Christoph Lang [Lang - Panda3D 1.7 Game Developer’s Cookbook

Panda3D 1.7 Game Developer's Cookbook

Over 80 recipes for developing 3D games with Panda3D, a full-scale 3D game engine

Christoph Lang

BIRMINGHAM - MUMBAI

Panda3D 1.7 Game Developer's Cookbook

Copyright 2011 Packt Publishing

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First published: March 2011

Production Reference: 1170311

Published by Packt Publishing Ltd.

32 Lincoln Road

Olton

Birmingham, B27 6PA, UK.

ISBN 978-1-849512-92-3 www.packtpub.com

Cover Image by Asher Wishkerman ( a.wishkerman@mpic.de )

Credits

Aparna Bhagat

Christoph Lang is a game developer currently working for Mi'pu'mi Games in Vienna. He has a BSc in Computer Science and an MSc in Game Engineering and Simulation Technology, both from UAS Technikum Wien. Christoph has a strong interest in developing and designing games as well as computer graphics and game engine design. He tries to take an active part of the game developer community by contributing code, blog posts, tweets, and of course, this book.

I would like to thank Kathi, my one love, for always being there for me. My parents, siblings, and friends for all their support. Thanks also goes to Alexander Hofmann and his team at UAS Technikum Wien for encouraging me to do this.

Cynthia " CG " Anderson (yes, CGA are really her initials) has been involved in the software industry for over 20 years, and has worn many hatsfrom researcher, to software designer, to UI/UX consultant, to marketing/customer insight researcher, to AI experimenter, to technical writer, to program manager, but also to avid artist, and storyteller. She's shipped multimedia titles as well as written hundreds of pages of user/developer documentation for various companies, as well as advised other past technical books during her varied history. She's seen the rapid expansion of the Internet and of the visual dimension of computing, including being involved in virtual worlds standards definition and couldn't be happier at the result. In fact, she hopes many more people will embrace open source gems like Panda3D, as well as others of equal caliber, and continue to keep not just the open source community but the whole software industry alive and vibrant with new innovations, new opportunities for storytelling, and the creation of entirely new methods for virtual world immersion. You can contact CG through her page on LinkedIn. CG resides currently in the Seattle, WA area.

Paulo Barbeiro is Brazilian, from So Paulo, graduated in Graphic Design in 2004, at Belas Artes SP College, and postgraduate in Game Development at SENAC SP. Paulo has started his professional carrier in 1999, as web developer.

Today, besides the web and mobile application development work, Paulo is involved in experimental educational projects in technology and cyber culture, at SESC SP, where he leads activities about creative code, and art-software, like interactive environments, games, and entertainment media.

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Preface

Panda3D is a free and open source game engine. It has been used successfully by hobbyists as well as big studios to create games ranging from quick prototypes to full-scale commercial MMOs. Panda3D makes it easy to use models, textures, and sounds to create impressive interactive experiences. With this book, you too will be able to leverage the full power of the Panda3D engine.

Panda3D 1.7 Game Developer's Cookbook will supply you with a set of step-by-step instructions to guide you to usable results quickly. Enabling physics, working with shader effects, and using Panda3D's networking features are only a few of the things you will learn from this book.

This book will take you through all the topics involved in developing games with Panda3D. After a quick sweep through setting up a basic scene, Panda3D 1.7 Game Developer's Cookbook will bring up topics like render-to-texture effects and performance profiling.

Focused recipes will get you closer to your game development goals step-by-step. This book covers advanced topics of game development with the industry-scale Panda3D engine. With every article you will be able to add more features and you will be gui ded from getting user input from gamepads and shader effects to user interfaces, adding physics, and using the engine's networking capabilities. Using these features, you will also get in touch with other languages and technologies like C++, the Cg shadin g language, or the Twisted server framework.

Panda3D 1.7 Game Developer's Cookbook provides a great reference for your Panda3D game development needs and helps you to deliver impressive results more quickly and with great ease.

Preface

Chapter 1, Setting Up Panda3D and Configuring Development Tools: Get set for working with Panda3D. Install and configure the engine as well as the development tools used throughout the book.