"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!

THE "... SUCK" TRILOGY

Shawn Hargreaves has published a series of three posts declaring war to keyboards, gamepads and those handy little friends: computer mice!

He mentions the awful truth of these peripherals as far as game programming is concerned.

From Shawn's posts: "... Gamepads, like keyboards, are not perfect. They are designed to be cheap, sturdy, and nice to hold: accuracy comes second ...".

You can find the installments here:

• "Keyboards Suck",
• "Gamepads Suck", and
• "Mice Suck".

The posts give useful advice on how to deal with keyboards and gamepads as well as explains how XNA makes our lives easier for reading thumbsticks' absolute positions.

Enjoy!