JOSEPH BARBERA DIES AT 95

More sad news for the comics industry: "December 18, 2006 - The other shoe has fallen. Joseph Barbera, co-founder of Hanna-Barbera and co-creator of such favorite anmation characters as Huckleberry Hound, The Flintstones, Yogi Bear, Scooby-Doo and The Jetsons, died of natural causes at his home with his wife, Sheila, at his side, in Studio City, California, today, Dec. 18, 2006, according to Warner Bros. spokesman Gary Miereanu."

My most sincere condolence to Barbera's family and friends.

No more posts for today.

['Tom and Jerry' is one of my favorite cartoons of all times.]

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.

MY FIRST GRAPHIC AD: REALM CRAFTER

Wow! I'm excited ... I have witnessed the appearance of a graphic ad in my blog: "Realm Crafter - Make Your Own MMORPG". Sometimes it shows up at the top-left corner of the side bar.

It's very difficult to get those kind of ads even if you set "Only graphic ads". Believe me ...

This blog is going up in the world ... ;)

Anyway, Realm Crafter is a framework that helps you create a Masive-Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game (MMORPG). Until this year-end (December 31st, 2006) you can buy the current version for only $65 and get the upcoming version 2 for free.

If you want to know more about this promotion visit RC's site as well as check out the public portions of its forums to see some screenshots and read some news related to version 2.

Later.

DECEMBER 2006 DIRECTX SDK

Microsoft has released the latest SDK for DirectX.

Among what's new in the release you will find the official launch of DirectX 10.

I'm downloading it right now ...

GREEN LANTERN CREATOR DIES AT 91

Sad news for the comics industry: "MIAMI - Martin Nodell, the creator of Green Lantern, the comic book superhero who uses his magical ring to help him fight crime, has died. He was 91."

My most sincere condolence to Nodell's family and friends.

"In brightest day, in blackest night, no evil shall escape my sight! Let those who worship evil's might, beware my power... Green Lantern's light!"

No more posts for today.

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.

TORQUE X OPEN BETA AVAILABLE

Well, yes. It's true. I have received an email message from GarageGame notifying the availability of an open beta of TorqueX.

You can download and test the demo of it as well as pay a visit to the new forums areas related to this product.

Now, it's time for Visual3D.Net to come out, don't you think? Let's hope so ...

Later.

XNA GSE V1.0 RELEASED!!!

As you may already known -given the large amount of blogs' news pointing out the same- XNA GSE v1.0 is out. Check the official words from the XNA Team itself.

One question though, any news regarding the release of TorqueX? We are still on December 11th ...

XBOX 360: THE NEXT WAVE

I had forgotten this video -also available at GameTrailers.com- with more interviews to XBox360 product's managers covering some of the games published and to be published for this great console.

Ok, ok, this time I mean it! No more posts for today ... ;)

XBOX 360: BEYOND THE BOX

GameTrailers.com has also published a video with interviews to XBox360 product's managers who explain the new strategy on peripherals available for it: wireless technology.

I'm really a lazybones today, so this is it for one day!

A COUPLE OF NEW XNA VIDEOS

GameTrailers.com has published some interesting videos XNA-related:

1. Rally X: "the classic racer hits Xbox Live Arcade and will have you grabbing flags to complete stages", and
2. Tank Buster: "wreak havoc on the skies up above in this game created using the XNA software".

I don't know whether this one relates to XNA or not, but I like it: Mutant Blasting: "blast away in this sequel to the Live Arcade shooter".

Also, high-definition videos are available for the above-mentioned three -just do a little search 'cause I'm lazy enough today to avoid posting the links.

Enjoy!

WE ARE ALMOST THERE!

Yeap! December is comming ... sales, presents, christmas, XBOX360, PS3, Wii, XNA, TorqueX, Visual3D.Net ... phewww! Everything accelerates as we approach the year-end.

For us, "indies", it is a very important month as we are waiting for the final release of XNA GSE and with it, the parallel releases of TorqueX and Visual3D.Net.

Developers post questions over and over in every forum asking for CTPs, betas, demos, screenshots and such, as if they were children traveling in a car with their parents and continuously asking them: "Are we there yet?".

Patience. Even if they need some extra time to finish the products it will benefit us in the end: more stability, less bugs, more fun.

In the meantime, check "HeroEngine", it seems quite interesting. Unfortunately, neither demos nor prices are available in the site so I cannot comment about it (I don't know about the engine itself but the tools seem to be .NET-based). If someone has more information about this framework please drop me some lines.

Cheers!

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.

ANIBOOM AWARDS 2006

I have received an email from the creative director of "Aniboom", a new website dedicated to host and share animations, inviting me to pay a visit and check the site out.

Although the site is currently in a beta phase -it works better with IE than Firefox, let me tell you that I have really found some high-quality videos, cut-scenes, 2d/3d animations and demo reels.

But the interesting thing is that these guys are carrying out a competition for a total of $50k in prizes: five categories, $5k for the winner of each category, and $25k for the "grand prize" winner.

Check the rules, choose a category and upload your creation. There's still time for new entries, so hurry up!!!

Who knows? Maybe I decide to submit a 5-minute sci-fi animation I created back in my old days as a student of 3D animation by using 3DS Max 2.5 ... and yeah, you've just read it right, I said v2.5, so imagine how astonishing it could be ... you have no opportunity against my demo reel ... whooooooahahahahaha ... ;)

I'll leave you with this very funny entry:

[BTW, thanks Einat for your kind words about my blog!]

SERIOUS THOUGHTS ABOUT XNA GSE - PART II

Where were we? Ah, yes ... "Will I succeed by using XNA GSE?".

Let's face it: like everything in life, time will tell. Time will prove you were right or wrong but, is it worth trying? Straight answer: yes, provided you are able and capable of facing and breaking through a tight membrane formed of strong competition.

Like you, everyone is competing to get community, market, publishers and or employers' attention. No matter how shared in common a colleague may behave along the road, it all summarizes to a simple fact: in the end, to some extent, everyone is thinking "that prize has to be mine!". C'mon let me hear "not me". Anyone? (don't panic, just continue reading, ok?)

So, what could make one stand out from the rest? That's the key point.

A combination of skills, dedication, commitment and perseverance (not to mention finance resources to live on day by day).

"How could XNA GSE help me achieve my goals?" Interesting question. Personally speaking, for the first time I feel someone is providing a well-designed framework for game development with great potential.

Many companies offer many solutions to developers but you always find a catch: you have to learn a new language (either for hard-coding and or scripting), the language lacks a professional GUI and or IDE or even it is not an object-oriented one, there is no way you can extend the given framework, it lacks the proper tools, it does not provide the features you need, it does not handle with key aspects of game creation as expected, plenty of bugs, poor support, and so on.

Now we have a framework that plugs into VS2005, and thus to be used with .NET languages (in the case of XNA GSE it plugs into C# Express) which offers a set of tools and features (please read part I) designed from scratch to facilitate the process of creating a game from an object-oriented perspective and last but not least, with strong support. What is more, new tools are being created on top of XNA as TorqueX or will support XNA as Visual3D.NET and I believe we will soon see more coming.

But there is one more factor that XNA GSE is trying to impose which opposses to the fact that we are all competing in the end: a community of developers that really collaborate by sharing experience and knowledge. It's like saying "Ok, we are all trying to cross the finish line first but unless we help each other it's likely that none of us will even get there!". So far, MS is achieving this goal: code snippets, solutions, implementations and complete games are being shared by and to the XNA's community and there is no indication that it will stop. A lot of people, including me, is excited about this whole thing and participates in good mood, what in turn is a lot to say (I can list a bunch of forums where members try to tear each others apart, and newbies, are fiercely bounced and discouraged).

To sum up, this time one cannot complain that "we" do not have the framework and or tools needed (ok, an implementation of one of the "big" physics libraries for .NET/XNA would be welcome, like Havok's or Ageia's) or that there is no support (either from the developer or the community), meaning, now it is really up to each of us -or our teams- to create a game that catches everyone's attention.

So let's go for it!

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).

SERIOUS THOUGHTS ABOUT XNA GSE

As we are approaching to the release date for XNA Game Studio Express v1, the following first question may come to one's mind: how successful will it be?

First of all let us consider one simple fact: if you want to program games using DirectX and C# then bear in mind that XNA is the successor of MDX, so unless you decide to implement your own wrappers to DirectX dlls (what would be like re-inventing the wheel) or try native-proned languages (like C++), you will end up using it, anyway.

Ok, but what is it with GSE? It is a framework based on XNA and mounted as an add-on for C# Express which provides a set of tools and implementations that let you program your games with ease. GSE takes advantage of XNA's content pipeline, brings a basic implementation to manage the rendering process (i.e.: initializes and sets the devices for you, handles the calls to update and draw functions, among other tasks) and let you deploy your game to XBOX360!

You may ask: where's the catch? You want it, so here you are. According to the XNA FAQ:

• In order to develop, debug, deploy and play your games on XBOX360 you will have to join the "Creators Club" for a fee of USD 99 for a year or USD 49 for 4 months.
• You cannot produce a commercial game for XBOX360 with the express version.
• When you deploy the game to the XBOX360, and want to share it with other members of the club you will also share all your content and source code.

The good news is that all of the above does not apply when referring to the PC platform. Meaning? You can produce a commercial game for PC, without paying any royalties or fees, and without sharing your source code and or content.

So? Well, Microsoft has decided to catch a larger marketshare in the consoles industry by providing developers with handy, simple and inexpensive tools to build and deploy games for the 360. What is more, by doing so, contrary to what its main competitors do (that is, Sony's PS3 and Nintendo's Wii) MS is bringing to its equation a new relevant factor: "indies".

Being and "indie", go and try to produce a game -either commercial or not- for PS3 and or Wii and come back later for further talk. Just by calculating how much it would imply to do so would discourage you in the split of a second. It is hard to start an independent project and or small enterprise in the software industry, and it is harder in the game's one.

MS has noticed those facts as well as other two main things:

1. The number of indies has increased in later years at a growing rate.
2. Many of them use managed languages (like C#) to create their applications and games.

Moreover, some serious tools and frameworks are being developed and fine tunned to work along with XNA, either now or in the near future, like "TorqueX" and "Visual3D.Net".

Thus, will XNA GSE succeed? My guess is YES.

So the question becomes: will one succed by using XNA GSE? I will let that question unanswered until later posts ... ;)

VISUAL3D.NET CLOSED BETA

According to xeonx the close beta program for Visual3d.NET has started.

Check the forum's thread for more information.

XNA RACER'S VIDEO

Simply put: amazing!

Congrats Benjamin!!!

TORQUE X NEWS

The guys from 360 Homebrew have posted some interesting information regarding the versions, price and release date for TorqueX.

• TorqueX Engine Binary: free (for direct coding through .NET).
• TorqueX Pro: USD 150,oo (will include source code).

Ok. That is cool for developers -like me- that love coding with C#. Now, what if you desperately need a level editor right now? Well, fear not. You will be able to use Torque Game Builder tool with TorqueX upon release of the latter.

When it is going to be released? Good you asked. According to what has been posted TorqueX will be released the same day XNA GSE is officially released.

So go ahead and check the demo of TGB.

Ahh! And don't forget the "XNA Homebrew Development Contest", where you may win some prizes from GarageGames, like TorqueX Pro and TGB -if you win the compo.

Hurry up!