Blender Game Engine, Crystal Space, Python & Panda3D

A few weeks ago I received the new book about the Blender Game Engine, “Blender GameKit 2“. The Blender Game Engine is integrated into Blender and consists of tools for editing game logic. You can create games without writing a single line of code! If you’re more advanced you can use Python to take things further.

The book consists of 320 full color pages and takes you through a lot of game engine features. It uses a hands-on approach and within a few easy steps a game is created. Besides tutorials the books also covers 3D basics, Blender basics, networking and animation. There is also a special feature that focuses on the “Yo Frankie!” game which was made with the Blender Game Engine. This book is highly recommended if you’re interested in working with the engine. Get more info here.

The “Yo Frankie!” game uses Crystal Space as a 3D engine and delivery platform. Crystal Space is a “free cross-platform software development kit for realtime 3D graphics, with particular focus on games”. Python is one of the languages you can use to create 3D content.

I decided to give it a try and I downloaded the zip from their website. I found out that installing isn’t trivial. There’s no installer that does all the work for you. Because I was in a lazy mood I decided to look for alternatives. The most important thing for me was that it had to be scriptable with Python. Searching Google led me to Panda3D which is a free open source game engine. For more info check out Wikipedia.

Their website says “Just Works, Right out of the Box”. I downloaded the installer and it actually does what it says: Just Works, Right out of the Box. As Python scripting editor I used Eclipse with the Pydev plug-in. I got the “Hello World” example running without any problems. I can highly recommend Panda3D, be sure to check it out!