[Edu-sig] PySqueak: Which 3D package should I use?

[Paul D. Fernhout]

Tom Hoffman wrote:
> That's about as far as I got with it.  My brief experience with
> Panda3d was more promising, but I also found both of these API's to be
> just too daunting.

Yes, I can see that now. If you really want all the features something 
like Soya provides then I can see there would be motivation to get through 
early hassles. But if you don't, it's hard to know if the investment is 
worth it given you don't know everything it can do until you see it in 
action. I'm really seeing the value of video on the web these days, in 
terms of being able to give quick overviews of what things do to motivate 
you to explore it on your own and get past the early problems. Those web 
videos are sort of a substitute for the old way of seeing new things in 
action by looking over someone's shoulder at the computer lab. :-).

I'm up to POC #13 with a cleanup of menu handling definable by the 
prototypes (mostly a cleanup over #12, really),
http://svn.sourceforge.net/viewcvs.cgi/patapata/PataPata/proof_of_concept_013.py?view=markup
and I'm thinking now I may still try to push forward with 2D a little more 
and hold off on 3D proof of concepts until I get a few more ideas or 
evaluations on good 3D crossplatform choices (thanks also go to Kirby). 
Probably the move will be driven more than anything by my repeated 
inability to get that darn wx flicker to go away under GNU/Linux! :-)
Still, it might be an opportune moment to switch because I am starting
to have to be concerned over text display and composite widgets, which is 
often more platform specific.

--Paul Fernhout