Sound

Sound System Options

To play audio in your game, Panda3D can offer you the following two choices of audio libraries:

• OpenAL is a well-known and popular open-source audio library. Panda3D uses the OpenAL Soft implementation.

• FMOD is a powerful proprietary cross-platform sound engine that supports various types of sound files - MP3, WAV, AIFF, MIDI, MOD, WMA, and OGG Vorbis. However, its license restricts you from using it for commercial purposes unless you actually purchase a special license. Non-commercial use of FMOD is free of charge. (For more information on this, visit the FMOD Licenses page.)

If these choices are not enough for you, then you can try other sound libraries.

Setting the Sound System

To configure Panda3D to use a specific sound system, you will need to change your Config.prc configuration. You should look up the variable audio-library-name and change the value to either p3openal_audio or p3fmod_audio. (The names of the libraries may differ with the way Panda3D was built.)

Extra Notes

If you don’t want to use one or both of the libraries shipped by default with the SDK, then you can remove the associated library files after installation or compile Panda3D from source with the appropriate settings to keep them out of the build.

• Loading and Playing Sounds and Music
  • Architecture
  • Basics
• Manipulating Sounds
  • Looping a Sound
  • Notes on Looping Sounds Seamlessly
  • Cueing Time
  • Changing Playback Speed
• Audio Managers
• DSP Effects
  • The FilterProperties Object
• 3D Audio
• Multi-Channel
  • Summary