ok, I’m about to get away from the 2d game creation (GameMaker 8.1, GML programming language) and into the 3d stuff. I’m pretty well versed in the programming language that GM uses, however this language is for that program alone and won’t do much good here.
I was wondering if there are any good tutorials out there for first time users of Panda3d out there taking you over the course of making a fully functional game.
Not looking for one that teaches you how to remake Final Fantasy XIII or anything, but a game none the less.
For instance, GM came with tutorials covering different types of games. one of which was a remake of 1945 and another was a simple pong game. It took you all the way through making these simple little games. I’m looking for similar tutorials for Panda now. C++ or Python, doesn’t matter which, I’ll just go with whichever seems to be more detailed and go from there.
Another thing I was looking for is a list of all functions in (Whichever language I end up going with)
GM had in it’s help file a list of nearly every function in the program with a description of what it is used for.
Oh, believe me, it does. C++ is simply a whole lot more difficult than Python, it requires more experience and takes much more time to get up to real speed with it. From your post I assume you’ve no experience with either of those, so Python is definitely the only one you should be focusing on right now (unless, of course, you’re “academically” interested in C++ itself, but it doesn’t seem so).
Panda is built with Python in mind so that’s the language you’d most likely end up using anyway.
As for the point of what you’re asking for. There was some attempt to make a tutorial similar to what you’re asking about, but I don’t know what state it’s in. It shouldn’t be too difficult to find on the forum, so you can check it out. It was about making an arcade jet fighter game, IIRC.
There’s no other such tutorial that I know off, but the Manual contains practically everything you need to know to start using Panda. The Forum usually has the remaining bits of more advanced or unusual stuff. Obviously, it’s not in a form of “to make an FPS do this, to make an RTS do that”.
Generally, you shouldn’t expect that using Panda will be as straightforward as GameMaker might be (I say “might” because I’ve never tried using it) – this library is larger and more universal.
I tried GameMaker back in the day; never liked it. GameMaker’s 3D API is much more low-level and complex than Panda’s. For 2D/2.5D games, GameMaker will get you to a certain point faster than Panda, but then Panda’s extensibility/scalability starts to show.