I am someone who has been learning python for about a month now. I bought Mark Lutz’s book on learning python and Ive read about 130 pages by now out of 600 i think. A lot of basic stuff. I have also researched online before the book for a few weeks on if statements, modules and functions. I would say i know at least that im not “new” to python but it is my first language. Im not some new guy who comes on here and asks how do i make a game with no knowledge of python. I just need a bit of guidance. I will continue to read the book but the panda3d manual is still a bit confusing to me. I understand modules and what they do and when i read the tutorial in the code it makes some sense but i could not produce much of it on my own. Am i still far to new to python to think about panda3d. I do understand what is going on in the tutorials but i am not really able to add to or edit them or produce anything of my own. Should I just take a break from trying to understand panda3d at the moment and just stick to python. (the book is boring me out of my mind lol, i read each and every page because i dont want to miss anything but its tiresome). I wish there was a book on panda3d.
I also browse these forums quite often as they are filled with much knowledge from experts such as pro soft and treeform and bigfoot.
Thx for help guys.
Hi .!
Since Panda uses Python as a favorite language, i can suspect that you can continue learning your book, Panda’s API reference is nice, clear and powerful, let say things like this way:
Python skills : to how you integrate the calls to the engine, the syntax, conditions, definitions, dictionaries, etc.
Panda’s API reference : The object or engine that you use to do your job.
So, if you look it at this pointview, python is like your mind, and panda is like your hardware… I’m learning python too, and one time you have essential things understood, API will be very funny, you have the notion of programing in python, the just limit to build the game with the hardware…
Really funny
in the beginning it’s normal to not understand everything 100%, but i don’t really know if games are the right code to learn from. you could start reading the samples’ code and look up things you don’t know in your python book or in the panda source code (helps understanding panda a lot!)
Yes, learning the basics of a language can get really tedious. Where to focus is dependent on what exactly you find confusing in it. Is it simply the syntax that you don’t quite get? Is it the overall program flow?
There’s definitely a certain point you need to be at with Python to really start in Panda. As you have discovered, something is still holding you back from that. One thing that really helped me was learning a more basic language, in particular, a game-specific language. DarkBASIC (though the 3D engine is horridly inefficient) and Blitz3D can be useful to really understand program flow and concepts in very easy-to-understand code. It may help.
On the one hand I can certainly vouch for Blitz3D being a great way to learn programming. That’s pretty much how I learned, and now I program in a variety of languages because the fundamental skills of programming carry over.
That said, I would suggest first take a look at this free pdf book:
pythonbook.coffeeghost.net/
It’s pretty short so you wouldn’t be wasting much time if this turns out to be a dead-end for you. The advantage of this book over learning programming with Blitz3D is that it’s teaching Python, so it’d probably get you working with Panda faster.
The advantage of this book for starting out versus a more comprehensive programming text is that it’s teaching you how to program games. Thus, you avoid the tedium of slogging through lots of material before you start programming something interesting. And the advantage of starting with the lessons in this book versus trying to dive into Panda directly is that the games you write don’t have any graphics, thus keeping everything as simple as possible. You can learn with very simple games first, and then by the time you’re done with that book you’ll be ready to graduate up to harder projects.