Before we start using sound in our game, there is something we have to do. By default, Panda3D is set up to use an audio software package called FMOD. This package is very effective, and works marvellously, and is absolutely free for non-commercial use. However, in order to sell a product that uses it, a license fee of several thousand U.S. dollars must be paid.
The purpose of this book is to enable us to create commercial games using free components. For that reason, we can't take advantage of FMOD, and we'll be using the open source audio library called OpenAL. Panda3D comes with OpenAL integration, but it must be selected by editing the Config.prc
file.
Panda3D's Config.prc
file is where many default options for Panda3D are set. It decides which rendering system will be used, OpenGL or DirectX; the size of the default Panda window; which audio library will be used, and more. We'll talk about more of these variables in the next chapter when we start packing up our game...