From Jason's post: "... I’ve thought that I’ll probably have to write a material editor sort of thing where my artist can play around with the materials settings until he finds out the right settings to stick in the lookup texture. For instance, he will be putting an index value in the alpha of the texture, which will then lookup into another texture to get 4 values instead of one ...".
From the articles: "... A triangle is defined by 3 points, which is defined by a Vector3, containing the X, Y and Z coordinate (3D space), and maybe some additional information, such as color. Such a point is called a vertex. XNA has some vertex structures embedded, and one of them is perfect for this example: VertexPositionColor. So let us add this to our class ...".
You can find part I and part II on his blog.From the post: "... is a combination Game/Simulation engine and Game/Simulation building tool-set all built into one. This means it has much of what you need built right into it, saving you a tremendous amount of time and letting you, and your team, focus on the imaginative and creative part of your application. For instance, assigning keys and mouse clicks to control objects in your 3D world; normally you would have to write a whole bunch of code and event handling on your own to accomplish this. Visual3D has that built-in, so all you have to do is decide what keystroke or mouse-click does what. That is just the tip of the iceberg of what Visual3D has built into it ...".
Stay tuned.From kyle's article: "... Before I explain the classes, a picture of how the node tree is constructed in a Quadtree as objects are added and move through the tree (individual frames on click-through) ...".
From the article: "... With some of the projects that I am working I am going to have to be able to store player and game data, so with this in mind I thought that it was time I had a look at the storage systems that are included in the XNA Framework. The first stage in this project was to make sure that I had had a good read of the Documentation files for the Storage System that Shipped with the XNA Framework ...".
Read on!From Kyle's article: "... Imagine a game like Pong, except with a rotating triangular ball. This ball needs to have perfect collision detection with the paddles, which means if any part of the triangle intersects with the paddle, there is a collision. You can’t just do simple radial collision detection, nor can you do rectangle collision detection, because the triangle might not actually be colliding for some collisions detected in those cases. However, performing the triangle-to-paddle collision detection can be expensive to do every frame (I know, not that expensive – but imagine 200 balls with 30 players around a big field with balls also colliding with each other, or something like that). So what are you to do? ...".
Read on!The issue includes an exclusive interview to Robin Burrowes -Microsoft's Xbox Live product manager for the UK and Ireland, plus previews of "Mass Effect" and "Shadowrun", a review of "Command and Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars", and more, much more.
From Eli's post: "... I don't know about everyone else, but usually the first thing I do after loading models is loop over their effects and set up their lighting. (Check Shawn's blog to read more about the standard lighting rig and per pixel lighting. ) The other day I thought of a neat way to tuck this code away a little, so I thought I'd share.
A subclass of ContentManager could easily handle the model setup code for us automatically. It could check what kind of content it's being asked to load, and if the content type is a Model, it can set up the model automatically ...".
Read on!From the article: "... To cull an object, you have to compute the object's bounding volume. Since we are keeping this article simple we will use bounding spheres. Bounding spheres are both economical and very fast.
Iterating thru the meshes in a model, we can merge the bounding spheres to produce a composite that bounds the entire model ...".
From Ziggy's article: "... Extending the Bitmap Font Maker Utility to support multiple file formats is a very easy task since the .NET System.Drawing.Bitmap class wich the font utility uses to write its output with already supports several file formats via the System.Drawing.Image base class ... I have chosen to implement bmp, jpg, png and tiff ...".
Read on!From the article: "... Before you go any further I need to explain how XNA works on the Xbox 360. Microsoft created a version of the .Net compact framework that runs on the Xbox 360, as well as Xbox versions of the XNA assemblies. To get these assemblies onto your Xbox 360 and enable deployment of XNA framework requires that you join the Creators Club which has a cost associated. The changes you will make for this article will work on the PC too, but you will not be able to play on the Xbox 360 without this. Microsoft have provided a video to help you get this installed: Getting Started with the XNA Creators Club ...".
This article is available on the Coding4Fun site.From the article: "... I’ll look at what FPS values actually mean, how we count them in game and then why it’s a bad idea to profile your games performance using FPS as your only metric ...".
It uses the new SpriteFont class to render the performance data on screen.I knew it! Don't be a lazybones, pay a visit to the XNA Creators Club Online site and:
Wow!
[Are you an "XNA'ER"? Sounds cool, doesn't it?]The issue includes an interview to the president of Massive Entertainment -the one behind "World in Conflict" game- plus a preview of "Enemy Territory: Quake Wars", a review of "The Lord of the Rings Online: Shadows of Angmar", and more, much more.
From Andy's post: "... The postman left a nice gift for me this morning, a copy of Ben's book. I've had a grand total of about 30 minutes to look at it so don't consider this a full review.... Firstly you can get the code for the book included versions of XNA Racer and XNA Shooter from the Wrox website. The XNA Racer and XNA Shooter sites are not up yet but Rocket Commander has been up for quite a while. I have no idea if the Racer game is identical to what was supposed to show up on the creators club site or a different version, but looks like the book version is available first ...".
Although, Benny didn't include in the book's readme file some of the XNA-news blogs that have been working hard to keep you up-to-date in the XNA world ... snif! snif! ... :( ... I still believe this is a great book, so go and buy it ... ;)From the announcement: "... The article presents a high-level view of XNA Game Studio Express, and then walks through how to create a copy of Spacewar and modify the source to add new functionality to the game--in this case, a shield ...".
Cannot wait, ugh? Then get to the article by following this link.From the post: "... We had an opportunity to chat with Microsoft mascot-in-training Major Nelson, early yesterday morning as the internet began its incredible, violent reaction against the pricing of the Guitar Hero downloadable tracks on Xbox 360. Major Nelson listened to a few sample comments from Joystiq readers, and he had a lot to say. (He also gives imaginary "bonus points" to the "Horse Armor song" commenter.) ...".
I like this part: "... We've talked Sony, we've talked Microsoft. You own a Wii yet?
MN: Yeah, I have a Wii. I got a Wii probably about two, three months ago ..."
There's nothing wrong with the answer, but ... busted!!! ;)From the article: "... You know what I miss about the pre .Net days? Script! I liked creating a little script file to do little tasks for me, or to test a small piece of code without having to create a new project or solution. I like having one nice little file to deal with and clean up after, not a solution folder, a project folder and the resulting bin and obj folders. I long for those days, which is why I created Dot Net Script ...".
Pros and cons? Of course, but still worth reading since it uses C# as the scripting language.The issue includes a first look to the XBO 360 Elite plus previews of "Grand Theft Auto IV (GTA 4)" and "Fable 2", and more, much more.
From the article: "... With XNA Game Studio Express, it is a different approach. It's not just about modding a game that somebody's made; it's about making your own game. I definitely take your point [because] you need some skill to do it. Now I do think we've made it much easier with XNA Game Studio Express than it's ever been before, but when you add our partner products on top—like what we've done with Garage Games—then you actually have systems like Torque GameBuilder (TGB), which is drag and drop game development. You literally drag pieces in and you drop them. And then we have starter kits, so if you just want to mod an experience you can do that... So imagine if you take TGB and load up a pack and there's all the cool animated things—you just drag and drop them in, say what behavior you want and can start playing a game. And we actually licensed that from Garage Games so if you're a member of the Creator's Club in XNA you get that in your subscription ...".
Read on ...
