[Edu-sig] More on Panda3D

[Dethe Elza]

On 5/8/06, Tom Hoffman <tom.hoffman at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi Kirby,
>
> Have you also looked at Soya?  I don't think it has come up in this
> conversation.
>
> http://home.gna.org/oomadness/en/soya/index.html

Soya is one of those projects that looks intriguing, but I get put off
by the large numbers of dependencies involved. It is often hard enough
to figure out where to begin with a big library, just from a coding
perspective, without having to find the right versions of the right
libraries, and resolve all the issues getting them compiled and
working together.  If there were binary downloads (or easy_install
eggs) for the common platforms, I'm sure it would get more traction. 
>From reading the project pages, I'm not even sure if Soya runs on OS
X, which makes me even more reluctant to spend my time trying to put
all the pieces together.

> Soya 3D is a very high level 3D engine for Python. Soya aims at being
> to 3D what Python is to programming : fast to learn, easy to use,
> while keeping good performances ! Our goal is to propose a complete
> architecture to realise Free (GPL) games with professional quality
> entierely in Python.

This all sounds great. Unfortunately the documentation link is broken,
which makes it hard to evaluate the completeness/complexity tradeoffs
of Soya.  If there were an easy way to get started (download and docs)
I would happily explore, and possibly contribute.

> It seems to cover similar territory to Panda3D, but it is more of a
> grassroots community creation.  I haven't gotten into either far
> enough to really say which one is better, although Soya's definitely
> the tougher install.

Well, if Soya is known to work with OS X, that would make it the
easier install for me, since Panda3D does not yet run on OS X (it's
being worked on, but slowly).

> --Tom

--Dethe