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Panda3D 1.7 Game Developer's Cookbook

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Panda3D 1.7 Game Developer's Cookbook

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Panda3D 1.7 Game Developer's Cookbook
Mar, 2011 | 336 pages
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Table of Contents (20 chapters)
Panda3D 1.7 Game Developer's Cookbook
Panda3D 1.7 Game Developer's Cookbook
Credits
Credits
About the Author
About the Author
About the Reviewers
About the Reviewers
www.PacktPub.com
www.PacktPub.com
Preface
Preface
Free Chapter
1
Setting Up Panda3D and Configuring Development Tools
Setting Up Panda3D and Configuring Development Tools
Introduction
Downloading and configuring NetBeans to work with Panda3D
Configuring Visual Studio 2008 to work with Panda3D
Understanding Panda3D's runtime configuration options
Setting up the game structure
Building Panda3D from source code
2
Creating and Building Scenes
Creating and Building Scenes
Introduction
Loading terrain
Loading and attaching sounds to objects
Creating a scene using C++
Adding an additional camera
Inspecting and modifying the scene
Modifying the scene graph
Moving objects based on time
Controlling actions using intervals
Making animations fit to intervals
Making objects follow a predefined path
Making the camera smoothly follow an object
Generating geometry at runtime
Loading data asynchronously
3
Controlling the Renderer
Controlling the Renderer
Introduction
Changing a model's render attributes
Adding an alpha mask to a texture
Creating a splitscreen mode
Controlling the rendering order
Using multiple displays
4
Scene Effects and Shaders
Scene Effects and Shaders
Introduction
Adding lights and shadows
Using light ramps
Creating particle effects
Animating textures
Adding ribbon trails to an object
Creating a flashlight effect
Making objects reflect the scene
Adding a custom shader generator
Applying a custom Cg shader
5
Post-Processing and Screen Space Effects
Post-Processing and Screen Space Effects
Introduction
Adding built-in post-processing effects
Building custom effects
Adding a scanline and vignette effect
Adding a color grading effect
Adding a depth of field effect
Building a deferred rendering pipeline
6
2D Elements and User Interfaces
2D Elements and User Interfaces
Introduction
Rendering text to the screen
Rendering images to the 2D layer
Playing a movie file
Creating an interactive user interface
Making the user interface data-driven using XML
7
Application Control
Application Control
Introduction
Toggling window and fullscreen modes
Controlling game state
Decoupling modules using events
Handling events more elegantly
Managing recurring tasks
8
Collision Detection and Physics
Collision Detection and Physics
Introduction
Using the built-in collision detection system
Using the built-in physics system
Using the ODE physics engine
Using the PhysX physics engine
Integrating the Bullet physics engine
9
Networking
Networking
Introduction
Downloading a file from a server
Using assets hosted on a server
Sending high scores to a server
Establishing a network connection
Sending and receiving custom datagrams
Synchronizing object state between server and client
10
Debugging and Performance
Debugging and Performance
Introduction
Debugging Python code
Debugging C++ code
Using the PStats tool for finding performance bottlenecks
Improving performance by flattening scenes
Implementing performance critical code in C++
11
Input Handling
Input Handling
Introduction
Handling keyboard and mouse input
Implementing an abstraction layer for supporting multiple input methods
Handling input from an Xbox 360 controller
Recording and simulating user input
Reading audio data from a microphone
Reading video data from a webcam
Reading input data from a network
12
Packaging and Distribution
Packaging and Distribution
Introduction
Packing assets into multifiles
Creating a redistributable game package
Advanced package creation and hosting
Embedding a game into a website
Using website and plugin interoperability
13
Connecting Panda3D with Content Creation Tools
Connecting Panda3D with Content Creation Tools
Introduction
Setting up the Blender export plugin
Exporting models from Blender
Generating model files programmatically
Using the "Pview" tool to preview models
Compressing and converting model files using pzip and egg2bam
Index
Index

Using assets hosted on a server

Panda3D features a very advanced virtual file system that makes it possible to transparently handle and load file data from various sources, such as directories in the local file system or archive files that contain resources themselves (See Chapter 12, Packaging and Distribution for more info on multifile archives and packages). Every time you call loader.loadModel(), the engine tries to find and load the requested model from one of the sources that have been added to the file system structure before.

However, files do not have to be stored on the local system to be used by Panda3D. The virtual file system also allows mounting directories hosted on web servers. Files that reside on the remote system are downloaded transparently as needed whenever they are requested by your application, without having to write any extra code apart from the call that adds the resources on the server to Panda3D's file system.

This can be very practical for games that feature constantly...

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