"INTRODUCTION TO COLLADA"

Gamasutra has published and excerpt from the book: "COLLADA: Sailing the Gulf of 3D Digital Content Creation".

This 6-page publication is specifically the book's opening chapter.

From the excerpt: "... This chapter explains why the COLLADA technology has been developed. It provides a global view, defines the problems addressed by the technology, the main actors, and the goals and perspectives for this new technology. It provides an historic overview and information on how COLLADA is being designed and adopted. The goal is to give the reader an insight into how the design choices are made and how this technology might evolve ...".

I don't know much about this format. I know is making a lot of noise in the Industry these days. So maybe it's interesting to read it and catch up at least on the concepts behind the format.

Later.

"PCGZINE 4" NOW AVAILABLE FOR DOWNLOAD

This month issue of PGCZine is now available for free download. As always, you have read it right, free download.

The issue includes a full interview with Michal Madej -Chief Designer of the RPG "The Witcher", previews of "Empire Earth III" and "Frontlines: Fuel of War", and more, much more.

So, what are you waiting for?! Download it now!

"INTERVIEW WITH MICROSOFT GAME STUDIO'S SHANE KIM" - PART 2

Do you remember this post? If you don't follow the link and read it but if you do just go ahead and read part 2 published by Gamasutra.

This second part of the interview to Shane Kim and Dave Mitchell covers "... their feelings toward Nintendo as competition, Microsoft's strategy of funding game development in Japan, the upcoming episodic Halo content, Peter Jackson, and more ...".

And yes, XNA GSE is mentioned throughout the interview. Take for instance: "... we've got over eighty universities from eight countries that are teaching, including Japan. In Japan, we've got Iwatani-san, the creator of Pac-Man, extremely excited about getting into the possibilities of Express. As a result, when he retires, he is going to be teaching at Tokyo Polytechnic University, using Game Studio Express to teach game design to future game developers ... ".

The creator of Pac-Man ... impressive, ugh?

Ok, please all repeat after me: "XNA rules!" ... ;)

"THE YOUTUBE OF GAMES: MICROSOFT GAME STUDIO'S SHANE KIM ON XNA STUDIO EXPRESS"

Gamasutra has published a 3-page article entitled "The YouTube of Games: Microsoft Game Studio's Shane Kim on XNA Studio Express", covering among other topics, the future of XNA GSE.

From the article: "... With the release of XNA Game Studio Express just behind them, Gamasutra met with Microsoft Game Studios' corporate vice president Shane Kim, and Microsoft Game Developer Group director of marketing Dave Mitchell in the heat of the 2007 Game Developers Conference.

In this extensive interview, we discussed the Xbox 360's current placement in the market, the possibility of making harddrives mandatory, the state of Microsoft Game Studios in Japan, future Zune connectivity with the 360, Kim's thoughts about the competition, and the future of XNA Game Studio Express, both commercially and for educational purposes. ...".

Interesting read.

ARE 'FOREACH' LOOPS THAT BAD FOR YOUR GAME?

Lately, many developers have been asking about any performance issues that the use of "Foreach" loops could bring to their XNA-based games, both in the PC and XBox360 platforms.

As a result of all those questions, Cornflower Blue decided to carry out its own research with the help of the "CLR Profiler" tool.

From Eli's post: "... I wanted to get the whole story. Plus, this was an ideal reason to learn to use the Windows and Xbox 360 CLR profiling tools, which I've put off doing for some time. So, I figured I'd do just that: do a foreach loop over a bunch of collections, use the profilers to see if I'm making garbage, and hopefully we'd all learn something in the process. ...".

It's a nice read, but most important, the results Eli's obtained are quite interesting, so go ahead, pay a visit to "Foreach, Garbage, and the CLR Profiler" and read on.

Enjoy!

360ZINE ISSUE 4 NOW AVAILABLE FOR DOWNLOAD

This month issue of 360Zine is now available for free download. And yes, you have read it right, free download.

If you missed my previous post, Gamerzines.com publishes a set of online magazines in 4 different flavors, being 360Zine one of them.

This month topics cover a full review of Tom Clancy's "Graw 2" and an exclusive of "Bioshock", inter alia.

So, what are you waiting for?! Download it now!

GAMERZINES: FREE MAGAZINES FOR GAMERS

Gamerzines? What's that? Glad you ask.

It's a set of e-magazines written by UK game reviewers that anyone in the world can download for free. Yes, for free!

But what is so special about this magazines? Well, not only you will find previews, reviews, interviews, and contests, but also as the magazines are dispatched as PDF files there's lots of multimedia content included, like demo videos and trailers of brand-new game releases and upcoming games.

The magazines comes in this four different flavors:

• 360Zine: for XBOX 360 gamers.
• PCGZine: for PC gamers.
• HGZine: for Sony PSP and Nintendo DS gamers.
• PESFanzine: official "Pro Evolution Soccer" e-magazine.

So, what are you waiting for, go and get them now!

BTW, 360Zine #3 includes an exclusive interview with Larry Hyrb, Microsoft's Xbox Live Director of Programming, also known as "Major Nelson".

Enjoy!

GCG'S NEW ARTICLE: MICRSOFT XNA PRIMER

The Game Career Guide has published an article about XNA which briefly explains what is all about with XNA.

Also, the article mentions some of the sites of the XNA community as well as includes interviews to Julien Ellie (Software Design Engineer - XNA Team), Joe Nalewabau (Project Manager Architect - XNA Team), Benjamin Nitschke (creator of 'Rocket Commander' and 'XNA Racer') and Alex Okafor (developer of 'WildBoarders', "a physics based 2D snowboarding game that recently won the first XNA development competition at xbox360homebrew.com").

Worth reading ...

ARTICLE: "GATES TAKES ON SONY AND NINTENDO"

GameIndustry.biz has published an article that summarizes Bill Gates' comments -interviewed by Dean Takahashi of the San Jose Mercury News, regarding how good the different strategies of the major console makers are doing so far, in his opinion of course.

As an indie, and from now on I will only refer to the 'game development' side of the story, I agree that the XBOX360 will do great since MS has decided to make the "development transition" easy for us: XNA.

I mean, the easier they make it for developers, the more developer's attention -and projects- they'll get, and ultimately, the more games will be created and released for their console.

If -in addition- "easy" includes "cheapper", the better.

Please do not misunderstand me, I'm not saying with this that console makers should make less restrictive the quality assurance policies and controls for commercial games. All I am saying is don't forget "indies", thus, help us produce for your consoles by providing better and affordable tools and frameworks, reducing the cost of game development (including time and effort as a "cost").

XNA GSE goes in that way, the right way imho ... ;)

FREE SOFTWARE GIVEAWAY TO UK DEVELOPERS?!!!

If you were amazed by my previous post, just read on ...

Ian Moulster has posted in his newest blog entry that they " ... are giving away 1000 free copies of Windows Vista and Office 2007 to UK developers ...".

In order to be elegible to recieve one and or the other product, you will need to register on Friday 19th for the software giveaway (details to be announce later on Ian's site, I guess), and then answer one question related to the selected product's track and then, if you are on the first 1000 people that answer it right you get your free copy.

If you live outside the UK, just hold your horses and continue reading Ian's entry since there's a catch: " ... you need to have a UK address ..." in order to receive the product.

Isn't Life fair sometimes? I don't know about you, but I'm moving to the UK just right now ...

Well, maybe next time ... but I'd really loved not to be excluded a priori from this kind of giveaways sometime ... ;)

WHERE'S MY FREE ACER FERRARI LAPTOP?!!!

According to this CRN's article (among other posts you may find in the WWW), Microsoft and AMD have been giving away "... top-of-the-line Acer Ferrari laptops to select tech bloggers ...".

Incredible, isn't it? Just wait a second ...

Then the article adds: "... raising questions in the blogosphere over whether the companies are trying to unduly influence the writers ...".

Following the wave of raising questions in the blogosphere I find my-self in the need to ask: where is my free laptop? ... Ok, or at least a T-shirt? A cup? A discount coupon to buy food at any local supermarket?

Just tell me who I must contact to inform my address and zip-code details in order to receive the laptop a.s.a.p. ... ;)

TWO INTERESTING ARTICLES ABOUT XNA GSE

Yeap. It's true ...

1. New Opportunities Offered by XNA: interview to Lionhead Studios boss, Peter Molyneux -by GameIndustry.biz.
2. XNA In-Depth: 4-page interview to Microsoft's Dave Mitchell -by Gamasutra.

See ya.

NEW ARTICLE ABOUT XNA GSE

GameIndustry.biz has published an interesting article with an interview to Chris Satchell -general manager of Microsoft's game developer group.

The interview covers the launch of XNA GSE plus future plans for it.

See ya.

A COUPLE OF INTERESTING ARTICLES

Checking my RSS subscriptions I have found two interesting articles:

1. Securing High-Score Games: an article of the latest "Casual Games Quarterly" publication (by the IGDA) which talks about the different ways to set up online secure high-score tables, and
2. Indies Will Lead The Way In Next-Gen Development: an article published by GamesIndustry.biz where it is pointed out that small teams will spread innovation.

Ah, yeah: don't forget to pay a visit to AniBoom's site and try to find my "crappy" 3d-animation. Remember that I said I had created it with v2.5 of a very well-known 3D-animation package. What are you waiting for? Just go and start searching for it ... it will amaze you ... ;)

Well, that's all for today.

USER-CREATED GAMES, XNA GSE & INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY

There is an interesting article that discusses the topic of intelectual property rights of games created and shared by community users of XNA Game Studio Express.

Also, you will find another article regarding user-created content and the PS3 (Shhht! Apparently this is a secret).

DO THE MATH

In one of my previous posts, I had included some links to interesting sites where figures on sales were published and discussed. Remember those?

Now, do you want to know more about what "indies" should and souldn't expect? Well, if your answer is "yes", an I'll bet your answer is "yes", just read Jeff Tunnell's article.

Browsing the web I happened to find this site which is really interesting and instructive. Ok, enough talking ... just go, read the article and do the math.

See ya ...