Managing Projects

pman

pman is a Python module used by BlenderPanda to help manage Panda3D projects. It has no dependencies on Blender’s bpy nor any Panda3D modules, which means it can be used in custom scripts as well.

Configuration

pman has two config files that can be used to configure projects: .pman and .pman.user. The .pman file controls project settings that should affect all users running this project, and it should be submitted to version control. .pman.user are per-user settings for a project, and it should not be submitted to version control. These per-user settings can be configuration options such as paths to various programs on a users machine. These INI-style files contain key-value pairs divided into sections. Here is an example .pman file:

[general]
name = Game
render_plugin = game/bamboo/rendermanager.py

[build]
asset_dir = assets/
export_dir = game/assets/
ignore_exts = blend1, blend2

[run]
main_file = game/main.py
auto_build = True

.pman Options

general options

name

The name of the project. This is not currently used for anything.

render_plugin

A path to a python file containing a render manager.

build options

asset_dir

The directory to look for source files (e.g., blend files) that need to be converted.

export_dir

The directory to place all converted assets in. This folder is created during the build step and should not be put under version control.

ignore_patterns

A comma separated list of Python fnmatch patterns. Any files in the asset_dir matching one or more of these patterns will not be converted.

run options

main_file

A path to the Python file that contains the entry point for running the game with Panda3D. This is usually the file setting up and running ShowBase.

auto_build

When set to True, the project is built (files are converted) every time the project is run. Only outdated files are converted, which makes building very quick if everything is already converted.

auto_save

When set to True, the current open file in Blender is saved when using the RunProject operator.

.pman.user Options

blender options

last_path

The full path to the last Blender binary that opened the project. This can be used to avoid putting a Blender binary in an environment PATH variable. If Blender is not in the PATH, make sure to open the project in Blender once before trying to run/build the project from the command line.

use_last_path

If this option is set to True, pman will use the last_path config value when it needs to launch Blender (e.g., when doing conversion). If this value is set to False, then blender must be on the system PATH.

Render Managers

TODO