new game

General Discussion
1

Should we even do this? (read post)

  • Yes
  • No

0 voters

Hello,
A few friends and me have an idea for a new game and we want you to help because we have no idea how to make a 3D game like this, we really want help and it would be great if you helped us make this dream happen, if you are interested please e-mail me back at somethingawesome800@gmail.com :smiley: :smiley: :smiley:

2

Hi, welcome to panda.

first off, you already made it here, so you did a good job on finding a 3d engine.

depends on what. asking for help for an totaly unknown project giving absolutely zero information… you can do that but don’t expect any replies.

if you are asking for help on technical stuff or how to do something in particular, then this forum is the right place to ask.

since most people work on their own stuff no one has the time to do other peoples work. what we can do is telling you what to do next, where to find the documentation and recources you need , and fixing some code issues from time to time.

so. if you need anything (except someone who writes your game), don’t hesitate to ask :slight_smile:

3

i just want help on how to make it

4

Before asking “how”, ask yourself “what” and “why”. Then don’T forget to ask yourself what it’s worth to you. This value usually is measured in time, money and stress divided by expected success, experience, education and fun.

In the beginning it’s impossible to reckon most of the parameters above. This is why it’s advised to start small - VERY SMALL.

Long story short: Download Panda3D and try to follow the first Tutorial from the Manual. If you have not given up at this point, come back and we’ll tell you how to progress - as painlessly and frustrationless as possible.

Hope this gives you a push in the right direction.

Long story long:

What does making games mean
Making games is all but playing games. Imagine game development as making furniture out of wood or assembling a car on your own. It can be fun, as every job can, but it’s not designed to be enjoyed, while games are.
That said, making games can be seen as a very demanding game. It does make fun, but it’s very hard at times.

Be an all-rounder
First off you must know that most of us here are all-rounders. We all have at least basic skills in modelling, texturing, coding, game design and so on. You must notice that the term “game maker” actually contains pretty many different jobs. In the industry the distinction usually is even very strict. One person plans a level, others have to drar it, even others have to light it and another guy has to guide the camera through that place.
This is why being skilled in all linked professions is hard and necessary at the same time. Necessary because when you work alon,e you only get things done gaining skills and experience you need at that moment. When working with others, you have to communicate, and the language to speak has to be polished by shared experience (wow, i tend to poetry…). Analogy from car making: you try to make a tire on your own. You fail. Then you go to a specialist ofr tires and tell him what you need: “A black gum circle thingy”. You see, without the right terms and specifications you can’t do anything. That’s why you need to look over the edge of the plate in all directions. This is more true in game making than in any other job, as far as i can tell.

Motivation
The fun part lies in the pure experience of learning, which sometimes, but only rarely is rewarded with a visible success. I’m speaking about small parts like creating your first 3D model, or getting a complex algorithm you worked on for the last few weeks actually doing its work and showing something as trivial as crappy looking clouds or grass or whatnot.
This is by the way a topic you should dive into especially in the beginning. Rule of a thumb: one small thing at a time. Best is making very small games, I guess. This way you are not pulled down by the thought a project will never become finished. A typical mistake most people do is aimimg too high and getting their motivation stroked when standing in front of their own shuttered dreams. Keep in mind that most games you know are done by dozens of professionals working fulltime. Search the web for freeware minigames and you’ll see what you can achieve in a few months or years.

yawn sorry, it’s too late and I need to sleep. Might continue the “game making how-to” another time.

Have a nice day and I hope I didn’t bore you away :smiley:

5

Well, there is many areas that you or your team have to handle to make a game…

3D modeling, texturing, animation
Scriptwriting
Programing
Music and SFX
etc. etc. (too many xD)

I think the community mostly helps in the programing area. If you are a beginner you could try forums for game designers, like gamedev(gamedev.net/. GameDev has a good books list) or search some beginners books/articles.

EDIT: The above post is better xD.

6

Wow, I don’t think i can do this from what your telling me, i have absolutely no experience at all, whatsoever, but I’ll try :smiley:

7

Well, im going through the tutorial, but when I try to open Panda with my command prompt like it says to do, all that comes up is the same thing I typed on the next line, but nothing comes up, any suggestions on what to do? :question: :question:

8

I’m guessing you’re running the Panda3D Hello World tutorial.
In that case, nothing will appear (except for a black window) until you enter the line:

app.run()

This line starts the rendering process, so if it’s not called… :slight_smile:

9

Well no, I’m going through the “Running Your Program” tutorial, and in my command after I do ppython myscript.py but it says ppython: can’t open \myscript.py\ no such file.

10

Then, the file myscript.py isn’t in the current folder. Are you sure that the folder where you are when you invoke ppython contains myscript.py?

11

Well, I have everything installed with panda, including python, is in one folder, but i can’t find it, what should I do, just uninstall it the reinstall it?

12

Depending on version you are using, there is a chance that there is no ppython.exe, just use python.exe in that case.

C:\Panda3D-1.7.1\python\python.exe

13

It looks like it can’t find myscript.py, not §python.exe.

14

ok, open command line and drag python.exe inside, press space once in comand bar, and then drag myscript.py inside too.
After that, press Enter.

15

But I don’t have myscript.py

16

The manual only tells you to type

ppython filename.py

which is only true if all your paths are automatically set (this should happen at installation). You’re actually expected to know how to navigate with a command prompt to successfully use this and other of Panda’s command line tools.

[size=150]Here’s a quick HowTo for the windows command shell:[/size]
[color=darkblue]As example I’ll use ppython.exe here, but this HowTo is very usable for many other programs as well. See HERE for a list of executables whipped with Panda. Additional info on this topic at the end of this post.

Introduction
A command shell is mainly meant for running programs. And except the programs you know, e.g. those you usually double-click like Firefox and Minesweeper, you can use a few more. Some of them don’t even open any new windows, but are run inside that black’n’white window. Then there are some commands that are shipped with Windows extra for command shell use only, like ‘cd’ or ‘help’ (there are many of those). There are others, but you won’t need too many here. Search the web for “windows command prompt” or something similar if you’re curious.

You start programs in the command shell by simply typing their names, or better said, the names of the executable files (ending with .exe most often), followed by Enter.

Current working directory
In the command prompt shell you always are in a certain folder (same as in folder explorer). Commands you type are expected to be either in the current working directory or in the windows folder. Third case are the built-in commands of the shell, which you can use from any directory.

Use the built-in command ‘cd’, which stands for ‘change directory’ to navigate to the directory that holds the application you want to start. In our case ‘ppython’, which most probably lies somewhere in ‘C:\Panda3d-1.7.1\python’ or so.
In that particular case you’d have to type

cd C:\Panda3d-1.7.1\python

to get there.
The current directory you are in should be shown in the prompt meanwhile. A prompt is the short text that shows up in front of your blinking text-cursor, by the way.

While being in the directory that holds ‘ppython.exe’, you can simply type ‘ppython.exe’ to start that program (most probably you can omit the .exe extension, not sure here).

Ok, now the interactive Python console runs, but how to load your script now you might ask. Before we get there, let me explain two other things.

Relative and absolute paths
Above I said that the application you start is expected to be in the current directory. This is not the whole truth. Typing a file name tells the shell that the program is to be found relative to current directory. It’s the same as ‘.\ppython.exe’, while ‘.’ (a dot) stands for the current directory you’re in. Alternatively you can extend that relative path. Beside the dot (’.’), the windows shell also understands double dot (’…’), which stands symbolicaly for the parent directory. Let’s say you’re in the directory ‘C:\Program Files\Adobe’ and type ‘…\something.exe’. In this case the shell first goes to the parent directory, which is ‘C:\Program Files’ and looks for the invoked program there.
You surely notice that this kind of command invocation is depending in the current directory and it can take long to type all those pathways. This is where we introduce “absolute paths”. Instead of telling the shell where a program is as seen from the working directory, we can simply tell the way as seen from the root, which is a device name. Here’s an example invoking ppython.exe independent of your working directory: ‘C:\Panda3d-1.7.1\python\ppython.exe’.
Type that (without quotes), press enter, and you should be there the quick way.

Here’s a small comparison of four different ways to actually achieve the same:

cd C:\Panda3d-1.7.1\python
ppython.exe
C:\Panda3d-1.7.1\python\ppython.exe

Assuming you’re in C:\Users\yourname:

cd ..\..\Panda3d-1.7.1\python
ppython.exe
..\..\Panda3d-1.7.1\python\ppython.exe

Command line arguments
The second thing that needs to be mentioned is command parameters. You already saw with the command ‘cd’ that it expects something after a space - a path in this case.
Many commands/programs expect such arguments, which often control a program. To know what command line arguments are allowed, most programs have a default argument like ‘/?’ or ‘-help’ which shows all others.
Example:

cd /?

This line shows you a text explaining what you can do with the ‘cd’ command and how to use it.

The program ‘ppython.exe’ expects a python script name (with path, to be precise) as optional argument. If given, it will start that script immadiately.
So to start your script from Desktop you could theoretically use something like this:
(Assuming your current working directory is ‘C:\Users\Yourname’)

C:\Panda3d-1.7.1\python\ppython.exe Desktop\yourscript.py

About PYTHONPATH
ppython.exe and python.exe are special cases, because you can start those from any directory. If your installation went all okay, you should be able to omit the

cd C:\Panda3d-1.7.1\python

and start ppython.exe directly - like the manual describes it:

ppython.exe

Other programs shipped with Panda3D like multify.exe, egg2bam.exe and many more (see HERE) need to be started as described in the HowTo above. Most of the applications from the list take ‘-help’ as argument. Use it to view detailed informations on how to actually use those treasures.

Hope this clarifies some confusion around how to use ppython and other Panda tools. Feel free to comment and criticize.

17

Also, there is option of dragging files to command line in windows. So first you drag ppython.exe press space in command line and then you drag your script (myscript.py or however its called). After you are done, press enter!

18

Oh, I didn’t know that. Neat trick. Spares newbies the quirks of the windows command shell :slight_smile:

19

I uninstalled panda and reinstalled panda but nothing is working, i still can’t open panda. :angry:

20

What I would advice is first study python and forget about Panda 3d. Start with extremely basic concepts and then move upward. If you dont understand python it will be extremely hard to understand Panda3d which uses python.

You will find tons of videos in youtube, other web tutorials, books, anything you can imagine about python. The only thing you need to do is take it one step at a time.

When you are comfortable with python, I would guess in 1-2 months then you can begin studying Panda3d.