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 – introducing NodePaths and nodes


To better understand NodePaths, let's go ahead and use the print statement to take a closer look at what's going on.

  1. At the end of the __init__ method in our world class, add this line:

    print(self.track)
  2. Make sure it's part of the indented block that makes up the method.

  3. Save the file as "chp02_04.py" and run it. Look at the command prompt window to see the output of the print statement.

  4. Note that at the bottom it says "render/Track.egg" in a format that looks just like a file path. That's because "render/Track.egg" is the model's location in the Scene Graph. Whenever we print out a NodePath, we'll get a result like this.

  5. Next, change the print statement to look like this:

  6. Save the file as "chp02_05.py" and run it.

  7. Now the output says "ModelRoot Track.egg". The ModelRoot is the node that the self.track NodePath points to.

What just happened?

The purpose of this exercise was to better understand the difference between a NodePath and a node. When we...