Programming
Naith PDF Print E-mail
Written by Tom SF Haines   
Tuesday, 16 February 2010
A while ago I made part of a 3D shooter - its woefully incomplete, but functional regardless, and has some fairly high level capabilities. Time got the better of me and I moved onto other things, but with the recent release of Panda 1.7.0 decided to release it, as it does contain some fairly sexy code. I am actually now intending to do some further work on it - see if I can create something playable.

Anyway, the Google code project for it may be found at http://code.google.com/p/naith/.

Also, using Pandas new web plugin you may play it in your webbrowser, by going to http://thaines.net/content/naith/naith.html.
Last Updated ( Tuesday, 16 February 2010 )
 
PortalNode demo for Panda3D PDF Print E-mail
Written by Tom SF Haines   
Thursday, 21 May 2009
I have been experimenting with the PortalNode object provided by Panda 3D, and have put together an example showing how to use it. Its purpose is to optimise when you have large levels with limited visibility from one area to the next - think of being inside a building: Portal Demo

Read more...
 
Pyweek 8 PDF Print E-mail
Written by Tom SF Haines   
Sunday, 03 May 2009
Pyweek is a competition (Not that the competing part really matters that much) to make a game in a week. I had a go at it and actually succeeded in creating an entry - you may find it here - http://pyweek.org/e/Wibble/. Obviously its hardly the best as it was made in a week, I even turned up at uni and did a full days work on 3 of the days, but its kinda fun and very topical. Certainly, I'm pleased with the result.
 
Correct normal mapping in Panda 3D from Blender PDF Print E-mail
Written by Tom SF Haines   
Thursday, 08 January 2009
Edit: The stuff given below has now been integrated into the sourceforge svn repository, to be found at http://sourceforge.net/projects/chicken-export/.

Over the Christmas holiday I've made several improvements to the Chicken exporter that takes models from Blender into the .egg file format used by Panda 3D. Specifically:

1) The use of tangent maps now works by using Blenders tangents/bi-normals directly. The GUI allows you to disable this feature but I've enabled it by default as you would be mad to not use it. (See below image link)
2) I've integrated mweb's single file patch, with an interface so its use is optional. Made it default to off as most people are used to multiple files and I am not in a position to give it a proper test right now. Latter on it should probably become the default as its a preferable mode for newbies.
3) Animation details are now saved into an object property when you hit the export button and reloaded when you next run the script. This means that you don't have to re-enter the time ranges and names for your animations each time.
4) Fixed an issue with the package creation script so it works under windows.

You may get the script for blender here. My copy of the repository is here. There are a few extra test blender files plus the fix to the package creation script in there.

I've also put together an image to demonstrate the improvement of using this exporter - normal_comp.jpg. The left image is a shot of the normal mapping inside blender, the middle image is using the panda 3d generated tangents/bi-normals whilst the right image is with blenders.
Last Updated ( Sunday, 25 January 2009 )
 
64 bit Panda 3D, 1.5.1 PDF Print E-mail
Written by Tom SF Haines   
Thursday, 24 April 2008
Note: You can now get 64 bit versions from the panda 3d website - starting from 1.5.3. Saves me the effort of compiling them:-)

Not sure how this happened but I seem to be doing 64 bit versions of Panda 3D. Well, I guess I want them, so it makes sense to share. Anyway:

panda3d_1.5.1-ubuntugutsy_x86_64.deb
(Note: I've now tested the above under Hardy Heron - it works fine.)

Be warned that no sound or video playback (ffmpeg) support is available, as these have yet to be ported to 64 bit.
Last Updated ( Friday, 19 September 2008 )
 
A weird tenticle thing, emerging from the website.