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 – using doMethodLater


  1. Change the line where we add our task to taskMgr so it matches the following:

    taskMgr.doMethodLater(5, self.cycleMove, "Cycle Move")
  2. Save this as chp03_04.py and run it. Wait 5 seconds for the task to startup. All of the output stays the same, but now there is a 5 second delay before the task beings.

  3. Let's create a new task to really see this in action. Add a new method to the World class with this code:

      def debugTask(self, task):
        print(taskMgr)
        return task.cont
  4. We don't need to print the taskMgr in two places, so remove the print(taskMgr) line from the cycleMove method. Also, we need to add the new task to the taskMgr. Add the following line below the taskMgr.doMethodLater method call:

        taskMgr.add(self.debugTask, "Debug Task")
  5. Once we've done that, our code should look like this:

    class World:
      def __init__(self):
        base.setBackgroundColor(0, 0, 0)
        self.track = loader.loadModel("../Models/Track.egg")
        self.track.reparentTo(render)
      ...