Answer Questions

• Valery Zharkov Starting work on my GUI system

  Well, I've hit a wall with my game's development, and since there was no GUI with XNA 1.0, I've decided to go ahead and make my own GUI system. I implemented a lot of mechanics for my game, but I need greater interaction to proceed development in a sane manner. So far I've just implemented the text drawing stuff from scratch. It uses only monospace fonts generated with BMFontGenerator without using the generated .xml file. It's decidedly minimal to use only monospace fonts, but keep in mind two things - 1) my particular game doesn't require anything more robust than monospace fonts and 2) a game's engine should be designed around the game's specifc requirements. Otherwise you're scope creepin. I remind myself constantly not to let cool ...Show All

• rahulsk1947 Converting to and from a view matrix.

  Hello everybody. I am trying to convert back and forth between a view matrix (created with matrix. CreateLookAt ) and a position, rotation and scale. I believe I have figured out how to convert into a view matrix from a position, rotation and scale like this: Matrix sc = Matrix.CreateScale(_scale); Matrix rot = Matrix.CreateRotationX(_rotation.X) * Matrix.CreateRotationY(_rotation.Y) * Matrix.CreateRotationZ(_rotation.Z); Matrix trans = Matrix.CreateTranslation(_position); Matrix transformation = sc * rot * trans; Vector3 orig = Vector3.Transform(Vector3.Zero, transformation); Vector3 target = Vector3.Transform(Vector3.Forward, transformation); Vector3 upPoint = Vector3.Transform(Vector3.Up, transformation); v ...Show All

• nirmalarasu XNA Visual C#, requirements, I have Visual C++...

  I was wandering, if someone could tell me... (since I have "visual c++" and it is evolved from "visual c#", do I have to have visual c#, I mean I have visual c++, when I open instalation, it says I need viusal c#, but I have visual c++. Is there a way to avoid this Please help. Thanks. Michael Klucher - MSFT wrote: Sorry there! Guess we were typing at the same time! LOL, I'm just after your job! Hello, Yes Visual C# Express is required for XNA Game Studio Express, it will run side by side with your exsisting install of Visual C++. Thanks! Sorry there! Guess we were typing at the same time! Ok, thanks for the help. There's currently no way to avoid that at this time. You ...Show All

• Johan Sörlin Benefits of XNA Game Studio

  Can someone with experience using Game Studio please identify the features it provides to assist an individual game developer I'm skeptical because it doesn't have any built-in capabilities to import animations created in 3D packages. That's a basic feature any game creation tool should have. ive read that there will be further support for 3d animation with XNA GSE, i dont remember where, but yes it is possible atm, here is a link to the best info ive found on it to date; http://www.codeplex.com/animationcomponents it seems quite daunting for playing back a 3d animation, and even this has very little control of WHICH animation it plays in the file, ive personally opted to just sit back and wait for ...Show All

• krishna_ta About XNA GS Release

  At FIU we a Special Interest Group (SIG) that specializes in game and graphics programming and will be upgrading some of our lab machines (hardware and software) for next semester to start designing games using XNA.  We've got a few questions that I'm sure have been answered or talked about before, but many are months old  (at least the ones i've seen). And I'll like to make sure what the current status was regarding XNA GS. 1. When will the final release of XNA GS (Express and Pro) come out I've seen a date flying around but i'll like to make sure. 2. Will the Express edition support Visual Studio Pro. The last blog I saw about this was from October 10, maybe t ...Show All

• feby Waiting is booooooring....

  Do you think somebody at Microsoft is reading these posts Are they making us wait on purpose Yeah, everybody's waiting... Hope it will be here soon ! I think that the XNA team is working hard to provide us a good and fun package... but I'm impatient too... :'( ... I'm impressed to see that people of all countries are waiting for it !!! That's fun. I think (and i'm sure) hope we will enjoy XNA game studio express. Ok i've just seen webcasts but it was just containing explanation and no demonstration :(... They said late last night that it probabily wouldn't be avaliable until business hours their time ... and its 5 something over there. I got to s ...Show All

• Ri-Karou The Unofficial Xbox 360 dev

  Looks like the home-brew community is coming up with their own solutions: http://www.xbox360fanboy.com/2007/01/01/xbox-360-finally-hacked-to-run-linux/ Hope this "inspires" MS into providing better support for hobbyists. If the home-brew dev gets going, then it's probably going to have more open APIs (network support, no CLR restrictions to hardware, no VSExpress, maybe more affordable..etc). But it obviously won't have the official Xbox live support either. Should be interesting to see where this leads. i saw this, but my thoughts is its a small XNA app... they never show you a cd, a main menu, a boot screen.... nothing! plus how is the laptop interfacing with the 360! cause theres no way that little circuit board h ...Show All

• jb2178 XBox 360 hard drive question for MS staff - semi off topic

  With all the great new offerings out or coming soon for the 360: XBox Live Video Marketplace, XNA game creation, and the recently announced IPTV, the poor little 20GB hard drive's days look numbered. Is MS planning to release a larger hard drive for the 360 I'm pretty sure that many people (including myself) would be very interested in one. HDMI with HDCP seems like it is a "must" for HD-DVD a few years from now, like it or not. I don't like the HDCP part -- I like HDMI 1.3a as an interconnect standard, though I'd have preferred a straight, shielded cable instead of UTP. I suppose they could go DVI-with-HDCP which is very similar (minus the digital audio transport). However, I can't see a c ...Show All

• Malcy How to "publish" my own IGameService

  I've read Mitch Walkers article on the IGraphicsDeviceService and I understood it for the most part. Where I'm a little unclear is on the actual mechanics of creating my own GameService. The article says that the Graphics Component "publishes" an interface as a service. Does this mean the GameComponent internally actually creates a concrete instance of IGameDeviceServices and calls Game.AddService Here is an example: Lets say I'm creating a 2D Physics component that relies on an undelying "Physics" object (this object does all the simulation for rigid bodies). I want to allow others to either use my PhysicsComponent or create there own component that would could still interact with any other higher level physic ...Show All

• Badajoz95 Retrieving effects and textures

  Assuming that I have a model in 3DS Max that I export into a FBX file, which goes through the content pipeline, and is then loaded into the runtime as a Model, how do I go about getting the 3DS texture and effects bindings from my C# code Looking at the Model class all I can see hanging off it is an Effect class, but no texture references - are the textures supposed to be embedded in the effect files If so, how should I set the effects in 3DS so that they are imported via the content pipeline Sorry if there is an obvious answer to this, but I'm more used to dealing with pure HLSL/ASM files rather than effects files.. Andy. Thanks leclerc9. So if I have a mesh that I want to apply one shader to,& ...Show All

• CassieC Content pipeline and "Game Library" projects

  So I made a "Windows Game Library" project which needs an Effect File. I added the file to the project and tried to load it with ContentManager.Load. The client "Windows Game" project invokes the game library which can't find the asset. If I add the asset to the client library, it works fine. A quick look at the bin directory shows that the content pipeline is infact compiling the shader. A curious purusal with .NET Reflector shows that content loading works off the EntryAssembly (and that makes sense most of the time) Is there any way to load content from the currently executing assembly The situation you're describing is working fine for me. I have content files in the "l ...Show All

• Timothy Wilson Howto reset the default position of a model?

  When i load a couple of x files and display them, they are placed on various locations on my display. This has something to do with the position of the objects in the original 3DS file i exported them from. right now i am using Vector3 .Subtract( Vector3 .Zero, MyModel.Meshes[0].BoundingSphere.Center); to calculate what the position in my world should be, but this has to be done for every frame and model. How does someone 'reset' the default position of a model to Vector3.Zero All the data about the source mesh data is available inside the NodeContent object passed into your processor. Defining the center point of a mesh is actually a pretty vague thing, since it totally depends on the model where that oug ...Show All

• SEMuser DreamBuildPlay is up!!!

  Now go register!!   Actual contest details to come the week of Feb 5th U can't do it....U can't give wrong information, as it's violation of "terms of use": MEMBER ACCOUNT, PASSWORD, AND SECURITY If any of the Services requires you to open an account, you must complete the registration process by providing us with current, complete and accurate information as prompted by the applicable registration form. You also will choose a password and a user name. You are entirely responsible for maintaining the confidentiality of your password and account. Furthermore, you are entirely responsible for any and all activities that occur under your account. You agree to notify Microsoft ...Show All

• entrylevel26 Trouble with XNA Game Launcher

  I am having some trouble with the XNA Game Launcher... I have had it up and running since December, but today for some reason, whenever I launch XNA Game Launcher(while signed into Xbox Live) it tells me it could not establish a connection with Xbox Live. So I decided to delete XNA Game Launcher and redownload. When I go to redownload it, it will not let me do so. The download acts like it wants to start, then freezes at 1%. I thought at first something might be wrong with my connection to Xbox Live, but I just started downloading the demo of Alien Hominid, and it is at 97% right now... Anyone else experiencing any trouble at all And never mind...evidently it was a maintenance issue because it is working now. Thanks ...Show All

• tenaciousd Shadows in 2D

  I'm writing a 2D game and it looks nice, but its missing something. I've never handled shadows with 2D games before, but I believe this would add a nice touch. Can anyone give me any pointers (no, not the programming type) Is there an easy way with XNA to make the shadow appear on my standard background when just doing 2D It's not much but I have put together a small article on how I do it and included a code sample for the task. It depends what the shadow will fall on. What kind of game is it More importantly, where is the camera Is it above all the objects looking down, behind all the objects looking forward etc. You can usually cheat with shadows on a 2D game. For example, if you are l ...Show All