Hey, i am new to programming of any kind. the most i have is minimal learning from using dreamweaver for making a website a 2 years ago, for a quick intro to tech class i had to take for a requirement freshman year, but i rarely used source and it was nothing but basic. I heard about panda3d from a couple of different places, but it was better explained at the open house this past spring for the entertainment technology center.
off and on i have been thinking out project that i want to do in the future but never knew how it might play out. having some freetime this summer i thought i’d do something that might help further it so when the time came i might have some ideas out there. i downloaded panda3d-1.0.4.exe for my win xp, thinking i might be able to figure it out. i tend to be a quick learner, but do have my momements of getting stuck and not know where to take the next step. some of what i want to do is simple animation that when following the right track has an eductional purpose. I have started looking at the tutorials and attempted the panda in the grass, but i honestly have no idea where i am even supposed to be typing the code thing. it says use python or save as .py or unix or something of that sort, but i dont see it, though i could be looking in the wrong place. what do i do? I also can’t view what i coded, cause i am not sure how to run the program. i think i got close but it blinked open and closed. then some error thing happen i think. becuase i am not keyed into looking at these error list i dont know what it was i just close it and try again. usually getting the same thing. not sure if this explains what i am coming from but thats what i got.
Check out http://www.python.org for tutorials with Python. Some good tutorials that I can think of are How To Think Like a Computer Scientist and Dive Into Python. Try googling those and see what you come up with. You can get both as PDF’s for offline reading.
Dive into python is a great read, but I would not say its not about programming theory as its more about the features of python. This actually makes a nice change!
Right, when running your python code try this…
Open ‘Command Prompt’ (Start->Programs->Accessories)
Some quick dos commands incase you dont know…
'cd \ ’ change directory to root
‘cd code’ change directory to folder named ‘code’ in this path
‘cd…’ Go back 1 directory
‘dir’ List everything in current directoy folder
Now change to the directory of your code.
Then type ‘ppython’ to open the python shell.
Now you can type ‘import myCode’ where myCode is your code filename.py but put it in without the .py
Now if all goes well it should run your code or dump out some errors.
If you are completely new to programming then you might want to look around for a good book on programming theory. If you know how it works then its easier to understand what to do to make it do what you want it to do. If that makes sense 
Good luck!
Hi Gue,
I’m a newbie too, and at first, I had lots of trouble doing the tutorials as well. I may be able to help you out here though (Oh boy! Don’t I feel important and knowledgeable 
).
I’ve written my own little tutorial, based on the first tutorial (in the Panda3D manual) to be a bit more newbie friendly (I hope nobody minds 
).
Starting Panda3D
To start Panda3D, you first need to create a script. Open ‘Notepad’ and type the following text:
import direct.directbase.DirectStart
run()
You must now save this script with the .py extension. To do this, enclose the entire File name in quotes “ __â€
Darn it! I just noticed an error, stupid copy&paste! The code to load the first environment model should look like this:
#Load the first environment model
environ = loader.loadModel(“models/environment”)
environ.reparentTo(render)
environ.setScale(0.25,0.25,0.25)
environ.setPos(-8,42,0)
#Run the tutorial
run()
For some reason the copy&paste put:
loader.loadModel(“models/environment”)environ.reparentTo(render)
All on the same line, and they should be seperate. Sorry about that.
Cheers