Book Image

Panda3D 1.6 Game Engine Beginner's Guide

Book Image

Panda3D 1.6 Game Engine Beginner's Guide

Overview of this book

Panda3D is a game engine, a framework for 3D rendering and game development for Python and C++ programs. It includes graphics, audio, I/O, collision detection, and other abilities relevant to the creation of 3D games. Also, Panda3D is Open Source and free for any purpose, including commercial ventures. This book will enable you to create finished, marketable computer games using Panda3D and other entirely open-source tools and then sell those games without paying a cent for licensing. Panda3D 1.6 Game Engine Beginner's Guide follows a logical progression from a zero start through the game development process all the way to a finished, packaged installer. Packed with examples and detailed tutorials in every section, it teaches the reader through first-hand experience. These tutorials are followed by explanations that describe what happened in the tutorial and why. You will start by setting up a workspace, and then move on to the basics of starting up Panda3D. From there, you will begin adding objects like a level and a character to the world inside Panda3D. Then the book will teach you to put the game's player in control by adding change over time and response to user input. Then you will learn how to make it possible for objects in the world to interact with each other by using collision detection and beautify your game with Panda3D's built-in filters, shaders, and texturing. Finally, you will add an interface, audio, and package it all up for the customer.
Table of Contents (22 chapters)
Panda3D 1.6 Game Engine
Credits
About the Author
About the Reviewers
www.PacktPub.com
Preface
Index

Loading files into Panda3D


Loading files into a game is pretty easy with Panda3D, but there are some things to talk about now that we've seen it happen. We'll start by going over the path that Panda3D searches for files, and then we'll talk about a few file types we'll be using.

The model path

Panda3D searches a few different places for files when they are loaded, and these locations are controlled by the configuration file. There are a couple default folders in the Panda3D installation directory that are searched, but using them isn't really recommended. The best path to make use of is the most dynamic one, the path to the python file that's being run.

That means that when loading a file, it's best to use a relative path from the file that is launching the Panda3D application. Right now, that file is chp02_03.py. In that file, we used the path "../Models/Track.egg" to point to our model file. Our chp02_03.py file is located in "/BGP3D/Chapter02" and our model is located in "/BGP3D/Models"...