Importing models into Panda3D

Hi all,

I’ve been getting acquainted with Panda3D over the last couple of days, and loving it so far. The one thing I’ve been struggling with though, is getting models from any 3D modelling program into a workable format for Panda3D use.

I’ve started with 3DSMax, but none of the included .dlo files worked with it - I guess that’s because I have the 2013 version which has no specific converter yet.

Moving on to Blender, it’s been a relatively rough ride and I have yet to get consistent results. I’m using YABEE to export to .egg format, and the included plug-in to export to .x format.

Sometimes .egg export works - which is great, but the results are not - I sometimes lose important details in the conversion, the most important of which are colors. Usually when that happens, I get a completely white object rendered in Panda. When the conversion fails, I just get a 30 byte .egg file that includes only " { Z-up } " and then ends.

When that happens, I export to .x format, which sometimes works - but other times the object comes out white as well.

I would really appreciate some sage advice on settings that might help me get better / more consistent results, and recommendations on improving my export process to streamline it.

If Panda3D supported any standard format natively, I would gladly switch to the 3D program that generates it - any plans on adding such a format in the future?

Hi pytrin, welcome to the forums! With regard to native formats support, look at this blueprint.