The wiki page not help to much so I think… well if the introduction of Panda3D said this "Entertainment Technology Center’s needs, Panda3D must be well-suited for use in student projects. Since students have a unique talent for causing crashes, bulletproof reliability is needed. Since projects only last one semester, the learning curve must be very short, and prototyping must be very rapid. " May be I can find the course used on Carnegie Mellon, some info or something and use as a guide complementing the wiki page.
So, I start search in different places, to my knowledge Panda 3D is used in the class “Building Virtual Worlds” or BVW so in here bvw.etc.cmu.edu I read the follow “Students use 3D modeling software (Maya), painting software (Photoshop), sound editing software (Adobe Audition & Pro Tools), and Unity3D, to display our virtual reality worlds.”
WHAT? what about Panda3D? so keep searching and found this “Software info Submitted by drupal_uber_admin on Mon, 2009-07-20 14:55 Perforce Adobe Audition FraPS Unity3D” from 2009, if you keep searching you can see that panda3d is not used anymore, look the recently student demo now use Unity3D for the class BVW, look this bvw.etc.cmu.edu/content/dmx “the current BVW class uses Unity3D engine instead of Panda3D engine, so references to Panda3D may not be relevant anymore.” WHAT?? this give me a lot of thinking… so may be the Game Engine is dead after all… I think after the dead of Dr. Randy Pausch, the panda3D was changed to Unity3D… over there by the 2009 or 2010.
Pirates and Toontown is dead and A Vampyre Story the second game is using Unity3D “en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Vampyre_Story:_Year_One”, Autumn Moon Entertainment develop of Vampyre Story and Ghost Pirates is now using Unity3D.
Carnegie Mellon is not used anymore for their classes and neither Disney for their games. Panda3D is not good for teaching game programming or teaching game development, neither for the develop of a Game.
In the long run I believe is not good game engine. I’m very confused…What do you think? is better to change for another game engine?
It’s true that the casual-game industry has largely been overtaken with Unity3D. Because of this, artists and programmers who already have experience with Unity3D are easier to find; and because of that, game studios are more likely to consider Unity3D for their future production needs.
It’s for a similar reason the BVW class has largely replaced Panda3D with Unity3D. It has nothing to do with the passing of Randy Pausch; it’s only that students preferred to gain some exposure to a common commercial engine.
Toontown and Pirates were closed down for their own reasons, which have nothing to do with the game engine; but they both enjoyed unprecedentedly long runs for games of their type, and I credit the excellence of the game engine as one of the reasons for their long success.
So at this time, Panda3D no longer has a strong presence in the commercial industry. It still thrives in the open-source community, which may or may not be important to you. Whether Panda3D is the right engine for you to use on your projects is your own choice to make, of course. But it remains the same excellent engine it has always been.
Panda3D has some commercial presence, we used it for our last project and plan to use it again for our next one. Being able to use Python is Panda’s major difference, and is the main reason we choose to use it. We also like that the engine is completely open source and we are free to modify it as needed.
There are still plenty of cases of Panda3D being used commercially. And even if there weren’t, Panda3D is still the go-to choice for a complete solution that’s also open-source.
With Panda3D Engine… You can easy to do more than Unity3D Free Version.
With new life source from Tobias Terrain ( + atmospheric scarttering) and more effort from community. I believe Panda3D will better.
I’m working on a project that make Panda3D friendly to use (The structure same Unity3D). Document and refactoring is in progressing. If you want to take a fast look, please visit … bitbucket.org/889/899-framework.git
In that framework have 3 game demo which built only in 1 months.
Thanks for your answers. I am here for the same reason that many opensource, license, features, C++, Python…And do not misunderstand me, I’m not comparing Panda3D with Unity3D. But maybe with another opensource solution. Look for example Irrlich the screenshot they have, here hmm some studen projects good scenes you know… differents games, styles of games, I don’t know exactly the potential of panda3D and the supported languages is another history. (Lua for example)
But I thought that being maintained by the University or used by Disney would “have” that backup or support. Many know that university projects are abandoned and also some opensource projects are abandoned, it is not true for everyone. But if not used by any…
In Disney’s case I think it has proprietary parts that never were to the community correct me if I’m wrong … perhaps the server-side or what ever. So if someone wants to make a MMORPG is not going to be easy. (I say this because surely there will be users who thought of making an MMORPG)
Hello teedee I know your game, man. Congrats! not name your game for other reasons. But others (RANDOM USER PROJECTS) used Panda3D only for the first draft and then transferred to another Game Engine (Custom GE or another GE or Unity3D >.> haha)
Hi thien0291 “You can easy to do more than Unity3D Free Version.” It depends on the point that you see bro but I understand what you mean. Oh thank you I will check it out.
I think the fear is starting to develop a game that you like and then the GE be abandoned.
Forget what I said, recently saw the confusion about Disney/CMU being active devs, apologize for not seen him before. I understand a little better what is happening. For my the first impression was may be not a dead project but a zombie project
Anyway I will give a second shot, after all, I’m just starting… as the last recommendation, update the information, show better pictures, show the updates/changes, the dates, collect all contributions in one page, like the editor, the terrain and the other stuff like C++ example and must also focus on C++ not for nothing says Panda3D is C++ and Python. I don’t mind the page look good (Is important) but if anyone enter and look good screenshot, documentation, things updated, good example, the impression will be another…
One of the big problems is that we do a great job at attracting game developers, but not such a great job at attracting artists. This results in people often thinking that they’re not able to create great graphics with Panda3D, whereas in reality Panda3D is not a limiting factor in this - it is all up to the artists involved and what they’re able to produce.
That said, we’re committed to improving our art pipeline so that it will be even easier for artists to get their assets and visual effects into Panda3D.
The way I see it, Panda3D is a mature engine with all the features you need to make a game. Even if for some reason no more work was done on it, it would still be a perfectly good choice.
I think the three major lacks in Panda3D are support for multiple files shaders in a single object, an ide or visual editor for integrated GUI system(i’m trying to do this alone ) and support for mobile devices such as Android.
For the rest I think it is the best free engine in the web as level of integrity and speed training (easy coding, python typing and class for complex projects, etc.)
The popularity problem is due to its low advertising around the web compared to unity3d or other “big engines” have but if you give a hope, I really think you’ll be fine with it.
what about Panda3D? so keep searching and found this “Software info Submitted by drupal_uber_admin on Mon, 2009-07-20 14:55 Perforce Adobe Audition FraPS Unity3D” from 2009, if you keep searching you can see that panda3d is not used anymore, look the recently student demo now use Unity3D for the class BVW, look this bvw.etc.cmu.edu/content/dmx “the current BVW class uses Unity3D engine instead of Panda3D engine, so references to Panda3D may not be relevant anymore.” WHAT?? 
the screenshot they have, here hmm some studen projects 
good scenes you know… differents games, styles of games, I don’t know exactly the potential of panda3D and the supported languages is another history. (Lua for example)
but I understand what you mean. Oh thank you I will check it out.
) and support for mobile devices such as Android.