Panda3D
Panda3D
is a free, open-sourced animation solution that can be used to create
games, animated films or shorts and other things to bring your
imagination to life. It has been used by famous game companies as well
as even some tech savvy high school students, and is one of the best
programs/engines of its type.
Those
who read my column here at Freewaregenius or my personal blog on a
regular basis will know that I have always had an interest in animation
as a hobby. From my early attempts with supremely simple programs like
Movie Make to more recent innovations like Xtranormal,
I have tried to keep up on what’s happening in animation from the
standpoint of the average computer user. Panda3D represents a bit of a
step higher in the echelon than anything I have used before and while it
is more complex than anything else I have used, it is also more
powerful, and thankfully has great documentation and community support.
First
of all, Panda3D is many things in one package. It is a 3D animation
studio, a game engine and a development system that works specifically
with Python and with C++ programming languages. Now, much of that might
sound like Greek to a lot of us, but the basic notion is clear; Panda3D
is an animation supertool that can be used to do nearly anything you
want. So, while I was a bit daunted at how complex and powerful it is, I
set forth to find out exactly what the average person might be able to
get out of it.
First
you will need to download the program and/or the open source SDK. The
primary program package (say that eight times fast!) is a stand-alone
program that doesn’t require anything else to work. The SDK package is
what you’ll need to download if you want to integrate Panda3D with other
programming or if you just want to fiddle with the source code for
Panda3D itself. While the SDK package is beyond my skill level, I was
able to get the primary Panda program downloaded and start playing with
it immediately. It’s called the Panda3d Run Time For End Users, and you
can find it on the downloads page of the main Panda site (see the bottom
of this article for links). It takes less than a minute to download on a
broadband connection and installation is a breeze as well. Note that
Panda is available for a number of different operating systems, as well,
including Windows and Mac OS among others.
Once
installed, I noticed that there was no shortcut on my desktop or start
menu so I went searching for it on my computer’s hard drive. I found the
Panda3D folder on my main drive, in the Program Files (x86) folder and
noted that there were two different applications as well as a host of
dll files and an internet shortcut. Never being one to read instructions
before jumping right in, I activated the Panda3d application (after
sending it to the desktop as a shortcut, of course). The result was a
DOS window that opened up and ran a bunch of code and then vanished with
no apparent effect. Undaunted, I went searching on the Panda website to
find out what I was doing wrong. I headed for the Manual on the
Documentation tab and immediately discovered the following words:
“Panda3D is not a Beginner’s Tool or Toy”
Well,
that left me out of the race as far as just fiddling with it but I
decided to do some more research to find out just who it
is
for and how it can be used. Essentially, you’ll need to be a skilled
programmer to use Panda to any real effect. While this is not a
drawback, it does mean that the audience and user base will be smaller
and more targeted than something like Xtranormal. However, that being
said, I did find out that CMU (the company that produced Panda3D) also
has on offer a program called Alice, that
is
for beginners and students of animation so if you’re not ready to dive
into Panda you may want to check that out (see link below) and see how
far you can get with it. Additionally, Panda3D has a gallery on their
home page that contains many demo programs and even complete game
programs for your amusement, all downloadable for free and all created
with Panda3D. If nothing else, it’s always nice to see what kind of
cutting edge graphics are in the works and what kinds of things you can
expect to be able to do yourself once you progress in your animation
education.
For skilled programmers, Panda does offer a wealth of different tools
and options, essentially acting as an API utility belt that will make
you the Batman of 3D programming and rendering. Panda supports a lot of
the newer shader techniques as well as high end pipeline compiling, so
it is appropriate for use in many different ways from making children’s
educational games to creating high quality animated entertainment from
scratch. While my level of expertise is not there yet, what I was able
to see of the demo programs and screenshots made me very excited to keep
learning so I could begin to utilize the amazing tools available in
Panda3D. Panda3D’s home page also has a huge list of learning resources
for you, so even if you’re not an expert ready to use Panda yes, you can
get your feet on the right path to that eventual end, starting at the
Panda3d home page.
So, in conclusion, if you’re an experienced
coder and programmer, Panda3D is for you. If you are just beginning, you
might want to go with something like Xtranormal or Alice. I’ll be doing
a review on Alice in the near future too, so look for that if you’re
interested in ‘breaking’ into animation from the floor up. Until next
time, my friends.
Download full version (click below) :
Fraps
is a universal Windows application that can be used with games using
DirectX or OpenGL graphic technology. In its current form Fraps
performs many tasks and can best be described as:
