PANDA 3D - Open source Game Engine

PANDA 3D - Open source Game Engine

Panda 3 D is a open source game engine as of May 28, 2008, free software under the revised BSD license, a good framework for 3D rendering and 3 D game development for the languages like Python and C++ programs. Its a free to use and including commercial ventures.

Panda3D is a scene graph engine. This means that the virtual world is initially an empty Cartesian space into which the game programmer inserts 3D models. Panda3D does not distinguish between "large" 3D models, such as the model of an entire dungeon or island, and "small" 3D models, such as a model of a table or a sword. Both large and small models are created using a standard modeling program such as Blender, 3ds Max or Maya, loaded into Panda3D, and then inserted into the Cartesian space.

The Panda3D scene graph exposes the functionality of OpenGL and DirectX in a fairly literal form. For instance, OpenGL and DirectX both have fog capabilities. To enable fog in Panda3D, one simply stores the fog parameters on a node in the scene graph. The fog parameters exactly match the parameters of the equivalent calls in the underlying APIs. In this way, Panda3D can be seen as a thin wrapper around the lower-level APIs. Where it differs from them is that it stores the scene, whereas OpenGL and DirectX do not. Of course, it also provides higher-level operators, such as loading models, executing animations, detecting collisions.

Capabilities of Panda 3D are:

• Performance analysis tools.
• Scene graph exploration tools.
• Debugging tools.
• A complete art export/import pipeline.
• 3D Audio, utilizing either FMOD, OpenAL or Miles Sound System.
• Collision detection.
• Physics system, and full integration for the Open Dynamics Engine, experimental PhysX and Bullet integration.
• Keyboard and Mouse support.
• Support for I/O devices.
• Finite state machines.
• GUI, libRocket integration.
• Networking.
• Artificial intelligence.

Operating System:

Windows

Linux

Mac OS X

Sun OS

Graphics API's:

Open GL

DirectX

Website:

http://www.panda3d.org/

Supported Features:

General:

• Object-Oriented Design
• Other
• Support for ARtoolkit
• Development in C++ or Python
• Web plugin for deployment over the web
• "all-into-one" application packaging system
• Wide range of user-provided features and examples (PhysX integration, AI, GUI, particle system etc.)
• Fixed-function
• Stereo Rendering
• GUI Rendering for red/cyan stereo glasses
• Particle System
• Motion Blur
• Fog Post-effects (bloom, blur, volumetric lighting, cartoon look etc.)

Lighting:

• Per-vertex
• Per-pixel
• Volumetric A variety of lights that work by vertex lighting

Texturing:

• Basic
• Animated textures
• Support for video textures (AVI, MPG, MOV)
• Pointer textures (direct access to graphics card memory)
• 3D textures

Shaders:

• High Level
• Support Cg
• GLSL support
• Shader generator for basic shaders and combinations (bump, parallax, specular etc.)

Meshes:

• Mesh Loading
• Skinning
• Supports 3D Studio Max, Maya, and blender models via plug-ins.
• Low-level mesh manipulation

Animation:

• Skeletal Animation Soft skin animation and a sophisticated actor interface for character animation

Terrain:

• Rendering
• Generate terrain meshes from heighfields.
• GeoMipMapping

Physics:

• Basic Physics
• Collision Detection
• Rigid Body
• Vehicle Physics
• Very basic physics engine that may apply forces to classes. The physics engine can handle angular or linear forces, as well as viscosity
• There are two ways to go about collision detection: Bounding volumes & allow collisions against all geometry
• support for ODE physics

Networking:

• Client-Server a networking library and a mmo-grade patching system

Artificial Intelligence:

• Finite State Machines
• Built-in AI library with basic behaviours
• Two different finite state machine systems: FSM & ClassicFSM

Sound:

• 2D Sound
• 3D Sound
• Streaming Sound
• Sound using the FMOD library
• Support for OpenAL

Tools & Editors:

• Direct tools for GUI-based scene editing
• Particle effects API and GUI-based particle panel
• Future plans: An easy to use but powerful and generic scene/level editing tool

Scripting:

• Python scripting interface
• Programming on the fly using interactive scripting in the Python shell