Answer Questions

• Neil Ault Matrix.Shadow is gone

  Looks like Matrix.Shadow was removed. It was useful in assisting with simple shadow creation. Is there an alternative in XNA or do I need to do the math myself Check the D3D SDK docs, D3DXMatrixShadow Function is well documented and contains all the math and comments needed. I'll take a look to see if this is something we can get in. If not, I'll see about posting sample code that would achieve the same thing. But that is not a part of the XNA framework right Why not write a simple utility function Build your matrix like this: P = normalize(Plane); L = Light; d = dot(P, L) P.a * L.x + d P.a * L.y P.a * L.z P.a * L.w P.b * L.x P.b * L.y + d P.b ...Show All

• RamyaP How To: Load Resources missing from help file

  Can anyone fill me in on the missing content from the help file I am trying to follow the How to: Draw a Sprite tutorial and the link to How to: Load Resources is broken. The article is also not in the index. Excellent! Thanks Scott. Thanks for pointing out the broken link, we're working to catch any issues like this and feed back helps. The load resources how to was intended to merge with the simple game loop how to but wound up still being referenced. The how to went over the need to create graphics resources after the graphics device is created and additionally whenever the graphics device is reset if the resources are created in the Default graphics resource ...Show All

• Kiran05 Where in content pipeline does volume textures fail?

  Currently volume textures aren't supported in the Content Pipeline. So if I have a mesh that references a volume texture it will fail compiling. So, is it just a matter of writing a custom importer for volume dds files or is it all the way through the pipeline Will ContentManager.Load<Texture3d>(...) work if I just write the importer Say it is so...it is Christmas after all :-) Noooooooo...! Anyways, volume textures are useful for so many things. To begin with it is probably the easiest way to do simple animations for things like smoke and explosions. Just interpolate the w coordinate and there you have smooth transitions for free. Anyways...I've already made a post on connect about this ...Show All

• Demchuk Writing a custom octree importer

  I'm trying to write my own octree processor. The processor takes NodeContent as input and returns OctreeContent which will serialize to Octree. The Octree class is then supposed to be an optimized structure for octree data like Model is for models. I've come across a couple of problems. The NodeContent is a tree structure with posibly many MeshContent nodes that all need to be transformed to world space and merged. I've found no clean aproach to this. I've tried using the MeshBuilder to build a new mesh, but this seems tedious. My second problem is that once I have the entire octree complete, I have to convert from what I guess will be VertexContent to VertexBufferContent. This is easy with CreateVertexBuffer method in VertexContent, bu ...Show All

• Berber Geneating Tangents?

  Hi, I was just wondering, what is the easiest method of generating tangents for use in xna I recall there being a function in the mdx(or maybe dx C++) that could generate tangent based on a set of arbtiary vertex data. Does Xna have this If I have to manually create them, are there any C# samples for doing this Even if it's not for xna, I can always port. The binormal is just the normalized cross product of the tangent and normal, which I calculate per pixel in the Viewer3DS\Shaders\Standard.fx effect file. Look for the StandardMaterialPixelShader. You'll see the binormal code near the very beginning The 3DS importer code is in the public domain but the viewer code is under the LGPL. I really don't ...Show All

• JesperStaal Change Log?

  Quick question please - is there any way I can find a log/list of changes from Beta 2 to final release Thanks... Even if there's bug fixes, a release notes document that tells us what bugs were fixed would be very useful. It tells us where we can go where we previously couldn't, etc. And "bugs fixed" can typically be generated through a database query, plus some hand-massaging to take out the bugs that aren't for public consumtion. Cheers, / h+ One of the guys on the XNA team was to write one up but had to go to England for the launch party there. I expect he'll get to it in a couple of days. Indeed, bug fixes are helpful to know, though new features are the primary conce ...Show All

• mahima Newb question: different textures for different resolutions?

  Hi there, I've made a couple of games in GSE now, and in each case I programmed the game in 800 x 600, which is rather silly given that I have a monitor that supports resolutions all the way up to 2560x1600. I understand that I can get the user's window size and adjust my game to fit it at startup, though I haven't really played with that yet. But what about textures Is the best practice to include one texture for "maximum" resolution and then let Windows scale it down to size depending on the user's window size Or do developers include several copies of the same texture for different resolutions Likewise, I'm wondering how to handle different aspect ratios. To release a game that supports both 4:3 and "widescreen&q ...Show All

• Jbud How hard could it be?

  I mean how hard could it be to make a First person Shooter similar to battlefield 2 What is involved Im sorry Im new at this and still have alot to learn obviously. AOEA wrote: We'll yeah there's no way he'll make BFII in a year by himself, but he could make a tactical team based FPS that's capable of supporting way more than 4 players in a year or less. The source code to Quake 1-3 is freely available. With that there's no reason why a single person couldn't cobble together a full game with, a couple of maps, characters and character classes in under a year. If you were to use the Quake code, sure you might be able to do it. If you're going to do it using XNA (since this is the GSE forum ) y ...Show All

• MillBear Simple following algorithm

  I'm learning directx and i'm writing a simple program that will have one object on the screen follow another thats moving around randomly. lets say theres leader and follower. I get the leaders x/y coords and subtract the followers x/y coords, which gives me x and y values relative to the follower. Then to calculate the heading, i do an arctan(y/x). From there to get the new coords for the follower, x = speed * cos(heading) and y = sin(heading) Now the follower will follow the leader until the leader passes directly above or below it, in which case the follower changes direction 180 degrees. It seems like the answer should be simple enough but i cannot figure out how else to do this. Thanks in advance, Kyle ...Show All

• Keithyboy1 Scaling textures/sprites

  So I'm drawing 2D sprites using the 3D methods. I'm defining 6 vertexes (2 triangles), to create a rectangle, and rendering a texture2d to it, using a pixel shader. Except that things are a little bit more complicated. My main texture actually only has the red values filled in. Then I have another palette texture2d, that's 256x1, and my pixel shader looks like this: float4 ApplyTexture(float2 textureCoordinate : TEXCOORD0) : COLOR { return tex1D(ts2, tex2D(textureSampler, textureCoordinate).r).rgba; } So anyway, back when I was using SpriteBatch, I could specify a destination rectangle, with a width and height, and it automaticly scaled my texture to this size, and scale it using something other than nearest neighbor. In other words, it ...Show All

• TEJKIRAN Q: Will the Compact Framework be supported?

  Hello, I find the XNA Framework to be quite interesting, specifically because of C#. I've been doing .Net development for three years and haven't looked back since. When reading the FAQ (or somewhere else), I recall reading that the Compact Framework could be eventually support the XNA Framework. Is that true and when can we expect this support An other concern is: if I develop a game using XNA and .Net, will I be able to transfert it to the Compact Framework easily My concern is that currently, you can't transfert a class from the .Net Framework to the Compact Framework, but the other way around is true (a CF class can be compiled to work with the Framework). I have seen this when developing my News Interceptor application first ...Show All

• Annihil8 Help me on How to fire a sprite to a mouse position from another Sprite

  Hi again, this time i need some major help. I'm creating a shooter arcade, and the biggest problem i ran into so far was getting the sprite to fire towards my mouse positioned reticule. Could I please get some information on how to tell the game code that i want the sprite to move towards the mouse x,y from it's fixed positions. Thx for your help. I understand the mouse.x and mouse.y functions, in fact i have the reticule as my mouse pointer. How do i add a function to the update() to make it move frame by frame to the mouse. If you have the code for please right it in and thx for the reply. I tried your idea but nothing happened, My character tries to do it b ...Show All

• LKeene What PC/Graphics Card is recommended?

  Hi all, what specs do you recommend to develop for XNA Studio Also, does it matter if it's DX10 or DX9 ie Is it better to wait for Vista and DX10 to come out to get a new graphics card Thanks a lot Our Graphics API is based on DirectX3D 9. Our minimum shader model is 1.1. See also the other thread . ...Show All

• madenci Components w/ different timings?

  I like the model of specifying Game.TargetElapsedTime and responding to update events, but can I conrtol this on multiple components For example, let's say that I want to randomize the weather conditions in my game. I'd like this to update every minute or so. On the other hand, some things need to update every frame (ike controller input or sprites positions). One way to handle this would be to simply have methods like UpdateWeather() , and UpdateSprites() and so on, and have multiple if/then blocks in my main Update() code that determine whether it's time to call one of the other update methods. However, it'd be nice to offload this monitoring somehow so I could just declare in my init code how often certain components get updated. A ...Show All

• Musafir Physic Based Games?

  Would I be able to create Physics Based Games on XNA For example a game where you can move around objects and also, could I make my own map on Marble Blast Ultra It sounds like you may have an incorrect picture of what XNA is all about. It is not a drag and drop game maker. To use XNA you must know how to program in C#. Once you learn C#, the sky really is the limit for what you can make. If you want to make a game where you walk around the room and knock boxes down, knock your socks off, but you won't be able to make that game without creating the art and the writing the code for it yourself. Garage Games has partnered with Microsoft and is coming out with a drag-and-drop game maker using the XNA Framework very soon, but that is no ...Show All