"AIR LEGENDS": NEW TEASER PICS

Lawrence has published some new screenshots of the new features he has been working on for his game: "Sharky's Air Legends".

For those of you who still don't know or never heard about this game, let me tell you that it's a legend it-self, since it's one of the first XNA games that came out -if not the first- all done by a XNA user.

What is more, if you do some search on YouTube for any initial videos promoting XNA, you will surely find a sequence of Air Legends' planes flying around nicely.

From Sharky's post: "... I’m wondering if I should just release it now anyway, and follow up with an XNA v.next release when it comes out. I’m open to persuasion ..."

Want to get your hands on the latest build? Then just go and try to persuade him ...

By the way Lawrence, nice to hear from you, man!

RHYSYNGSUN WANTS TO BE ENCOURAGED ...

... to post mini-tutos and code snippets, all related to XNA, of course, since he has been working hard to implement an octree functionality, multiple viewports, input management, etc.

From Rhysyngsun's post: "... I have a few more ideas for mini-tutorials that I may post here. Some are just quick code snippets, but others are a bit more detailed. Leave some comments to encourage me ...".

So c'mon, want to get some tutos? Then give the guy the encouraging comments he is asking for ...

HOW TO PLAY "BULLET HELL TACTICS"

Kobingo has posted an online help file for "Bullet Hell Tactics" game.

The rules and How to's are useful for any register beta tester, so if you are one, and need some guidance to play the game, just pay a visit to this blog and read on.

More news after the brake ...

"CHAOS": A SIMPLE AND SMART GAME

As announced by Ziggy here, the guys from Borderline Interactive have released a demo version of the game "Chaos" and a video showing off the gameplay:

The game is simple in concept but still presents with elegance a nice and catchy gameplay -I really like this kind of smart games- and of course the physics were implemented accordingly.

Stay tuned to site for the upcoming release of the full version of the game.

SHAWN HARGREAVES ON THREE-POINT LIGHTING

For those of us who sometime happened the get or still get in touch with 3D animation (or photography, or cinematography, ...), hearing "Three-Point Lighting" technique should ring a bell.

It does, doesn't it? But, have you ever wonder why you had to use this visual technique? If you don't know the answer yet and still wonder why, just browse to Shawn's blog to find out.

From Shawn's post: "... Pretty much every movie ever made and every fashion shot ever photographed have depended on this lighting rig. There are many variations:

• To increase the perception of shape without needing too much contrast between light and shadow, tint the key light yellow and the others blue.
• For a moody drama, make the key light much brighter than the fill.
• For a cheerful sit-com, make all three lights equally bright.
• For a scary effect, position the key light low to the ground.
• For a mysterious or fantastic effect, make the back light unusually bright so the character seems to glow around the edges.

But the underlying principle is always the same. Things simply look better when lit this way ...".

Read on!

FLUIX: CREATE UI ELEMENTS WITH FLASH FOR XNA

Fluix lets you create user interface elements for your XNA-based project in Flash.

The second release is out and includes:

• FSCommand implemented,
• texture alpha being broken in some cases fixed,
• lines support, including bevels,
• gradients supported,
• fix reported bug on not finding helper applications,
• basic version of Sound object working,
• fonts/text working with some caveats, and
• various string manipulation functions implemented.

Worth testing, don't you think?

[Now, I'd like to see the same with XAML. Can you picture that? XNA, XAML and DX10 ...]

ZIGGY'S LOOKING FOR AN ARTIST

Maybe is not too late: Ziggy is "looking for an artist to help in a small multiplayer game project to showcase and enter into the Dream Build Play contest".

Interested? The reply to the original post.

Bye.

MORE ON OPTIMIZATION: READABILITY

What happens when "true" or "false" is not enough information from a reader viewpoint? You could optimize for readability.

From Eli's post: "... The other day I was working on my GSE game, and I had a class with an Update method. The Update returned a boolean indicating whether or not the class was finished updating. The idea was when the object was finished updating, I could stop worrying about it, and I could remove it from whatever collection was keeping track of it ...".

To get to the "Problem solved" part, just go and read Eli's full post.

FRANCESCO'S GUIMANAGER

Francesco Forno started to publish some of his work based on XNA, being "GUIManager" class the first available for download.

From Francesco's post: "... The "example content" folder inside the ZIP contains a sample GUI texture (which contains GUI elements) and a sample ElemDef XML, which tells the GUIManager where inside the texture he can find the elements. Both these must be included in your project. In the same folder you will also find a template with which your should be able to write a valid XML to pass to the PopulateFromXML method ...".

Later.

AIR LEGENDS: BF109 VS. SPITFIRE

Sharky published a preview of what we should expect for his next build of "Air Legends" game.

From Sharky's post: "... Apologies for the quietness of this blog lately. Rest assured I’ve been working as hard as ever. ...".

No need to apologize, man!

SOME CODE SNIPPETS, EXAMPLES AND TOOLS

Dean Lunz published a set of samples, code snippets and projects, all related to XNA.

Among the above-mention resources, you will find:

• Kabombulator: a rts game where the goal is to both defend your base as well as send out troops to destroy your enemies base,
• xGameConsoleXNA: a easy to use in game console system,
• TextFileContentProcessors: allows the use of text files as game assets using content pipeline, and
• XNAContentCode: generates so as to reference game assets directly without using strings.

For the complete list of projects and tools, please visit Dean's blog.

TUTORIAL: LAMP LIGHTING

Rick Hoskinson published a post about shaders used for "faceted" lamps, or lamps without curved surfaces.

From Rick's post: "... Early on, I decided I wanted to blur the line between realism and style for this title. Obviously, any game featuring ghosts and river spirits doesn't really necessitate rigid adherence to the laws of physical light, but for the lamps I wanted something both neat-looking and recognizable. I began my research by looking at about 200-300 pictures of Toro Nagashi festivals, and hanging Chochin (paper lanterns). This process took about 2 or 3 hours to find enough subject matter, at which point I brought out the graph paper and started to sketch down notes ...".

Read on ...

"DISHWASHER": NEW VIDEO PLUS INTERVIEW

Remember this awesome game: "The Dishwasher: Dead Samurai"?

Two things:

• Ziggy has interviewed James Silva, the author of this game, who answers a question that has been wandering around the XNA community: "Why the name?", and
• A new video of the gameplay is available for our joy:

From Ziggy's post: "... James will be graduating from college soon and is looking for a job around the up-state New York area ..."

Good luck, buddy! ... but with a game like "Dishwasher" I guess you won't need it ... ;)

NEW BLOG: "IMERSIVA.COM"

A new blogger has come to the XNA community, introducing "System Warrior" multiplayer-action game.

You can watch a video preview of the game, here.

Enjoy!

TUTORIAL: SIMPLE PARTICLE SYSTEM

John Sedlak has published a nice 3-page tutorial about setting a basic particle system in XNA, with source code included.

From John's tuto: "... This tutorial describes a simple way to render particles using simple rendering techniques, and a custom vertex format in a 3D world ...".

Read on!

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?

"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 ...

"BULLET HELL TACTICS": BETA TESTERS WANTED

Kobingo's looking for help in order to beta-test his game: "Bullet Hell Tactics".

So if you want to help the guy just get in touch a.s.a.p. (just read here for details).

Stay tuned to Kobingo's blog for more information.

"NETWORKING/INTERNET WITH SOCKETS" - PART 1(WINDOWS ONLY)

A new tuto has been published on PlasmaFlux site which covers a starting point for networking with XNA, under Windows OS only.

From the site's post: "... Many people have asked “Can I/How do I make internet/network games in XNA” and the replay has been “yes” or “yes but not on the Xbox360 until later”. So I wanted to produce a simple network/internet game & tutorial/explanation to show off how it’s done. I wanted to keep the game simple as not to get people lost between where the game starts/stops and where the networking starts/stops, whilst not making it to simple like string only string messages as games need to send some quite complex information at times ...".

Read on ...