Anybody have any idea why I have no text displayed when I use directgui? I tried both directx8 and opengl renderer, but same result.
In addition, the airblade sample game doesn’t show any text either. For example, the airblade options menu doesn’t show text… and no scores…etc
I’m using the binary release: panda3d-2004-12-13B.exe
Windows xp
Thanks for any help.
I’ve never heard of that before. Do the graphics appear correct in other ways? When you say “there is no text”, do you mean that the text is completely invisible, or is it drawing something like white rectangles where each letter should be? Do your onscreen buttons appear normal, but without text?
The thing is, there’s nothing special about text. It’s just a series of polygons like anything else, so it’s hard to imagine what would cause text not to render, while still allowing other things to look normal.
What kind of graphics card do you have, and what version is your driver? Have you tried updating your graphics drivers to the latest?
David
Here are some screenshots to show you what I’m talking about.
bigjinfo.com/albums/Welcome/airblade1.jpg
bigjinfo.com/albums/Welcome/airblade2.jpg
bigjinfo.com/albums/Welcome/gui_sample.jpg
gui_sample.jpy is the rendering of gui.py in the sample directory of the distribution.
I’m using Win XP in a IBM T41 laptop with ATI Mobility Radeon 7500. I can’t use the ATI drivers on the ATI website. It said for mobilities I need to check the vendor site 
…
Btw, other graphics appear correct.
I guess I’ll try the software renderer and see what happens?
The software renderer is a worthwhile experiment–the perfomance won’t be acceptable, but it will prove whether the problem is in Panda or in your graphics driver.
Go to ibm.com for your latest drivers–that’s the vendor that ATI is referring to in your case.
David
David:
I have installed the Dec 2004 IBM’s display driver. It still is the same thing. I tried combinations of the following setting:
load-display pandagl
#load-display pandadx8
gl-allow-software-renderer #t
I have installed the Dec 2004 IBM’s display driver. It still is the same thing. I tried combinations of the following setting:
load-display pandagl
#load-display pandadx8
gl-allow-software-renderer #t
It still wouldn’t display text. But I did notice these debug messages in console:
…
:express(warning): Adjusting global clock’s real time by -4.15583 seconds.
:pnmtext(error): Unable to read font: invalid.
:text(warning): No definition in for character 48 (‘0’)
:text(warning): No definition in for character 46 (‘.’)
:text(warning): No definition in for character 48 (‘0’)
:text(warning): No definition in for character 102 (‘f’)
:text(warning): No definition in for character 112 (‘p’)
:text(warning): No definition in for character 115 (‘s’)
:text(warning): No definition in for character 50 (‘2’)
:text(warning): No definition in for character 51 (‘3’)
:text(warning): No definition in for character 51 (‘3’)
:text(warning): No definition in for character 46 (‘.’)
:text(warning): No definition in for character 49 (‘1’)
:text(warning): No definition in for character 102 (‘f’)
:text(warning): No definition in for character 112 (‘p’)
:text(warning): No definition in for character 115 (‘s’)
:display: Closing wglGraphicsWindow
Site customize for Panda:
Appending paths based on $PLAYER
…
So it looks like it’s complaining about unable to write the FPS on screen? hehehe… Wow so I get pretty good FPS 
You know what’s going on? 
Ah, this does shed some light. For some reason, it is unable to decode the default font data that is compiled into Panda. I don’t know why this might be. In any case, it’s clearly not a driver issue; this is something wrong with the way Panda is installed on your system.
Is it possible that you have some conflicting version of the FreeType2 library installed on your machine that is appearing first on your path, and is superceding the one that is used by Panda? The only problem with this theory is that I’m pretty sure the FreeType library doesn’t use dll’s, but maybe there is some dll it depends on that I don’t know about.
In any case, one workaround is to put an explicit font reference in your Config.prc file:
text-default-font /c/Panda/models/cmss12.eggOr even:
text-default-font /c/Windows/Fonts/arial.ttfI’d be curious to know if using cmss12.egg provides a workaround; and doubly curious to know whether using a pre-existing ttf file like arial.ttf (check the system path to your own copy of this file) also works. Note the panda convention of /c/dirname to indicate C:\dirname.
David
On closer inspection, it does appear that there is a freetype6.dll that is provided with Panda, and maybe you have a conflicting version of this file. You might also be running afoul of zlib.dll or zlib1.dll, since zlib is also used to unpack the embedded font.
David
text-default-font /c/Panda/models/cmss12.eggWorked.
text-default-font /c/Windows/Fonts/arial.ttfCrashed python.
BTW, I do remember installing zlib and freetype in this computer sometime. What are you, some kind of genius?!! Hehehe…
Thanks again! 
Yes, he is… 