I wanted to point out that PyOgre has a successor: python-ogre[1]. It seems to be a very active project that not only wraps Ogre but other useful stuff also.

Another engine worth mentioning in the Python world is soya3d[2]. Though not as complete, stable or well documented it is simple yet quite powerful.

I must also say that what I most liked about Panda, which sets it aside from other options is the complete documentation (targeted at Python programmers from the start).

Lastly I wanted to thank you for taking the time to write those gentoo ebuilds[3] for panda3d and I wanted to let you know that I renamed the 1.5.0 ebuild to 1.5.2 and it worked just fine.

Thanks for your work,

Lwcyphr

[1]http://www.python-ogre.org
[2]href=”http://home.gna.org/oomadness/en/soya3d/index.html
[3]http://bugs.gentoo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=144259

I wanted to point out that PyOgre has a successor: python-ogre. It seems to be a very active project that not only wraps Ogre but other useful stuff also.

Another engine worth mentioning in the Python world is soya3d. Though not as complete, stable or well documented it is simple yet quite powerful.

I must also say that what I most liked about Panda, which sets it aside from other options is the complete documentation (targeted at Python programmers from the start).

Lastly I wanted to thank you for taking the time to write those gentoo ebuilds for panda3d and I wanted to let you know that I renamed the 1.5.0 ebuild to 1.5.2 and it worked just fine.

I wanted to point out that PyOgre has a successor: python-ogre. It seems to be a very active project that not only wraps Ogre but other useful stuff also.

Another engine worth mentioning in the Python world is soya3d. Though not as complete, stable or well documented it is simple yet quite powerful.

I must also say that what I most liked about Panda, which sets it aside from other options is the complete documentation (targeted at Python programmers from the start).

Lastly I wanted to thank you for taking the time to write those gentoo ebuilds for panda3d and I wanted to let you know that I renamed the 1.5.0 ebuild to 1.5.2 and it worked just fine. Check the gentoo bug page for minor modification needed to be able to import direct.

Thanks for your work.

NicEchaniz

Thanks for the objective article about your search for the right engine, and for giving the amazing Panda3d engine a run through.

Being a very complete game engine and having a great community makes for a good choice.

THe engine has some amazing features , as you can see by going through the ‘features’ page and and having a great development team aided by a amazing community will continue to allow it to innovate.

One thing I wanted to clear up as to me is a non-issue. I know the issue of the license comes up sometimes and while technically you might call foul compared say to the LGPL of other engines, its really not a fair comment I dont think because what open source software is to suppose to do, is make code publicly available and to give back if you change it, for all to benefit from and essentially that is what this clause is doing ( IMHO only ). The second issue is beyond their control as they are a U.S. company and must adhere to government regulations. It’s a great company, a great engine , and its a noble thing to reach out and get code, make it better and give back to the community. The world could do far worse having such a model by which to mold a society.

I would like to take the opportunity to welcome you to the helpful community whether on the forums, or in IRC

cheers
neighborlee

– there are two clauses in the license that are not free. The first of these is:

An electronic copy of the source code for major modifications that You make to the Software should be forwarded to Licensor at Panda.Project@Disney.com…

This clause requires you to give any modifications you make back to Disney. This is not allowed in a free software license: a true free license allows you to keep modifications to yourself. The second clause that is not free is as follows:

The Software may not be downloaded or otherwise exported or reexported into (or to a national or resident of) Cuba, Libya, North Korea, Iran, Syria, or any other country to which the U.S. has embargoed goods…

The intent of this clause was merely to avoid liability by complying with US export law. However, this was a mistake. A free software license may not discriminate against Cubans, Libyans, and so forth. Even if the law discriminates, the license is not allowed to be a party to that discrimination or to fuel it.

The bit about giving modifications back to Disney doesn’t seem bad.. since thats only if you make modifications to existing code. Since in most cases I don’t think anyone would need to make any changes to the existing code to make a game this doesn’t seem to matter much, but is very important to keep it in mind.

I’ve been using Panda3d off and on for awhile now, but haven’t had time to do comparisons to other engines. I’m really happy to hear I’m not the only one that can seen past it’s cheese ball name. It definitely seems that Panda hasn’t been getting nearly the attention it deserves, mainly because as soon as people see that it doesn’t have a level editor they immediately discard it. But really with how Panda is setup, it seems pretty easy to use a 3d modeling program to fit those needs and really allow for more than any other level editor I’ve seen.

That is easy for me to say since I’m an artist that plays around with python on the side. But only basic knowledge is needed to merge existing art assets or create objects that panda will read as entities (could have panda look for something like ent_* in the object name and have a text file that defines object properties maybe). If you are looking for a 3d app you can setup as a proper editor, I would take a look over Maya. They have python support and while they didn’t implement it well, someone in the community did with PyMel. Though in most cases, any major modeling program should work just fine without any modification.

Anyway, I hope more people in search for advice on game engines comes across your post. It seems like it could save them a lot of time and pain.