Observations from a newbie

General Discussion
#1

Hi all.

Ran into Panda3D last week when searching for a Python 3d library. Tried both pyOgre and Panda; Panda was the clear winner because it was so easy to get set and running (whereas pyOgre was a real PITA).

Now I have a million questions as I’m starting to learn how everything works, but I’m sure I’ll slowly work them all out as time progresses.

My only downside is the manual. It’s not really laid out in a great way. For example, the first ‘Hello, World’ example uses the line

loader.loadModel(“models/environment”)

Yet if you look this object (loader) in the reference manual, you find that every single class method is undocumented! So I’m having to use the manual for most things, whereas I’d normally just use the reference.

My other gripe is that after ‘Hello, World’, we are shown no more code snippets other than one-liners. I know that there are demo programs but it would be great if the tutorial used mini-programs to explain (like NeHe’s openGL tutorials, to those who habe seen them).

Also, is anyone in a position to offer the manual as a download, because then it would be possible to grep through it from the command line rather than resort to fancy googling.

If this seems a little negative, it because I’ve not concentrated on all the good things I’ve come across so far :slight_smile: The actual seems to be fine so far!

#2

the doc generation was a bug and is being fixed.

you find the manuals and references for download at the download page
panda3d.org/download.php

I think there is 3 reasons for why better beginner documentation is not provided in the manual.
1 Its good enough for most people.
2 Being a 3d engine used for games and really requires to show bigger samples of how stuff works.
3 Panda3d is really really big about 880,000 lines big there is sooooo much stuff that is not covered people who can provide documentation are providing for more advanced stuff where you actually need it (when beginner stuff is good enough)