\Managed DirectX and XNA Framework news
If you can't wait for your free copy of TorqueX as part of the creators club membership then head over to the TorqueX download area and grab the brand new open beta. There are also new TGBX forums. Check out the Torque X beta announcement (Scroll down....)
Simax is a driving simulator with full physics, car modelling and AI based traffic and its all written in Managed DirectX and looks great. As far as I know all the development and the art work is done by Iñaki Ayucar.
Check out the gallery or one of the videos:
Dream Games has extended the entry date for their Build a game in a year and increased the prize money to $10,000. They have also explictly stated that TorqueX based games will be allowed. Last date for entry is April 1st 2007 so hurry along...
If you are not already reading Jamie's blog then get on over there. Jamie is working on Schizoid, the first XNA game to get an XBLA release, and he's posted some information about what he thinks of XNA and a few rumours about future releases.
As you can see from an his credits Jamie has been around the game industry for a long time and worked on some major titles. So when he starts talking highly of XNA people need to listen.
Travis Feirtag wrote a visualizer for an accelerometer that displays the results using Managed DirectX. The 3d view is inside a Windows Form so those of you looking for code to do this will appreciate that he provides all of the source code.
3/22/07: Added whole bunch of MDX and XNA samples
The Code Project has several projects with sample Managed DirectX code. Be aware that some if it is quite old and may not compile against the current SDKs
XNA Framework Sample Code
- Reading a joystick using XInput - nice winforms output window
Managed DirectX Sample Code
- Reading a joystick
- Volume meter - note that the rendering is done using GDI. Managed DirectX is used for the sound capture.
- Small wrapper for ManagedDirectShow
- Creating a mirror - like a rear view mirror in a driving game
- Sound experiments in Managed DirectX - never enough DirectSound samples out there
- Odyssey GUI system
- Terrain Rendering parts 1, 2, 3, 4, 5?, 6?, 7, 8
- Rendering Text
- Mixing WInforms controls with Managed DirectX
- Managed DirectX screen saver template - works with .Net 1.1 and 2.0 and handles multi mon.
- Managed Metroid Basic device setup and 2d sprite animation
- Creating a 3D clock
- Multiplayer Snake in 3D
- C# managed DirectX HexEngine - Part 1 - Isometric hexagonal tile engine
- DX Game Utility Class Library - a simple 2d game library using DirectDraw
- Invasion - a space invaders type game using DirectDraw
- The ultimate Managed DirectSound 9 Tutorial Part 1 - Playback, part 2 - 3D
- How to implement the built in effects of DirectX.DirectSound
- Rendering terrains with Managed DirectX
- 3D Terrain Visualisation
- Rendering Textures with Alpha Channels and Color Key Transparency using a MatrixStack
- Ogg Vorbis Player using Direct Sound
- Airplane War
- Tetris3D - the only Managed C++ DirectX code out there ? (unless you know otherwise!)
Interesting interview with Microsoft Game Studios' corporate vice president Shane Kim, and Microsoft Game Developer Group director of marketing Dave Mitchell from GDC
Sadly no big news on game sharing, 'youtube for games' or Live integration - that's all passed over with 'We're not ready to talk about those plans in detail yet, but ... we are definitely making progress.
Some interesting quotes regarding Game Studio Express:
- ...we've had 250,000 downloads of that retail product...
- ...based upon forum activity and the types of games people are submitting and sharing, that the vast majority of them are first-time game developers.
3/20/07 - big update, name change and new links
What used to be called Haddd changed its name to the JAD Engine during 2006 and the source and a demo game are now up on CodePlex for your enjoyment. The authors also have a blog you can subscribe to to get announcements.
Vectiva died sometime after February 2005 and has been replaced by a site full of ads. Mail me if anyone has a mirror, or it has a new location.
Vectiva has a set of tutorials covering the basics and some stuff on DirectInput. Each tutorial has a nice accompanying text so its not just source code you have to look at. Looks like they are working on a series so check back often.
Waybackmachine mirror (though no real content): Physics, DirectX
Charles Cox has done a couple of XNA labs here at GDC this week which have gone pretty well. He's now asking for community feedback on their future education efforts. So instead of emailing me or YELLING (you know who you are!) in IRC like you usually do - go and put some comments on the blog entry.
v1.1 (or whatever it is called) will be released in April. Michael has already announced part of this but there are a few more notes below from the talk.
- Vista support
- 200+ bugs fixed
- Totally backward compatible with 1.1 - in fact it will replace 1.0. This did mean some bugs were punted to ensure this. e.g. Not throwing a new exception because you may be trapping the old one. Will be considered for future releases.
- Currently in internal beta
- 3D audio, which was in the beat but removed for RTM due to time, is back
- Bitmap based text rendering is added
- Basic Effect now does per pixel lighting by default on SM2 cards - so a free graphics upgrade. You can turn it off
- Improved incremental deploy to xbox - no longer considers a c# restart as a reason to not do incremental builds
- 30+ new functions and overloads on existing objects including the math namespace particularly
- Developer binary sharing:
- New 'Create XNA club package' option in GSE
- Makes a .xnaclubpackage file which will auto install to the PC or xbox (though each platform must have its own package)
Beyond '1.1' the following are items that are *being investigated* - no dates or promises:
- Networking - including Xbox Live support on xbox and windows (though see my other 'rumour' for certification gotchas)
- Presentation and GUI
- Low level audio - ie byte streams or other options not involving XACT
- Other multimedia - i.e. video
- Full VS support and other languages
- Cross platform projects - i.e. pc and 360 in single project
- Better debugging suck as visualizers and better diagnostics on the xbox
- Improving shader development with things like better editors with intellisense, or possibly automatic string typing of shaders
- Some options for 'Pro' gamers including how to get onto XBLA and possible lower level tool support that exposes more xbox features.
- Community features such as how to share with non GSE users and how to monetize your games on the 360
Mitch also mentioned that there is one current XBLA title currently being written using XNA GSE - they are using this as their 'test' project to see how things should work. I'm pretty sure normal XBLA submission rules apply... nI have heard rumour of a second while I am here at GDC but the rumour was vague and had some other information that made me highly skeptical so until I get proof we will just assume the one.
Once again its nothing specific and the news came from no where so I am probably misquoting but you will get the general idea...
One of the Microsoft talks on Tuesday was 'live for windows' - if you missed the news this is essentially XBox live for windows. There was no mention of ANYTHING managed or XNA based for the entire talk, not a surprise really since this API doesn't go public until June. Then right at the very end someone asked a question about using the API from other game dev tools like Flash. The answer was fairly boring, they didn't know if their API was possible to call from Flash but unless they could secure things properly the answer was no it wouldn't work with other tools. The almost as an after though he said (something like) 'Well unless you want to use Game Studio express, that will be coming soon'. Of course the BIG disclaimer here before any of the MS guys rip me a new one is that my quote is from memory so that's probably not EXACTLY what he said. But the gist of the statement was that Live For Windows (and dare we hope 360!) is coming to a future XNA version, or at least its being thought of.
Now before you all go getting terribly excited and planning your multiplayer games you need to know that Live for Windows participation isn't as simple as calling a few APIs. The coding looked pretty straightforward and hopefully the XNA team will make is even simpler. But to play in the environment requires registration and certification which just like 360 developers requires some cost recovery and also that you follow certain standards to make sure you pass certification (go find the Games for Windows docs and see the sort of things you should think about). He didn't have a price for that but his vague statement made it sound like it was in the thousands so your game needs to be commercial, or you need rich parents.
After attending the XNA talk today its pretty obvious that this is a 'being considered' rumour and not something that is available any time soon. Or possibly he was talking about the special version that is going to be used by the 1st XBLA XNA game
I just got out of the XNA session that is part of the Microsoft tutorial day here at GDC. Nothing major announced but some things we've not heard before and lots of vague stuff:
- They had a goal of 95% shared code between Xbox and Windows for the XNA libraries - in the end they were over 99%
- The next XNA release will be '..in a couple of months...'
- Next release will include a deployment mechanism that will allow packaged compiled games to be sent to the xbox without using GSE express. You will still need the creators club membership.
- Frank said, when demoing on the xbox, that they are hoping for a better place than 'demos and more' in the dashboard
- The racing game is 'coming soon'
- XNAField - the terrain generation sample that you may have seen at the launch events will be provided with source
- Finally lots of vague speculation about what we *might* see by 'the end of the year'. Take these things as stuff that they are thinking about.
- Sharing with people who are not in creators club. Lots of problems here - ESRB rating, certification, how to stop you spamming live servers, objectionable content, IP issues if people 'borrow' graphics
- Community stuff - how best to share assets and games - this is the YouTube of games that has been talked about
- Running on more platforms that windows and xbox - they mentioned in IE and on mobile devices.
- This is all clarified with 'its all pie in the sky ideas' - so don't hold me or them to anything !!
Oh and please don't just cut and paste this onto your own blog... that’s why they invented hyperlinks !!!
Updates may be sporadic because my hotel can't apparently cope with every room having a laptop and the internet connection keeps collapsing. The one at the conference center isn't much better!
When I return from GDC I have the pleasure of attending the MVP Summit. This is a chance for all the MVPs (and a few special guests) from around the world to meet up (some of us only know each other via email) and get some face time with the product groups. Most of the internal discussions will be under NDA so don't expect any big announcements. However I do get a chance to have Q&A with the DirectX and XNA teams. So if you have any burning issues then send me an email and if I have time I may be able to bring it up. I think I know all the MVPs who will be up here, but if you are coming and want to have a beer then also drop me a line and we can arrange to meet up.
