Answer Questions

• AlucardHellSing Grid using triangle strip?

  Hello, sorry if this is a stupid question, but I was wondering is it possible to draw grid of triangles using triangle strip instead of triangle list I guess you can do this by turning culling mode off, but I was wondering is it possible to do with culling on Thanks, ErnisJ A heads up for those of you who must use triangle strips for this (for some reason). As you may know triangle strip uses the current vertex and last 2 vertices to form triangle. This may confuse you when you think about getting to the end of a row/column in a grid. The answer is a degenerate triangle (a triangle that exists geometrically, but has no 'area'). This would be in between row, or columns, depending on how you construct ...Show All

• .Net General Missile Commandeer Game (including Source)

  First XNA game...done!  It's an old school missile commander clone (only its CommandeEr, like pirates...ARRRR!!!).  I spent extra time to maintain the original "cutting edge" graphics to make it a true classic.  Check it out... (I just added the screenshots, game and source code to my website) Click here for the game    Improvements to come: - MIRV missiles - Extra lives - High scores - suggestions Very nice! Thought I would just take a look at the source... ended up playing it for a half hour. . Well done and thanks. Knaut. is there a limit on the missles you can fire if so you should add something to show that Ve ...Show All

• Koruyucu How to load textures embedded in a model file using a custom importer

  I have a Q3 BSP loader and want to build the lightmap data during the import stage, however while i can build the data into a Texture2DContent, There seems to be no way to do anything with it - the BasicMaterialContent class has a Textures collection, but seems to require an external reference to a filename. Any ideas N if you are complaining that the Texture2DContent class won't allow you to edit the lightmap data, then maybe you should try converting your data to a PixelBitmapContent. this class will allow you to get and set data (like the Texture2D class), as well as get and set specific pixels. Let me know if you figure out a way to fit the lightmap in the pixelshader. In my case the light ...Show All

• Joisey A tutorial would be nice...

  Hello all, I was wondering if anyone could point me in the direction of a tutorial of a simple game, like tetris, breakout, space wars, asteroids, etc., that goes through, step by step, explains how "we" do this and why "we" did this. A lot of the things I read, I see such things as, "You should start simple, like a tetris style game," yet they never point you in the direction of where you might find out how to make a tetris game. From a complete noobs point of view, we're completely clueless at what we're looking at on screen, just staring at the code, trying to figure out what to do. Anyway, if anyone could help, that would be fan-tastic and much appreciated. Thanks! ...Show All

• arkiboys Is it realistic to create one's own engine?

  I'm not new to programming, but I'm new to game programming and C#. I'm wondering to what extent it's realistic for someone to make their own 3D (or for that matter 2D) game engine. The two projects I have in mind for myself are a turn-based 2D war/strategy game, and a 3D adventure game in the manner of "Dreamfall". On the 2D side, I feel confident I could come up with a 2D interface on my own. I haven't done a lot here yet, but I did manage to whip up a little 2D hockey game without peeking at Bill Reiss's excellent 3D airhockey tutorial at http://xna101.spaces.live.com/ . I've even given my computer hockey opponent a very primitive AI. OK, my collision detection and physics aren't great, but I'm not sure how much I'll need either of ...Show All

• Honza N Collision Detection in 2D Games

  Hi, So far I have figured out how to get object moving on the screen. I have also figured out how to detect colissions at the edges of the screen. However, I am having trouble figuring out how to detect the collision between two objects. Say for example, two bouncing balls in a 2D game. How can I detect the collision of this two objects I imagine it has something to do with sine and cosine Thanks, Oblivion. Nice to see people finding my articles useful :) Let me know if you have any problems with the samples. There's also this article . Thanks everyone, that really helped get my head arround it. When you have a lot of 2d objects in your s ...Show All

• JennyG 3DS to X (or FBX) Model Conversion Software

  Does anyone know of a good freeware or (inexpensive) shareware conversion app that faithfully converts from 3DS to X format I'm not a modeler, nor can I afford a good modeling program with a plug-in, so a good free utility would rock. Thanks! Ethan Yes Collada, I had seen the great work Remi has been doing creating a XNA content processor for COLLADA documents and models. I knew about the first attempt Remi had at creatig a COLLADA importer but found all the problems Remi described when trying to use it. I've read the update now on the version 2 (Damn those COLLADA devs are quick!) and it seems a lot better so will try that, shame that it's still not yet able to do annimation yet either, this is a ...Show All

• anderskj1 After exception, can't save files: "The operation could not be completed. The parameter is incorrect."

  This is driving me insane - my game or the framework will throw some kind of exception, I'll go to edit the file to fix the problem, often without leaving debug mode. It tells me I can't save. Fine - I say "Stop Debugging", wait, and then try to save - and it tells me "The operation could not be completed. The parameter is incorrect." At this point, it seems like all I can do is shut down C# Express and start it up again. Anybody else getting this Any workarounds / fixes I'm using XP (on a 4 core machine, if that info's worth anything. Some kind of race condition ) and C# Express. I did find a thread where some other guys were reporting a similar (maybe the same) thing. It doesn't ...Show All

• Mike Rustici Getting multiple errors back from the effect compiler?

  I'm using the effect compiler (specifically the Effect.CompileEffectFromSource method) to compile effects on the fly, and was wondering if anyone knew a trick to getting more than just the first error back. It's kind of annoying to not get them all back at once, but I'm not seeing a way (via CompilerOptions) to have it continue. I'm worried I'll have to build my own yaccer :( And as a sneak peek, here is a screenshot of an early build of the tool I'm writing - it's a minimally invasive drop in shader editor (requires about 4 lines of code in the host project to set up - maybe less if I create a GameComponent wrapper). It will probably go up on CodePlex in a week or two. http://www.hiranipra.com/data/help_attach/ShaderDesigner1.png ...Show All

• DaveThompson CreateVertexBuffer returns D3DMERR_INVALIDCALL

  Hi, I'm calling the method IDirect3DMobileDevice::CreateVertexBuffer several times in a row, but it crashes only after some calls, returning the error code D3DMERR_INVALIDCALL. When it crashes, the parameter that I pass are the following: Length = 256 Usage = D3DMUSAGE_WRITEONLY FVF = D3DMFVF_TEX1 | D3DMFVF_TEXCOORDSIZE2(0) | D3DMFVF_TEXCOORDFLOAT(0) Pool = D3DMPOOL_SYSTEMMEM The funny thing is that a previous call to same function works when using the following parameters: Length = 2360 Usage = D3DMUSAGE_WRITEONLY FVF = D3DMFVF_TEX1 | D3DMFVF_TEXCOORDSIZE2(0) | D3DMFVF_TEXCOORDFLOAT(0) Pool = D3DMPOOL_SYSTEMMEM I thought that this could be an out of memory issue, but if it is, then the error code should be E_OUTOFMEMORY. ...Show All

• Raju Bajaj how to implement some effection?

  how to implement some effection like particle system and 3D ribbon Is there any example There are many many particle system demos out there - use your favourite search engine. 3d ribbon - well it depends what you want but applying some trignometrical functions to your vertices should work. Try searching for flag fluttering/waving code. ...Show All

• Winnie.Wang your first game!

  Hi, just wanted to express my views on the 'my first game' section... guys, this is a waste of time. please don't do things like this in future. it explains nothing, it teaches nothing. it just lets me copy and past a load of code and then marvel at what the program does. you may as well just give us the file and say look what we did. It's not all negative. the tutorials on visualbasic express were wonderful. I couldn't believe at how insightful they were. is this done by the same people well thats my feelings on that anyway. if your gonna do any kind of tutorial, take some tips off the visual basic ones. and if your gonna ask us to copy and paste code, make it small chunks, and describe what the commands are doing. othe ...Show All

• remo.waller Custom communication with the 360

  I intend to use IronPython to speed up my game development a bit. This would give me some more control at run-time to create and manipulate objects for the sake of debugging. If possible, I would also like to support this on the Xbox 360. I don't have a spare USB keyboard lying around and I'm not even sure if IronPython will run on the 360. Preferably, I would like to show some sort of separate Python console form on the Windows side, but I am not sure if there is any way to implement this without networking. Console.WriteLine seems to do nothing, so I don't even think I can use Visual Studio's output window. Will there be anyway for me to do this, or will I just need to implement a slide down console like all the Quake engine games ...Show All

• Mystagogue LoadGraphicsContent and UnloadGraphicsContent

  Heja out there... I'm searching around a wile now but haven't found an definitive answer on my latest xna question so i hope the good old msdn forums community could help ... When and how will be LoadGraphicsContent and UnloadGraphicsContent called I found out that LoadGraphicsContent is called by DrawableGameComponent.Initialize, .DeviceCreated and .DeviceReset and UnloadGraphicsContent by DrawableGameComponent.DeviceDisposing and .DeviceResetting. But i want know when the parameter (un)loadAllContent is set to true or to false. I would argue that Initialize and DeviceCreated will call LoadGraphicsContent(TRUE) and DeviceReset just LoadGraphicsContent(FALSE). DeviceResetting will call UnloadGraphicsContent(FALSE) and DeviceDis ...Show All

• SQLme XNA doomed?

  XNA may be the greatest thing since sliced bread, but I don't see it getting a lot of support until you make a simple web page that explains what features the XNA framework supports and why I would want to use it. I'm not going to download the thing just to figure out what it is. Just google it, damn it! http://www.google.com/search q=xna XNA is not doomed, you are. Sry for being a little too aggressive maybe, but this topic is just plain stupid. You might also check the FAQ . I've seen videos of XNA being talked about on major news networks, there's an XNA GSE ad in one of my son's issues of Boy's Life, it's been talked about in gaming magazines... It's far fr ...Show All