"360ZINE 5" NOW AVAILABLE FOR DOWNLOAD

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

The issue includes a first look to the XBO 360 Elite plus previews of "Grand Theft Auto IV (GTA 4)" and "Fable 2", and more, much more.

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

CATCHIN' UP

Happy Easter, everyone!

After a short week-end off with my family the pimping nightmare is back ... sorry, folks ... :)

I'll be mainly catching up with all the news related to XNA today so please be patient while I publish all the posts since you know I like to publish one post per news item what takes a lot of time (and Mykres Space does a great job with the summary-styled news report).

So, enough talk and let's get started!

I'LL BE OUT FOR THE EASTER'S WEEKEND

Hi guys! I know I've been a bit hidden in my ultracave these days but as you may have guessed I just taking this week-end off to enjoy Easter with my family.

Still, I'm aware that there have been some great news lately so next Monday check out this blog for the cascade of news I'm going to publish.

In the meantime, I leave you with 2 great links:

• John's list of links to XNA resources (thanks for " ... My favorite XNA News Blog ...").
• Abi's easter bunny ... ;)

Cheers!

[Also check the new design of my blog: on top part of the page you will find a dynamic news banner and on the left side you will see some random links to YouTube's videos related to game design, XNA GSE, xBOX360 and so on ...]

CLASSIC-GAMES' THEMES ORCHESTRATED

Turn the volume of your speakers up and 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!

APRIL'S DIRECTX SDK AVAILABLE FOR DOWNLOAD

In a recent post, Dave has informed that the April's DirectX SDK has been released for public download.

The new features include:

• Improvements to the XACT UI,
• Improvements to PIX,
• Shader compiler update, and
• an effect-pools sample.

Please read Dave's post for full details. To download the SDK just follow this link.

Cheers!

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 ...

"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 ...

"XNATEXTURES.COM LAUNCHED!"

XNAResources has announced the launch of the second site in its network of sites: "XNATextures.com".

From the announcement: "... The site was formerly known as The TextureBin and already has over 1700 seamless high resolution textures!  XNATextures.com is membership based though... we offer 3 types of membership:

• Free 15 day Trial - Same as the standard below but limited to 15 days.
• Standard Membership - Access to all the content on the site in lower resolutions (500 pixels wide).
• Premium Membership - Access to all the content in the standard membership AND full access to high resolution versions of all the textures as well as bump maps, alpha maps, and games sized versions (powers of 2) of the textures in high resolution ...".

See ya!

"THRUST": THE SUCCESSOR OF XNA5D

Remember this post? Well, John Sedlak has announced the successor of his XNA5D engine ... and the name is "Thrust".

From John's post: "... Let me preface this story with a note that this is in no way an April Fools joke. The successor of Xna5D is Thrust and composes of all I have learned thus far. I am also pleased to announce that I have been working on several aspects of it with Matthew Randall. I thank him very much for contributing what he can to the project, even with his very busy schedule. I have decided that the development cycle of Thrust will be much slower compared to Xna5D ...".

So, let's thrust this is no April fools joke ... just kiddin' ... :)

WHERE'S MY GIANT SPIDER?!

In this hilarious video, Kevin Smith talks about the weird experiences he had to go through when he was asked to write the script for the candidate Superman sequel movie "Superman Lives".

Enjoy!

HANDLING THUMBSTICKS' INPUT VALUES

Remember Shawn's Trilogy? As a bonus, he has posted a handy tip for hooking the values returned by thumbsticks to your game's physics calculations.

From Shawn's post: "... Good analog control has a huge impact on the feel of a game, and massaging your input values can do wonders to make things feel more controllable and responsive ...".

Read on!

THE END OF KRISC'S "XNA5D"?

Let's hope not.

From John's post: "... I have been getting e-mails and have had some comments about the next release of Xna5D. I am happy to say that it won't be coming, at least not in the way anyone would expect it. I have been taking some time to take a deeper look into the design of the core as well as the design of XNA. I am specifically taking a look at content management, abstraction of services and entities. I have been working closely with a developer on the prior, working on a set of prototype classes that will serve as a complete replacement for any component functionality present in the Game class. I want more layers of functionality while maintaining 100% compatibility so that no one has to rewrite code if they do not want to. The latter, has yet to come to realization, but I have been researching some scripting and dynamic assembly programming so that code can be compiled and ran on the fly as well as loading and running of a complete assembly during game time ...".

Before you panic, then John adds: "... In the next few days I will be bringing a few changes to the site that reflect the new library and will at some point make the announcement about all the goodies ...".

Watch this space!

MORE ON XNA RSS-FEEDS CENTERS

In line with my previous post: Garret Hoofman has published the link to subscribe to his XNA Tab on Netvibes.

From Garret's post: " ... For those that use Netvibes, I have shared my XNA tab full of RSS feeds. I slimmed it back down a little bit so there aren't any more of the dead blogs.

Click --> Here <-- to add the page to your netvibes ...".

Cheers!

"XNA PORTAL": YOUR RSS-FEEDS CENTER FOR XNA

Now this is an interesting site ... XNA Portal is hosting RSS Feeds related to XNA.

So, if you have a site with news, articles, tutorials, games or any other topic or content related to XNA -and also has a RSS-feed enabled- then head over XNA Portal main page and add your news feed by entering the url of your RSS feed.

Nice one, guys!

"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.