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

Time for action – understanding parent child inheritance


To better understand how children inherit properties from their parents, we're going to add two more models to our scene and see how they mingle.

  1. We need to add six more lines of code to our file in order to load two more models, add them to the Scene Graph, and position them in view:

  2. Save the file as "chp02_07.py" and run it.

  3. The cycles look like white blobs because they are untextured and unlit. We don't need to worry about that right now. Next, let's parent the second cycle to the first, instead of to render. Change line 13 to

    self.cycle2.reparentTo(self.cycle1).
  4. Save the file as "chp02_08.py" and run it.

What just happened?

Notice how the left cycle changed position. This is because child NodePaths inherit the coordinate system of their parent. That means that originally, when it was a child of render, the left cycle was positioned at (-2,15,0), relative to render. When we changed the parent, the left cycle moved to (-2,15,0) relative...