So, I’ve just come to the question of “which way is forwards”, via the old “are my models backwards?” syndrome.
While this issue doesn’t matter overmuch when one is working by oneself–the maths can be adjusted appropriately–when incorporating the work of others it can lead to inconsistencies and awkward code. This is perhaps especially a concern for tutorials, in which we probably want to keep the code simple and uncomplicated. Thus, the issue seems worth addressing.
“NodePath.getQuat().getForward()” seems to return the model’s local positive y-axis, which suggests to me that this is a convenient direction to choose.
In PView this results in the model by default facing “away” from the camera. Similarly, in Blender this results in the model being seen from “behind” when using the “Front” view. Which feels weird–but does kinda make sense in PView: after all, we are presumably looking “forwards”, and so a character that’s facing is is presumably looking “backwards”.
Note that Ralph seems to face “backwards”, which seems as though it may be confirmed by Josh Yelon in this post.
If we do take the positive y-axis to be “forward”, then @wezu, I think that your Panda-chan model is modelled “backwards”.