\Managed DirectX and XNA Framework news
It was just Tuesday I was lamenting how I wasn't an A list blogger, then today I was pointed to The Mail Owl Scrolls where I *have* now been bestowed with the title of "International Blogger". I am truly honoured. (no thats not me in the picture - that's Pieter)
Incidentally, Mr Mail Owl also has a bunch of MDX code on the blog. Have to add that to the tutorials section.
So who's going to PDC this year. Just over 2 weeks to go. The ZMan bit the bullet and once again put his hand in his pocket. For once though I can go to the talks that interest *me*. In the past I had to cover all sorts of enterprise stuff. Now - well its the UI track (not that there is anything wrong with Indigo and its always worth going to see the Don Box show) all the way.
The Coding4Fun team will have a space somewhere and I will be in there area at some point during the 4 days. I will let you all know as soon as I know.
There's not much (any?) Managed DirectX stuff but there are a couple of sessions about the next version of DirectX from Meltdown - those should be worth attending.
Congratulations to Casey for winning a trip with an excellent program which uses Managed DirectX.
I will be staying at the LA Athletic club and I get in around 5pm on Monday 12th - so drop me an email if you want to hang out, drink beer etc etc
The guys at TrayGames have an opportunity for small teams to develop games they have licensed from traditional board and card games into online multiplayer games that run within the TrayGames environment. If you are interested read their blog for more details.
Daniel now has a Jukebox sample, a Media Conversion sample and how to implement a filter in c#.
If you've ever seen David or Tom speak, or managed to grab a few minutes to chat you will have heard that "lots of major game studios use Managed DirectX, though right now usually for tools. However I can't give you any names because the companies want to stay anonymous". Well finally we have a confession from Steve Lacey the graphics lead on Microsoft Flight Simulator.
Listen to the interview on Channel 9 where Steve talks about the history of DirectX (Steve has been working with DirectX since before it was called DirectX). At about 75% into the video:
" We on the flight sim team use managed DirectX in a lot of our tools ..... things that take raw data from art, manipulate it, munge it and spit it out ..... managed code is a great way to do that ..... its fast and it works and its really quick to build stuff ..... a lot of those tools have UI and creating UI in MFC ain't fun"
Joe over at TrayGames has announced that they have release an OGG player written using Managed Direct Sound.
If you didn't know, licensing the MP3 technology for your codebase is more expensive than most amateur developers can afford. The OGG format doesn't have the same licensing issues.
Even better - full source and a writeup are available over at The Code Project.
Mykre pointed me to a thread on GameDev forums regarding a new managed DirectX game looking for a team.
The game is called Star Odyssey and they have a team forum and some very nice looking screenshots
So if you are interested in helping them out, please go and pay a visit
Craig is building an isometric tile based game engine in Managed DirectX - follow his progress on his blog.
July 2005: Some new screenshots of ISO engine
A nice new Managed DirectX application by Benjamin Nitschke of Arena Wars fame.
Normal Maps are rapidly becoming a mandatory feature in 3D video games, adding detail to meshes without increasing the triangle count. However, like any texture they start to get big very quickly so compressing them is essential. Benjamin has written an Code Project Article, and has made the Managed DirectX source code available from his blog.
A new blog and website have shown up on my radar. Currently (Aug 1 2005) looking like it is under development. Nothing like a bit of publicity to make sure David doesn't quit after the first blog entry.
(As of today the RSS feed is missing a title)
Blog Content: Delphi.Net, VB.Net 2005, Hex based war game.
My brief month off from doing anything too serious is over so I will be catching up on ZBuffer posts over the next few days. I apologize in advance for the repeats of posts you have seen on similar blogs, but I will blog them for completeness and to ensure they stay in the archives.
Bad (or good depending on your point of view) news - google decided that there were suspicious clicks on the ads and pulled the account (and the money). I don't want to say too much since I'm still trying to appeal to their better nature, but its not looking good. So I'm looking for suggestions on similar ad services if there is such a thing.
Very good news Google and MSN Search finally realised what you've known all along. TheZBuffer is worthy of a spot on the first page of search results. I like MSN's ordering a little better - I'm happy to be behind Microsoft.
