VISUAL3D.NET: BETA 1 ANNOUNCED

Along with the new design for Realmware's site, beta 1 of the long-awaited "Visual3D.Net" framework has been announced.

From the announcement: "... Realmware is happy to announce that Visual3D.NET Beta1 will be released April 30th, 2007. The list of features to be included in Beta1 as well as future releases can be seen on the Visual3D.NET Features page. Please register now to sign up for the Beta ...".

Visual3D.Net vs. Blade3D vs. TorqueX vs. doing all by your-self. Hummm ... so many choices ... which one will you choose?

JAD ENGINE 1.1 RELEASED

For those of you that never heard about Jad engine, it's one of the first shader-prone engines created using MDX that was released to the public for free.

I was following its development since it was originally called "Haddd" engine, so let me tell you that if you want to learn how to develop a robust and powerful engine, then Jad engine is a great knowledge base on the subject.

From the announcement: "... After more than 6 months of work the Jad Engine Team has finally released Jad Engine 1.1. This new version comes with lots of bug fixes, minor improvements (math library, multiple viewports,...) and major new features (virtual file system, scripting,..) ...".

You can download the engine from its hompage in Codeplex.

Cheers!

"XNA WEEKLY ROUNDUP 27-03-07 TO 01-04-07"

Mykres has published his "Weekly Roundup" which covers source codes, projects, games, new blogs/sites, tutorials and game releases from March 27th, 2007 to April 1st, 2007.

From Mykres' post: "... it as been another quiet week in the world of XNA, but this week we have seen a few new Bloggers come onto the scene (Lets hope they keep the content flowing). We have also seen a refresh of the Garage Games Torque X Systems and the introduction of another starter kit, 'Platformer Starter Kit'.

Ziggy has posted an update to his tutorial collections, and we have seen an example of a Windows GUI System for the XNA Framework.

Just a Reminder guys that a lot of the XNA Community already hangs out on IRC on the Efnet Server in the #xna Channel, please drop by and say hello… it has been a but quiet there as well ...".

Find the whole news update here ...

"MICROSOFT ON LOWERING THE BARRIERS OF CREATIVITY"

GameDaily Biz has published the article "Microsoft on Lowering the Barriers of Creativity" which includes an interview to Microsoft's Chris Satchell (General Manager, Game Developer Group) and Aaron Greenberg (Group Product Manager for Xbox 360 & Xbox Live) at GDC'07, which of course mentions XNA GSE.

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 ...