.2.3\mystuff
cmd

and save it with extension .BAT

Then you can simply put a shortcut to that batch file on your desktop for fast & easy access.

34

Thanks :slight_smile: never have been working in a development tool :wink:

35

I’m a noob with Panda3D and Python and I found this set up tutorial (both old and new) too impossible, but I did come up with a much simpler solution (at least for windows users :slight_smile:.

  1. First of download and install Panda3D from http://www.panda3d.org/download/panda3d-1.3.1/panda3d-1.3.1.exe.
    After installation run the welcome card greeting (which should be an option when the installation finishes). If you get an error the run the installation again. I know I had too.

  2. Make sure Panda3D is running by running the welcome card greeting. MAKE SURE PANDA3D IS RUNNING BY RUNNING THE WELCOM CARD GREETING. If Panda3D is not running, get it working. There is no need to keep reading this if Panda3D doesn’t even work. If Panda3D is running, download and install Crimson Editor (CE) from http://www.crimsoneditor.com/english/download.html.
    This is also an auto installer I’ve installed it on three machines and had no problems.

  3. Almost done, In the next steps you actually tell CE how to run Panda3D. Start up CE. Click Tools > Preferences… You should see the following window.

  4. Under the Tools category click User Tools. Your window should now look like so…

  5. Click any one of the empty slots designated by “-Empty-” to select it. Next in the Menu Text: textbox, give your menu command a name I chose “Execute Panda3D”

  6. Next we have to tell CE where the Panda3D ppython.exe is in order to execute our scripts. Type the path of ppython.exe file which should be “‘your drive:’‘Panda3D directory’\python\ppython.exe”. Or you can click the “…” button which will display the Windows open dialog…
    .
    Use it to navigate to Panda3D\python directory and select ppython.exe and click “Open”.

  7. Now we fill out the Argument: text box. Simply click the triangle button on the right of the textbox and select File Name.

  8. Next set the Initial Dir: by clicking the triangle button and selecting File Directory

  9. Set the Hot key: by clicking the textbox and pressing the key you want to execute this command. You can also leave it set to None, in which case you would have to select the command from CE’s Tools menu.

  10. Finally check the box that says “[b]Capture ouput/b]” so CE will display any messages from Python in the output window within CE and then click ok.

You are now ready to learn using Panda3D. Enter some python code hit your hot key or select your command from the menu and have fun.

Crimson Editor can also be extened to work with other languages, such as C/C++, Java, Perl/CGI, and HTML. See a full list at
http://www.crimsoneditor.com/english/languages.html.

And no I am not trying to sell everyone on Crimson Editor, I’ve just used it for a couple of projects and thought I’d see if it could help me here to.

Have Fun :smiley:

36

hello all,
i have a question.

i installed spe and panda
than i copied the file “panda.pth” to my python dir (E:\Programme\Python).

it looks like so…

e:/Panda3D-1.3.1
e:/Panda3D-1.3.1/direct/src/actor
e:/Panda3D-1.3.1/direct/src/cluster
e:/Panda3D-1.3.1/direct/src/controls
e:/Panda3D-1.3.1/direct/src/directbase
e:/Panda3D-1.3.1/direct/src/directdevices
e:/Panda3D-1.3.1/direct/src/directnotify
e:/Panda3D-1.3.1/direct/src/directscripts
e:/Panda3D-1.3.1/direct/src/directtools
e:/Panda3D-1.3.1/direct/src/directutil
e:/Panda3D-1.3.1/direct/src/distributed
e:/Panda3D-1.3.1/direct/src/extensions
e:/Panda3D-1.3.1/direct/src/extensions_native
e:/Panda3D-1.3.1/direct/src/ffi
e:/Panda3D-1.3.1/direct/src/fsm
e:/Panda3D-1.3.1/direct/src/gui
e:/Panda3D-1.3.1/direct/src/interval
e:/Panda3D-1.3.1/direct/src/leveleditor
e:/Panda3D-1.3.1/direct/src/motiontrail
e:/Panda3D-1.3.1/direct/src/particles
e:/Panda3D-1.3.1/direct/src/physics
e:/Panda3D-1.3.1/direct/src/pyinst
e:/Panda3D-1.3.1/direct/src/showbase
e:/Panda3D-1.3.1/direct/src/showutil
e:/Panda3D-1.3.1/direct/src/task
e:/Panda3D-1.3.1/direct/src/tkpanels
e:/Panda3D-1.3.1/direct/src/tkwidgets
e:/Panda3D-1.3.1/bin

but when i try to start the mini test file i get these messages:

E:\Panda3D-1.3.1\Pandafolder\myscript.py
Encoding set to UTF8
DirectStart: Starting the game.
Traceback (most recent call last):
File “E:\Panda3D-1.3.1\Pandafolder\myscript.py”, line 1, in
import direct.directbase.DirectStart
File “E:\Panda3D-1.3.1\direct\src\directbase\DirectStart.py”, line 3, in
from direct.showbase import ShowBase
File “E:\Panda3D-1.3.1\direct\src\showbase\ShowBase.py”, line 10, in
from pandac.PandaModules import *
File “E:\Panda3D-1.3.1\pandac\PandaModules.py”, line 1, in
from libpandaexpressModules import *
File “E:\Panda3D-1.3.1\pandac\libpandaexpressModules.py”, line 1, in
from extension_native_helpers import *
File “E:\Panda3D-1.3.1\pandac\extension_native_helpers.py”, line 20, in
from libpandaexpress import *
ImportError: No module named libpandaexpress
Script terminated.

where is my mistake? please help me

37

Hmmm that’s puzzling. I’m still using version 1.2.3, so I don’t really know what’s happening here. But it looks to me as though Panda is looking for a module in the pandac directory called ‘libpandaexpress’.

Perhaps you could try adding: e:/Panda3D-1.3.1/pandac to the panda.pth file in (E:\Programme\Python) and see if that helps.

Let me know if it works. Cause I don’t want to upgrade to the newest Panda version if I can’t use it with SPE.

Cheers

Edit: I just noticed something else, in your panda.pth file you use a lower case e:/ instead of E:/. I don’t know if these things are case sensitive or not (but they probably are) so maybe you could try changing all your e’s to E’s and see if that solves the problem.

38

I just installed PyScripter (because of code completion, auto indentin, I wanted a fancier editor) and copied the panda.pth file to my C:/Python25/ folder. The .pth file reads

When I run a simple test script

import direct.directbase.DirectStart
run()

I get the same error.

And I’m using Panda3D 1.2.3. What gives!!

39

Hi Quelboi, that editor is a really nice find. I’ve just downloaded it to try it out (build 1.7.2).

It’s working just fine for me, so I’m pretty sure your problem is being caused by the version of Python you have installed, I’m using Python 2.4.3 not Python 2.5.

I’m almost certain that Panda3D doesn’t support the higher versions of Python (I remember reading it somewhere, but don’t ask me where :unamused:).

I’m not sure if the latest release of Panda3D supports Python 2.5 either (but I haven’t seen it mentioned anywhere, so I don’t think it does, you’d have to ask Josh or David).

So sadly, it looks like the only thing for it is to uninstall Python 2.5 and install Python 2.4.3. Please let me know how you get on. If it all works out, I’ll add information about Pyscripter to the guide :smiley:.

Cheers

40

Thanks Python 2.4.4 works. The fact that I went back and installed the unicode version of wxPython instead of the ansi version that I had previously installed helped.

Note to other newbs…
Make sure you down load Python 2.4.4 and wxPython(UNICODE if using Windows) when installing you IDEs