Panda3D 1.5.0 released - i will use this for pyweek again

Treeform on 2008/03/16 17:15 of aff:city

This release includes Fully fully automatic Shader Generation. So if you don't know shader math but still want to use shader take a look!








Other features - there is so many its hard not to make it look like a laundry list:
Main features for me are:
complete python support
out of the box working everything on linux
supper stable + debugging + performance monitoring

I am sure you will find some thing you need:

Full Python Integration
Automatically-generated wrappers expose full functionality of engine.

* Highly optimized: all core functionality in C++
* Thoroughly-tested: two commercial MMOs in python
* Panda3D structures garbage collected when using Python
* Manual and sample programs use python

Exposes Full Power of Graphics API
Modern OpenGL features exposed directly to Panda3D user:

* High-level shader language: Cg
* Powerful interface between shaders and engine
* Render-to-texture, with ARB_draw_buffers
* Use of depth/shadow textures

Just Works, Right out of the Box
No-hassle install:

* Convenient installer package for Windows
* Only one external dependency: working graphics driver
* Sample programs run right out of Start Menu
* No compilation step needed
* Installers (rpm & deb) for Linux too

Debugging Tools
Heavy emphasis on error tolerance and debuggable code:

* Extreme resistance to crashing, even when errors are made
* More than 5000 assertion-checks to catch errors early
* Reference-counted data structures minimize memory leaks
* Many tools to examine internal state (one shown here)

Performance Monitoring
Powerful performance monitoring and optimization tools:

* Identifies bottlenecks, both CPU and GPU
* CPU time use decomposed into more than 250 categories
* Counts meshes, polygons, textures, transforms, state changes, etc
* Allows user-defined CPU-usage categories
* Tools for batching and state-change minimization
* Toos to merge textures and minimize texture switches

Mature, Complete System
Mature system used to deliver several commercial games.
Contains everything you need, not just the "sexy" stuff:

* Converters for older file formats
* Font file importers
* Tool to package games into redistributables
* Means to pack art assets into encrypted bundles
* Lots of other boring but essential stuff

Commercial Games Already done with panda3d:

* Disney's Toontown
* Disney's Pirates of the Caribbean Online
* SimOps Studios: Code3D
* MSA's Thermal Enforcer
* Little Mermaid Pinball, Aladdin Pinball, and Pirates Pinball

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Comments

illume on 2008/03/27 06:29:

There doesn't seem to be a mac download. Is one planned?

Treeform on 2008/03/29 05:36:

there is but its kinda alpha: http://public.nouser.org/~rspoerri/Development/python/panda3d/projects/p3dapp/0.8.0-alpha-1-1.5.0/ you can build it from source though if this does not work.

lucio on 2008/03/29 08:08:

pleease, dont use stuff that then makes it impossible for me to test the games! i could never run a panda or ogre game in previous pyweeks.

Treeform on 2008/03/29 16:52:

I make game for fun. I like to use best tools available - that currently is panda3d. It runs perfectly on all windows installations - if you don't have a windows machine i am sorry i cant make a game to run on all 32/64 bit OSX and Linux flavors all though it will run on some of not more then half of systems - linux developer here.

If you limit your self to that you can at most pygame-games then pyweek is only a pygame competition for you. If its only a pygame competition all the people that are interested in other thing will NOT participate which leads to less game and less learning of other technologies - the complete opposite of what pyweek is. So i feel that you not having a way to test a perfectly good games you are destroying both the participation and the fun of learning associated with pyweek.

So what you are asking is "please i want less people and less interesting things to be build just so that i can run them on my obscure system" I urge you to reevaluate your decision of using your obscure system system as a criteria and try to find a friend with a windows box.

NOTE: Panda3D also works well on ubuntu (main development os), fedora, suse, or debian there is also many developers using it on Mac OSX and there is 2 games commercially running on mac os X - but if we need to use a system as a standard proportionality it will have to be windows.

illume on 2008/03/29 17:33:

Well, hopefully installation of panda3d has improved since the last pyweek. If not, the panda3d people could try and make the installation better.

Looking forward to your panda3d game :)

cheers,

lucio on 2008/03/29 19:01:

Treeform, do you need a hug? A cookie?

I must conclude that you think that my participation (with a mac) is "destroying both the participation and the fun of learning associated with pyweek". I think you are overreacting a bit. You want to do panda3d, do panda3d. I wont be able to run it. You dont care? Fine.

Im sure that the fun of pyweek is not just using panda, if not, take a look at all the other entries in the last years that still managed to have fun. But if it is for you, then go ahead. Just in case that it wasnt so critical for you, i thought you could consider other peoples requests.

Have a nice day and enjoy pyweek.

Tee on 2008/03/29 21:30:

Just to state a comment, I agree that it's best if all games were portable, but if someone likes using an interesting library (valid by the rules), I'd support it even if it weren't portable/didn't run on my machine. I find interesting to look at what other people like to use. I've never heard of Panda3D since last Pyweek, but my curiosity made me investigate it and it's something I might use at some point in the future. Hadn't he used it, I probably still wouldn't know about it.

As a more concrete example, last Pyweek I had problems with pyglet (I don't remember exactly what was the problem, but I never got to play Lazy Susan). But seeing that this Pyweek more people plan to use it, today, out of curiosity, I read the documentation and I liked it very much (and I might even use it this Pyweek). If people didn't use pyglet because I or others couldn't run it, I wouldn't have the opportunity to get to know it. In a way, Pyweek tends to promote libraries and other tools, which is a good consequence, even at the unfortunate cost of some people not being able to play the games that use them (if they aren't very portable).

As a sidenote, I agree with lucio that there was a bit of an overreaction on Treeform's post.