NEW ARTICLE CONTEST AT ZIGGYWARE

Due to the success of the last donation drive, our good friend Ziggy is hosting a new XNA-based article compo at Ziggyware with quite amazing prizes: "Ziggyware Summer 2009 XNA Article Contest".

How about a 120 GB XBox 360 with Wireless Remote (USA NTSC) for the winner? Cool, uh? And this is just a one of the prizes!!!

As usual, check the rules and mark the deadline in your calendar: September 1st., 2009.

Happy writing!
~Pete

> Link to Spanish version.

AVATARS 101

One of the cool new features included in the now available 3.1 version of the XNA Framework, is the support for "Avatars".

But what is an "avatar" anyway?

During the 4th quarter of 2008 the XBox 360 User eXperience (UX) was enhanced with an awesome change in the look'n'feel of the Dashboard.

As part of this "extreme make-over", quite really cool 3D-animated characters were added to the system to represent gamers.

How come? Well, once a user is logged in, she/he can customize how her/his avatar looks: body, cloths, apparels and so on. And if the user has a XBox Live account, that avatar description will be also available on the Xbox Live servers when sined-in, representing her/him with other friends.

You may wonder: "Ok, I got my avatar but, can I use it in a 360 game?" The answer is: "Yes, as long as the game supports the use of avatars".

The video below shows the use of avatars in the 360 game called "Uno Rush".

Now, going back to the XNA Framework 3.1, what is it supported, exactly? And how can we properly use these avatars in our XNA-based games?

• To start with, avatars are only available on the XBox 360. Meaning that "Games For Windows - Live!" does not support it,
• Read carefully the guidelines: "Avatars: What Can You Do?",
• Visit Dean Johnson’s blog -developer in charge of implementing avatars support in 3.1- for more in-depth info about this feature,
• The skeleton is not available for the public yet but it was mentioned that a Maya skeleton rig will be published sometime in the future (no dates posted though), and
• Right now, there is only support for built-in animations, so once the skeleton gets released, and unless an official sample is provided when that happens, you will have to create your own "CustomAnimation" class to handle your own animations. Again, more information will be provided by the XNA Team in the future.

Any code snippets? Fortunately, there are great official and unofficial samples and articles out there explaining "How-To":

• Avatar Multiple Animations Sample,
• Avatar Animation Blending Sample,
• Rendering Avatars in XNA,
• XNA Game Studio 3.1 Avatar Tutorial, and
• Streaming XNA From XBox to PC.

Next week I'm going to post an example showing how to create, render and process a transition out from one animation to the next one, as a slightly different approach to the method included in one of the samples of the XNA Team.

So, stay tuned!
~Pete

> Link to Spanish version.

XNA GS 3.1 & XBOX LIVE "INDIE" GAMES

Excellent news! XNA Game Studio 3.1 is almost here! ... "almost" = the download link will be available any time soon :)

A few things to note regarding the release:

• In order to test 3.1 games on the XBox360, the XNA GS Connect must be updated, as explained by Michael Klucher,
• 3.1-based Games cannot be submitted for playtesting a/o peer review until 23rd, July,
• And from that date on, 3.1-based games won't reach the market until the Marketplace gets updated, and
• You can convert 3.0 projects to 3.1, following this walkthrough.

But this ain't all ... XBox Live Community Games is in the process of being renamed to XBox Live "Indie" Games!!! This is an additional nice surprise.

But wait! There is more ... during the week of the E3, the XNA Team announced that a new feature is comming to the Marketplace: User Ratings!

Wow! Interesting times will come for us XNA'ers, don't you think? Great news, indeed.

Enjoy,
~Pete

> Link to Spanish version.