Normally I might well avoid taking a new version immediately on release, but I have a vague memory that 1.8.1 was to have some updates – I forget what, I’m afraid – that I wanted to get; it’s this that prompts me to want to get 1.8.1, I think.
There’s really no reason not to upgrade to 1.8.1 when it’s available. Only x.x.0 releases are major releases where things may break, but 1.8.1 introduces only bugfixes.
Personally, I don’t have issue with the developers page. I mean… taking a look at it I feel like Panda is back by a few huge companies. Witch to me is a good thing as I’m not at that level to add anything back to it myself.
Then again… it does feel limited to those companies. I mean, if you want more people to develop the engine, you have to make it friendly and “feel” more open to the community with links and support.
First look, I didn’t know the community was allowed to edit the source code. I had to read the big wall of text to understand what was really happening and where I could add any of my work back to the community if I wish to work on the engine. Same with bug reports.
One way to fix that is have a community show listing of the developers that had work on the engine itself (if they wish to send in a pic with their work/patch) with a way to show their work along with a time stamp of when that happen.
This way it shows the community really being active (with their patch log). While being inviting with faces of normal programmers/people.
Now, I will admit that the Panda 3D image is a bit dated and or doesn’t look as friendly/awesome. For example, all the cartoony stuff you see around the website can put off a lot of coders from using this engine as they don’t see what they can create from this engine other than cartoony characters. panda3d.org/ First thing you see are cartoony looking games… It feels awkward going to the website when I am at college.
From there, Latest Blog Entries are awesome(!), but lack any public viewing as user want to switch to the forums as fast as they can to get off the front page and or get help with their code. We also could use a monthly Blog Entries over the engine or cool examples from the community that answer some of the most common questions or neat tricks most users don’t know about.
Then we have the BIG BOOK OF RANDOM FEELING Manual. The manual alone can be off putting for first time programmers as they don’t even know where to start and seeing this only makes it more off putting for them (and I know as I had a few friends ask me as I was teaching them).
Not saying the manual is bad, but it doesn’t really go with anything other than “you should know what you are doing” and or need to look something up. Even then, I find myself more in the Python Reference than I am in the manual because of the lack of documented information found in there sometimes.
The Tutorial, witch seem really out of place, doesn’t do anything with the Manual either. It never links to any other section in the Manual nor does it really use anything that anyone uses either. It’s just WAY too basic for any usage. The Tutorial also uses a sin and cos witch is frowned upon in the community to use.
From there, you can’t simple copy past the code examples either without first putting it into some other text editor it doesn’t offer any raw format for that.
…
That is just my 2cents anyways…
So I first looked at this project probably a year and a half ago. My first impression when I saw that it was developed by CMU and Disney was that it looked like a great project with a very strong backing. But then I started looking around a little more and it seemed more like a great project in the past that has now died off.
The post above me I think does a pretty good job of explaining why that is, and this is probably the sixth time or so I have spent time investigating Panda3D to see if anything has changed. Sure it seems to have some active members in the community developing their small projects with it but I have never seen any evidence of any actual engine development. I think the two best things you can do is to update the site, by actually having current information and changing the layout because it is honestly hard to find anything out on this site and moving to either github or bitbucket.
Rdb, you seem to think that launchpad is working but I have to tell you that it just plain is not, at least if your intent is to attract new developers and actually provide information about what is currently happening. I seriously would not have known that this project is under active development besides a few minor bug fixes if I had not read this thread today and I have been to the launchpad page multiple times. I am glad that you want to move to a DVCS but go one step further and migrate the project to an easy to use site that the majority of the open source world is moving to.
Personally, I think the first page of the manual is very misleading and seems to have been written mainly for CMU students from the look of things.
Specifically,
Nothing is mentioned about the community.
I’m given the impression that these companies have specific goals so my own contributions will likely not meet their standards and get in the official branch.
Also, some things should really be reworded.
Maybe even move all the info about how CMU and Disney use Panda to their own manual page, this is after all just an introduction page.
I’ve highlighted some text which could be changed:
panda3d.org/manual/index.php/Preusser
In my first look. It seem project in deading. But I think it will better after this topic.
I am a student in Ho Chi Minh university of science (Vietnam). I’m working with panda3d in my thesis. I hope after thesis, I will create new community of panda3d in Vietnam so by anyway, keep it working. It’s really amazing game engine
Thanks to MCU,Disney and other developers.
Why do you think it is not working? We’re actively getting patches and bug reports there.
I total agree with you
To me, the problem with Launchpad is the lack of response when a bug is reported. Now I’m quite certain that bugs are actively being looked into and a good number of them are already fixed or in the process of being fixed (for which I am extremely grateful, let there be no doubt about this).
However, when you look at the “New bugs”, some of them are more than a couple of years old and are still “Undecided”.
Having reported two of these bugs myself quite some time ago, and never having gotten any kind of reply or acknowledgement, I sometimes wonder if:
- the report was ever really verified (maybe I should have also mentioned it in the forum?);
- maybe my description wasn’t very clear (lack of example code?);
- the issue reported was not deemed important (it only affects me personally?).
While I understand that not all bugs are equally important and that only the most urgent/critical ones will be fixed for an upcoming release, it would be nice to get at least some kind of feedback after a month or so at the latest. Either a simple comment, or change Importance/Status to something else than Undecided New. So that things look a bit more alive, you know 
?
What about the option of making a good quality five dollar (or more, if you or your team has the capability to do so) game and have a “Powered by Panda3D” splash screen in the intro?
That might attract some renewed interest.
I think they don’t have enough people to solve every problem.
keeping the engine usable is more important than keeping the website good looking.
That is true. However, the presentation of the progress a bit of a black box ATM.
Sounds good. Go for it. Panda is still an open-source project, so… if you guys can think of something missing, you should feel free to help out and contribute.
I rarely go through the entire list of old bugs, it’s usually not worth the time to look at old bugs that probably aren’t relevant any more. If a problem is not commented on once in a while, it gets very little priority because it appears that there is low interest in it. So, feel free to bump items that are important to you.
But it’s perhaps a good point, that someone should close old bugs once in a while when no additional information has been provided. Anyone can do this, though, and for instance teedee has done a great job in helping out in this area.
Just my two cents: I’m currently looking for a 3D engine for a small private project. As I really like Python, the first thing I entered in Google was therefore “python 3d engine” and the first link sent me to the Panda3D website. “Wow, this looks good!” Python, support for a ton of features, “A Vampyre Story” was done with this engine…well, here we go! But my enthusiasm was somehow hampered when I looked at the date shown at the bottom of the webpage: Carnegie Mellon University 2010. Ok, three years. Let’s look at the last blog entry: one and a half year. Latest version: 1.8.0, but there is no information when this has been released. My first impression was: this project looks abandoned.
Ok, I know, I should have looked at the community / forums, but I have to admit that this first impression drove me away (at this time).
What alternatives do we have…hmmm…Ogre: Personally I don’t like “going back” to Cpp (no offense!). And I did not like that Python Ogre seemed to be an external project which needs to keep up with the core Ogre.
Unity3D: Intriguing, but waaaaay too big / expensive. Didn’t like the asset store and that you have to buy for every little addition.
Long story short: I was still undecided, but Panda3D was still nagging in my head. The prospect of coding in Python was just too good, so I returned here, looked at the forum and found this thread…and I’m sold.
What I want to say is this: there are so many alternatives present these days that maybe a short look at the webpage (when was the last time this has been updated, what is the current version, when was it released) is sufficient for some people to make a first decision. I think with some minor changes it could be made easier to convince people to stay a bit longer here:
- change the date of the webpage to reflect that there is still something going on here
- add a date to new releases on the download page (maybe it’s there, I did not find it)
- add a list of newest forum entries with dates to main page…again, to show that something is going on here
To sum it up: my personal impression was like this: I entered a colorful shop, but it seemed like nobody was here for years…so I left. But the big party was actually held in the back room…(as I’m convinced now).
I don’t like this idea.
Personally I don’t post about a bug if it’s already there, and I suspect I’m not the only one.
So how do you know it’s not relevant rather than we simply have nothing to add to what has been told already?
In bugs that are important to people, we regularly see people comment on them by providing additional information and starting to look into the fix.
However, launchpad also has the “bug heat” system. If several people click “this affects me too”, then launchpad will bring the bug to the top of the list.
I’m not sure there is a splash screen or anything, but there is a game called Plith ( panda3d.org/screens.php?page=13 ) that is sold on desura and the like. The market is pretty much saturated with smaller games, I’d say. Today you need either a good idea or great graphics to attract people.
Maybe having android support would change something.
Yep, I put a Panda3D splash screen into the game, obviously.
I definitely agree with you. Small games can’t promote Panda3D so much, but there is Signal Ops which is coming. And, Android games may gain some popularity even if they are not so big, so let’s also hope in some small Panda3D game for Android in the future.
Back into the topic, maybe making daily builds more evident may communicate that there is active development. Anyway, forums contain new messages every day, and this should communicate that the engine is used, currently.
Perhaps a “latest forum threads” box on the home page with dates, similar to “latest blog post”?
Sure, an active community would be a good point that should be highlighted: if there is an active community then a visitor would think that there should be an active project.