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XNA AnimatedTexture Class

If you've been trying to try out the XNA Tutorial on the documentation and could not seem to find the AnimatedTexture class, here it is! It's not part of the class library. public class AnimatedTexture { private int framecount; private Texture2D myTexture; private float TimePerFrame; private int Frame; private float TotalElapsed; private bool Paused; public float Rotation, Scale, Depth; public Vector2 Origin; public AnimatedTexture( Vector2 Origin, float Rotation, float Scale, float Depth) { this .Origin = Origin; this .Rotation = Rotation; this .Scale = Scale; this .Depth = Depth; } public void Load( GraphicsDevice device, ContentManager content, string asset, int FrameCount, int FramesPerSec) { framecount = FrameCount; myTexture = content.Load< Texture2D >(asset); TimePerFrame = ( float )1 / FramesPerSec; Frame = 0; TotalElapsed = 0; Paused = false ; } // class AnimatedTexture public void UpdateFrame( float elapsed) { if (Paused) return ; TotalElapsed += elapsed; if (TotalElapsed...
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XBOX 360 Controller Element Names

I guess many of you who're new to developing games for the XBOX 360 (either using the dev-kit or XNA) would be always be asking " what are the names of the button "? Sounds familiar eh? No worries. You're definitely not alone! After gathering many feedbacks, I've came out with a visuals which hopefully would be able to bring you some clarity. If you're looking for some additional information on how to inteprete the inputs from a XBOX 360 Controller through a PC, Paul has a really great article on it. http://blogs.msdn.com/pstubbs/articles/531008.aspx
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The Importance of Security in Games (26th May 2007)

In this session, I would be speaking at the National University of Singapore (NUS) on the importance of information and network security in games, be-it online/offline. I would be updating more information on this pretty soon! This event is held in collaboration...( read more )
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Vectors in XNA

There are 3 main Vectors in XNA, namely, Vector2 , Vector3 & Vector4 . (Don't ask me what happened to Vector1. I ate it up! ) The most feature rich, being Vector 4, which is a homogeneous coordinates representation, which is really makes calculation possible in projective space, just as Cartesian coordinates, do, in Eclidean space. The main difference betwen the different Vectors in XNA is their number of representation, Vector2 X-component Y-component Vector3 X-component Y-component Z-component Vector4 X-component Y-component Z-component W-component Homogenous coordinates is a common fixture in computer graphics as they do a really good job with rpresenting a translation as a matrix operation. However, do not use Vector4 just because it's powerful. Although it's powerful, it does take up resources as well. Remember, in games, performance is once of the key factors! If you're thinking of what to use to represent the direction in which an object is going to in a 3D-Game, Vector3 would...
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XNA Game Studio Express 1.0 Released

XNA Game Studio Express 1.0 have been released! This version now allows you to run XNA Game Studio Express on Windows Vista. You could download it here at http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=12ADCD12-7A7B-4413-A0AF-FF87242A78DE&displaylang=en However, there might be serveral issues that you might be facing that's stopping you from installing it. Here's something that might be of some help. http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/xna/aa937796 Some exciting new features such as Bitmap Based Fonts, 3D Audio, Windows Vista support, Game Packaging and more!!!
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Mapping the Keys in XNA Spacewar StarterKit

If you were wondering if the Spacewar StarterKit in XNA Game Studio Express only supports the XBOX 360 USB Controller (since I've been using it to demo all the time), it's NOT TRUE! Guess what, you can actually make use of the PC keyboard to control the starterkit too! Infact, you can even map the Keys of the player one and two to whatever you want! If you actually look into the solution exlorer, you'd notice that there's this file "settings.xml". All you need to do is to open that configuration file and lookout for the "<Player1Start>" tag and that's where all the keyboard mappings are. Following's my config that I've set for my XNA Game. < Player1Start > LeftControl </ Player1Start > < Player1Back > LeftShift </ Player1Back > < Player1A > V </ Player1A > < Player1B > G </ Player1B > < Player1X > F </ Player1X > < Player1Y > T </ Player1Y > < Player1ThumbstickLeftXmin > J </ Player1ThumbstickLeftXmin...
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PC potentially overtaking Consoles (XBOX,PlayStation,WII)

As many of you might have known now, Microsoft is going big into the digital media industry with Expressions, XNA, Silverlight and the list just goes on. Recently, with the release of DirectX 10 and Windows Vista, trends have indicated that improved visuals are simply romancing developers as well as gamers! As we know today, game story & game play is important, however, user experience is going to be one of the factors that gamers look out for too! Figure1: The lastest version of flight simulator leaveraging on DirectX 10 Improvements could pass consoles The latest improvements, many believe, far surpass even the very best of what the consoles are capable of. Case in point: the upcoming PC shooter "Crysis," where players take the role of a battle-savvy soldier who has to uncover the secrets behind an asteroid that has smashed into Earth. Beams of light glimmer through a jungle overgrown with swaying palm trees, and the thick underbrush gets more detailed with a closer look. Gaze into...
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Why is Interactive Digital Media a big thing in Singapore?

Well, of course, the first reason is bcos the Singapore government says so. Singapore is a place really, that if the government sets a vision, they'd really put in money and resources to get it done. There's an exceeding high demand of media personels today, which of course, supply is low in. Microsoft for example, is going very much into the media space too, with the launch of the Expressions Product line, Silverlight, XNA, Ajax and many more upcoming. Singapore's very good with IP and really goes all the way to protect it, making development of games here, safer. In a game, the critical winning factor is really the game idea and game play. Technology is really, just a tool to support all these. DigiPen is coming to Singapore, exactly for this same reason. Asia is place with many talents, and defnitely a lower cost economy then the US or some parts of europe. However, it's also the place where many tech companies are afraid to do research in, as IP protection is not that strong. http:...
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XNA Architecture in Summary

I just did an overview of the XNA framework together with its existing tools. So if you want a really overview of the technology, here's the deal. Do note that Network support is NOT available for the XBOX 360 from the XNA Framework at this point in time. However, for Windows, you could create networking features via the System.NET Namespace. The .NET Compact Framework in the XBOX is not the same as the one on your mobile phone. =)
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The Difference in the XNA Line of Products

XNA Framework is a set of managed code development libraries that make it more possible for game developers to be more productive when creating games for Windows and XBOX360. It also includes the Content Pipeline allowing developers to more easliy incorporate 3D content into their games. XNA Game Studio Express contains a full set of documentations how-tos starter kits demonstrating how to use the XNA Framework, as well as acting as an IDE for game development on the XNA Framework for enthusiasts and academic. Microsoft would be releasing the XNA Studio for professional game development at a later date. XNA is completely different from Managed DirectX (MDX) , specially targeted at Game Developers. It shares similar technologies to MDX, since it's both based on DirectX. XNA includes other technologies such as XACT & X/Input which MDX does not. MDX 2.0 has been deprecated as of April 2006.
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XNA Resources and the Game Technology Map

In my presentation at SgDotNet last night, I was sharing with the audience about the Game Technology Map, a key achitecture of most modern FX-Rich games. As promised, following is the GTM itself. Click here for the bigger version ( http://darrensim.com/photos/blogpics/images/106/original.aspx ) To know more about the RTM of XNA, and where you could download it, you could view my previous post at http://darrensim.com/blogs/techbits/archive/2006/12/12/xna-team-is-just-too-effecient.aspx to find out more! Cheers! Happy Developing...
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XNA Team is just too effecient!

I was just playing around with XNA Beta 2 couple weeks back when Christina's Team released the RTM version of it! Gosh! That's fast! In fact the first time that I withness such a quick transition from Beta 2 > RTM. But anyways, GREAT JOB! XNA Game Development Environment: http://msdn.com/xna/gse/ XNA Documentation: http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/95e61722-ebb2-9ca8-e185-331035c60b1.aspx What's more? The XNA Team had also launched the Game Creator's Club. It would cost you US$ 99 per year for that suscription. But this would allow you to share games** and write games for your XBox360. Visit http://msdn.microsoft.com/directx/xna/creators/ to learn more! By the way, I'd also be presenting on XNA, Game Development Techniques tomorrow at Microsoft Singapore, under the SgDotNet UserGroup initiative. you could visit http://community.sgdotnet.org/blogs/microlau/archive/2006/12/13/Dec-2006-_2300_31-UG-Meeting-.aspx to learn more & register. Cheers!
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XNA Download Resources

Firstly, I'd like to acknoledge the students whom attended the "Walk the successlane seminar" yesterday. I bet you definitely had a well spent Saturday afternoon, learning more about Microsoft Technologies as well as getting some insights on how to condition yourselves for the working world. As promised during my presentation, following are some links which you could go about to start install the XNA Framework as well as the Game Development Environment to start your first games. Visual C# Express Edition http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=51411&clcid=0x409 XNA Framework (Beta 2) http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=EB14D73E-E6D8-4132-8032-3CB828DB5EFC&displaylang=en Game Studio Express (Beta 2) http://msdn.microsoft.com/directx/xna/gse If you've some doubts about XNA, you could also take a look at the FAQ at http://msdn.microsoft.com/directx/xna/faq/ . But definitely, you could add a post comment here or drop me an email at darren@darrensim.com should you...
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Changes between XNA Beta 1 to XNA Beta 2

If any of you guys have been following XNA since the Beta 1 days, you'd have noticed that the Update() and Draw() methods were really neat features which had thus taken away your job of writing the timer methods. However, in Beta 2, we'd be seeing some changes in these 2 methods. Following is an abstract of the XNA Blog regarding the changes. Game Game is for the most part the same. We renamed some things and moved some things around based on feedback including improving device management and made...
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