Associate
- Joined
- 13 Aug 2008
- Posts
- 410
Hi All
At the moment I've been spending quite a lot of time learning c# to enable me to write XNA games (games that can run on the XBox 360 and Windows), does anyone else here share this Hobby?
I'll be posting links to good resources I've found as well as sharing general tips etc. It would be great if others who are also into this topic could contibute some of what they have found.
Why here you'll probably all shout? Unfortunately most forums relating to any kind of modding or games development are generally overun by dreamers and people who can't understand the concept of having to go away and actually learn c#, though good quality help is available through other forums; actully digging out the latest relevent information to do with XNA can be quite hard.
Coding
All coding for XNA games (pretty much) takes place in MS Visual Studio 2008 (You can use express with no commercial restrictions for your own titles).
The actual Development Envrionment is called XNA Game Studio Express 3.0, this sits of top of VS C# Express 08 and provides the XNA Framework Environment for you to play in.
Note you will need MS VS C# Express to install Game Studio (You can use the full version of Visual Studio if you have it <you lucky swines>)
Get Visual Studio Express here: http://www.microsoft.com/exPress/download/
Get Game Studio Express 3.0 here: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/...ED-1EDD-4852-9883-9A33C0AD8FEE&displaylang=en
Art Production:2d
For textures and 2D Art I use GIMP and Inkscape, both FOSS.
www.gimp.org & www.inkscape.org
GIMP is basically Photoshop but faster, and Inkscape is a Vector Graphics App (think freehand and illustrator).
Art Production:3d
There arn't much in the way of Easy Choices when it comes to 3D content Production. Most Users of XNA either use TrueSpace or Blender, though Maya, SoftImage and 3D Studio Max can all export in the correct formats, they are damn expensive and the free (as in beer) versions are, well, limiting.
Blender, my 3d app of choice is incredibly powerful, its a bitch to learn, and the interface changes at a reasonable pace (making tutorials confusing if your using the latest release) and there have been issues exporting into XNA in the past (though all behind us now). BUT - if you can be bothered to learn how to use it you'll find it incredibly fast and efficient. Blender has a working FBX Exporter, FBX is a modification of the *.x format (directX models) and it the format you'll be wanting to use in you XNA content pipeline. Additionally FBX is human readable (if your into your scripting for workflow productivity - a human readable format is a big advantage). One hand on the KeyBoard is required to use blender - don't bother if you can't be arsed with learning a load of keys, it takes way to long with the mouse alone. Get Blender from: www.blender.org
TrueSpace is produced by a company called Calgari, MS went and bought the comapny out and made the product Free (as in beer). MS now give away TrueSpace so users can create content for the Live maps service (sketchup stylee) and specifically for XNA. It has a good exporter for XNA, but the current realease (7.6) has some quite showstopping bugs, for this reason: when you start truespace you have to flick between a tab of the new 7.6 interface and then the Old 6.X interface (as not all the stuff works in the new interface). I'm not a big fan of this feature, though I have to admit: the basics are easier to achieve in truspace, the documentation is good and clear, and its reasonable to expect MS to support it moving forward. Get Truespace from: http://www.caligari.com/
Links and Knowledge
If you want to get started. The XNA Creators club is a good resource. If you want to see your games running on a unhacked 360 you will need a $99 creators subscription (anual). Without this your games will be PC only. Having the subscription allows you to publish games and recieve revenue from the XBox Live Community Games Service:
http://creators.xna.com/en-US
The HazyMind tutrial series has 9 articles all updated for XNA Game Studio 3 (loads of tuts out there for version 2 that don't work without fiddling). The series will give you big chunks of a 3d engine:
http://www.thehazymind.com/category/xna/
Riemers XNA Tutorials cover stuff like 3d terrain, shaders, lighting, cameras, be warned, you may need to make changes to some code (not all code there is Game Studio 3 code): http://www.riemers.net/eng/Tutorials/xnacsharp.php
Well thats all for now, I'll be putting up some screenshots from my game and some code too when I get home from work. I also have a large tutorial index I'll be adding to the above to save intense googling by anybody who is interested!
At the moment I've been spending quite a lot of time learning c# to enable me to write XNA games (games that can run on the XBox 360 and Windows), does anyone else here share this Hobby?
I'll be posting links to good resources I've found as well as sharing general tips etc. It would be great if others who are also into this topic could contibute some of what they have found.
Why here you'll probably all shout? Unfortunately most forums relating to any kind of modding or games development are generally overun by dreamers and people who can't understand the concept of having to go away and actually learn c#, though good quality help is available through other forums; actully digging out the latest relevent information to do with XNA can be quite hard.
Coding
All coding for XNA games (pretty much) takes place in MS Visual Studio 2008 (You can use express with no commercial restrictions for your own titles).
The actual Development Envrionment is called XNA Game Studio Express 3.0, this sits of top of VS C# Express 08 and provides the XNA Framework Environment for you to play in.
Note you will need MS VS C# Express to install Game Studio (You can use the full version of Visual Studio if you have it <you lucky swines>)
Get Visual Studio Express here: http://www.microsoft.com/exPress/download/
Get Game Studio Express 3.0 here: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/...ED-1EDD-4852-9883-9A33C0AD8FEE&displaylang=en
Art Production:2d
For textures and 2D Art I use GIMP and Inkscape, both FOSS.
www.gimp.org & www.inkscape.org
GIMP is basically Photoshop but faster, and Inkscape is a Vector Graphics App (think freehand and illustrator).
Art Production:3d
There arn't much in the way of Easy Choices when it comes to 3D content Production. Most Users of XNA either use TrueSpace or Blender, though Maya, SoftImage and 3D Studio Max can all export in the correct formats, they are damn expensive and the free (as in beer) versions are, well, limiting.
Blender, my 3d app of choice is incredibly powerful, its a bitch to learn, and the interface changes at a reasonable pace (making tutorials confusing if your using the latest release) and there have been issues exporting into XNA in the past (though all behind us now). BUT - if you can be bothered to learn how to use it you'll find it incredibly fast and efficient. Blender has a working FBX Exporter, FBX is a modification of the *.x format (directX models) and it the format you'll be wanting to use in you XNA content pipeline. Additionally FBX is human readable (if your into your scripting for workflow productivity - a human readable format is a big advantage). One hand on the KeyBoard is required to use blender - don't bother if you can't be arsed with learning a load of keys, it takes way to long with the mouse alone. Get Blender from: www.blender.org
TrueSpace is produced by a company called Calgari, MS went and bought the comapny out and made the product Free (as in beer). MS now give away TrueSpace so users can create content for the Live maps service (sketchup stylee) and specifically for XNA. It has a good exporter for XNA, but the current realease (7.6) has some quite showstopping bugs, for this reason: when you start truespace you have to flick between a tab of the new 7.6 interface and then the Old 6.X interface (as not all the stuff works in the new interface). I'm not a big fan of this feature, though I have to admit: the basics are easier to achieve in truspace, the documentation is good and clear, and its reasonable to expect MS to support it moving forward. Get Truespace from: http://www.caligari.com/
Links and Knowledge
If you want to get started. The XNA Creators club is a good resource. If you want to see your games running on a unhacked 360 you will need a $99 creators subscription (anual). Without this your games will be PC only. Having the subscription allows you to publish games and recieve revenue from the XBox Live Community Games Service:
http://creators.xna.com/en-US
The HazyMind tutrial series has 9 articles all updated for XNA Game Studio 3 (loads of tuts out there for version 2 that don't work without fiddling). The series will give you big chunks of a 3d engine:
http://www.thehazymind.com/category/xna/
Riemers XNA Tutorials cover stuff like 3d terrain, shaders, lighting, cameras, be warned, you may need to make changes to some code (not all code there is Game Studio 3 code): http://www.riemers.net/eng/Tutorials/xnacsharp.php
Well thats all for now, I'll be putting up some screenshots from my game and some code too when I get home from work. I also have a large tutorial index I'll be adding to the above to save intense googling by anybody who is interested!
. 