I'm looking for ideas on how to draw a skinnable "button" in a game application. If I use a fixed sprite non-vector image for the button background, then I can't size the button easily. If I write code to draw a resizable button (like Windows buttons are drawn), then the programmer has to get involved -- and it makes skinning difficult. ...
My nephew is an aspiring game developer. I have taught him a bit of C/C++, and suggested he learn that for a start. Once he has come to grips with that, which game/graphics API's do people suggest he learn? I would think DirectX would be current industry standard, but with more games looking to go X-platform then maybe Open-GL would be...
I've been asked to help out on an XNA project with the AI. I'm not totally new to the concepts (pathfinding, flocking, etc.) but this would be the first "real" code. I'd be very thankful for any resources (links or books); I want to make sure I do this right. ...
So I'm interested in hearing different thoughts about what is the best way to go about unit testing XNA Game/Applications. Astute googlers can probably figure out why I'm asking, but I didn't want to bias the topic :-) ...
As many programmers I got into computers because of games. Now I am getting older and I just want to write games on the side. I have a lot of experience in C#, and understand the language. What is the best way for an experience developer to get started in XNA? Which is the best book? Which version should I start with? Any advice...
What VMs can be used for 3D programming? I was disappointed to find out that VMware products only have experimental support and even that only for 2D acceleration. ...
I understand that there are several ways to blend XNA and WPF within the same application. I find it enticing to use WPF for all GUI and HUD stuff in my XNA games. Does anyone have any practical experience on how well this approach works in real life using .NET 3.5 SP1 ? Any pitfalls (such as the "airspace problem")? Any hint on what app...
Are there any other way to render graphics in C# beyond GDI+ and XNA? (For the development of a tile map editor) ...
I'm making a simple 2 player game in XNA and started looking into saving the player's high scores. I want the game to work on the XBox 360 as well as Windows, so I have to use the framework to save the data. It seems that you save data to a particular user's gamer tag - so my question is, what to do with high scores? Save the user's ...
I haven't programmed games for about 10 years (My last experience was DJGPP + Allegro), but I thought I'd check out XNA over the weekend to see how it was shaping up. I am fairly impressed, however as I continue to piece together a game engine, I have a (probably) basic question. How much should you rely on C#'s Delegates and Events to...
I don't think this is possible just using the color setting in SpriteBatch, so I'm trying to work out a simple shader that would take every pixel and make it white, while respecting the alpha value of the pixel. The answer Joel Martinez gave looks right, but how do I incorporate that when I draw the sprite with SpriteBatch? ...
Hi, In XNA, how do I load in a texture or mesh from a file without using the content pipeline? ...
Using the GamerServices component for XNA to access Xbox/GfW Live for networking purposes requires developers and players each to have a US$100/year subscription to Microsoft's Creators Club. That's not much of an issue for Xbox360 XNA projects as you need the subscription anyway to be able to put your game on the 360. But for PC games ...
I've been considering experimenting with game development and XNA. I'm already an expert C/C++ programmer. I read through some C# books, but haven't done any development in C# yet. What's a good resource for learning XNA, from the point of view of someone who's already an expert programmer? ...
I want to create basic low-poly 3D models to use in XNA Game Studio games. What cheap/free tools do people recommend? And does anyone have any links or snippets of code that show how to load 3D models of some sort into XNA and then draw them on the screen? ...
Are there any libraries, pieces of code or suchlike that'll let me play ZX Spectrum .ay files in my XNA Game Studio games? ...
I'm planning on creating a game that contains a landscape with objects on it. The landscape will be defined using a heightfield, and the objects will move about on top of, and fly over the terrain. If you've ever played the old games Marble Madness and Virus/Zarch, that's the kind of complexity and style I'm trying to create. I've seen ...
Hello world. This question borders between the world of the audio designer and the programmer. While this question might have to be partially answered by that domain of an audio designer, it is sure a problem for the programmer. In our project, we want to loop a sound (background music) while the game timer is greater than one minute le...
It's gotta be free. It's hobby, after all, not a business!. Creating for-profit software isn't an issue, but anything that requires a hardware mod is out. ...
I'm working on a casual game on XNA with the intention of deploying to the Xbox 360. I'm not going to have access to hardware for a few weeks and I'm on a tight deadline, so I'd like to test that a few things -- Boo and a few custom libraries -- will work properly on the 360. If they don't, I need to work around them sooner rather than...