\Managed DirectX and XNA Framework news

For those lucky enough to be a part of the NXE beta the first 3 approved games hit the community games channel this week. I put this screen shot:

up earlier this week but now thanks to my new toy I can show the whole process on video.

If you have Silverlight then here is the hi res version. Or download the WMV here

<a href="http://video.msn.com/video.aspx?vid=e5705824-7941-459f-b6fd-763358b65112" target="_new" title="The 1st XBL Community Games from XNA Game Studio">Video: The 1st XBL Community Games from XNA Game Studio</a>

I didn't have time (or any software - anyone suggest some decent free/cheap video editing package) to do any fancy editing, add commentary or callouts... but here is a quick index:

• 0:00 New NXE 'home page'
• 0:06 Community Games
• 0:24 Game info pages - downloads, screen shots, details
• 1:00 Playing Fruit attack - CG splash screen, game demo
• 2:00 Zman sucks at video games! (He's old!)
• 3:17 Hello Machaira....
• 3:33 Unlock game screen from dashboard
• 4:15 The computer kicks my ass (bear with me I'm waiting for the trial to end)
• 5:12 Trial period ends - standard buy screen appears
• 5:28 I spend 400 points!
• 5:49 Game continues as if nothing had happened
• 6:20 Wow this is getting boring
• 7:00 End game - notice its not in trial mode any more. Notice that when you quit it doesn't go back to the Community Games page. Seems odd.
• 7:46 Cubage demo
• 10:00 Space Combat Demo

The new 3.0 release is out as well as the updated forums and Community Games submission process.

Some new things:
new countries for submissions from creators
A playtest mode (see the Game state drop down)
New rich text editor in the fourms
Localised website in several languages
and many many more...

So lets see who is the 1st to get their game uploaded....

For the 3 of you who don't read the XNA team blog....Xbox Live Downtime and you

Note that once XBL comes back up there will be no more submissions or reviews.. right now there are a LOT of really great games from the DBP competition awaiting your review and feedback (needs a logged in account with Creators club to see reviewable games). So get on over to the review site and lets get that list down to 0 items by the 29th

Can't afford the time or money to go to school to learn Video Games and XNA? Well the Georgia Institute of Technology has put up one of their Game Development lecture classes for anyone to watch. Best of all its mostly (? I've not watched them all) using XNA for the code sample.

MPG 2008

1. Introduction
2. History of 2d
3. History of 3d
4. 3d rendering (part 1)
5. 3d rendering (part 2)
6. 3d Rendering (part 3) - sorry video missing see slides
7. 3d rendering (part 4)
8. 3d rendering (part 5)
9. 3d rendering (part 6)
10. 3d rendering (part 7)
11. Intro to XNA Game Studio
12. Game loops and XNA Content Pipeline
13. Drawing Models and primitives with BasicEffect
14. Guest speaker no video - see slides
15. Walkthrough of an XNA 2d Game
16. Coming soon
17. Coming soon

Lecture slides and course details and more background information can be found on the class web site

With Dream Build Play and the Community Game beta wrapping up its time to take stock of your games and decide what you could have done better ready for the final Community Games release whenever that is. Having a post Mortem is a gret way to look at what to do differently next time.

Gamasutra has just published such a post mortem of Schizoid - the first (and currently only) XNA based game on XBox Live Arcade. Its worth a read, XNA Game Studio makes it into the bad and the good and the note about TCRs should make all of you wondering about community game realise how easy you are going to have it.

This are a couple of particularly damning especially from a team who praised the ease of prototyping and ease of C# over C++ - Jamie actually said something like 'I hope I never have to go back to C++ at gamefest 2007'

A lot of times the natural expressions you'd want to use when programming in C# will cause unseemly hitches when garbage collects on the 360, and you're probably going to want to multithread what would, if you had written in C++ in the first place, probably run fine entirely on one core.

The end result is the time you save prototyping and getting up-and-running in the first place can be lost in working around performance later.

Hopefully those comments will raise the GC and other perf issues on the XNA teams agenda for future releases... of course few of us will ever tax things as much as Schizoid but the joy of c# for me has always been that I dont have to worry about things like memory too much because the GC is so damn good at sorting things out... on the Xbox that's just not true

Of course there is still some praise

If it wasn't for XNA Game Studio making it so easy to get a prototype up-and-running and in front of people, Schizoid would never have happened.

XNA Game Studio was so easy to use that we didn't have to write a single tool to make the game

Due to the server issues this week the DBP has been extended till 11:59:59 CST on Sept 25th. Heck thats enough time to write an entire game!

See Dream Build Play rules

The contest website experienced a technical difficulty that prevented successful game uploads. In the interest of fairness we have extended the entry deadline for all contestants to September 25th, 2008 at 11:59 PM Central time (CT)

There's also an interesting addition to the rules appeared:

Xbox LIVE Community Games will be launching holiday 2008. To help celebrate the launch, we are extending a special opportunity to Dream Build Play entrants. Although Xbox LIVE Community Games will only be available to developers in specific regions, if you submit a compelling entry, the Xbox LIVE Community Game Team may extend a special invitation to any Dream Build Play entrant to submit a Dream Build Play entry for inclusion on the Xbox LIVE Community Games service. If you receive an invitation, you could be one of the first to sell your game on Xbox LIVE Community Games.

There is some speculation in the forums as to what this actually means... see the discussion

XNA Game Studio 3.0 beta updates

The following table lists all of the API changes between 2.0 and 3.0. There are changes to internal structs and other things but I'm not listing them here unless it seemd particularly interesting - the public interface changes are quite enough to digest. The changes are based on the Windows versions of the assemblies. Maybe I will compare the others at some point.

I know its not very readable... I will tidy it up a little later on

Audio
InstancePlayLimitException	*new*
SoundEffect	*new*
SoundEffectInstance	*new*
SoundState [enum]	*new*
VoiceState [enum]	*new*
Content
ContentReader	*changed*
	public Color ReadColor()
SpriteFontReader	*changed*	Something about default characters?
GamerServices
ErrorHandler [internal]	*changed*	New error cases for: NotInvited, InviteeNotSignedIn, TrialMode, NetworkNotAvailalbe
GamerPresence	*new*
GamerPresenceMode	*new*	Big enum of 'things you are doing'... some fun ones including 'CornflowerBlue' and 'StuckOnAHardBit'
GamerPrivileges	*changed*	AllowOnlineSessions now returns false if you are in trial mode
Guide	*changed*
	void ShowGameInvite()
	void ShowMarketPlace()
	bool IsTrialMode
	bool SimulateTrialMode
GuideState [enum]	*new*	IsGuideVisible, IsNetworkCableUnplugged, IsTrialMode
KernalCallType [intenal]	*changed*	Interesting values that refer to Achievements and Leaderboards !!!
ParameterValidation [internal]	*changed*	Ditto values about Leaderboards - probably nothing to get excited about
SignedInGamer	*changed*
	GamerPresence Presence	Presence information
Graphics
Color	*changed*
	Color(float, float, float)
	Color(float, float, float, float)
	Color(Color, byte)
	Color(Color, float)
	R	Now has Set{} no longer readonly
	G	Now has Set{} no longer readonly
	B	Now has Set{} no longer readonly
	A	Now has Set{} no longer readonly
Color Lerp(Color, Color, float)
DisplayMode	*changed*
	Rectangle TitleSafeArea
SpriteBatch	*changed*
	DrawString(*)	Throws exception if text is null
	void DrawString(..., StringBuilder, ......)
SpriteFont	*changed*
	SpriteFont(...., char DefaultCharacter)
	Vector2 MeasureString(StringBuilder)
	ReadOnlyCollection<char> Characters
	char? DefaultCharacter
	int LineSpacing	Now has Set{} no longer readonly
Texture2D	*changed*
	Texture2D(GraphicsDevice, int, int)	Now you can make an empty texture
Viewport	*changed*
	UnProject	Looks like the subtle bug has been fixed - see if you can spot it!
	Rectangle TitleSafeArea	I'm guessing different implementations on Windows/Zune and 360. Windows does nothing!
Input
Buttons [enum]	*changed*
	BigButton
GamePadButtons	*changed*
	ButtonState BigButton
GamePadCapabilities	*changed*
	bool HasBigButton
GamePadType [enum]	*changed*
	AlternateGuitar
	BigButtonPad
Media - whole namespace is new
Album	*new*
AlbumCollection	*new*
Artist	*new*
ArtistCollection	*new*
Genre	*new*
GenreCollection	*new*
MediaLibrary	*new*
MediaPlayer	*new*
MediaQueue	*new*
MediaSource	*new*
MediaSourceType [enum]	*new*
MediaState [enum]	*new*
Picture	*new*
PictueAlbum	*new*
PictureAlbumCollection	*new*
PictureCollection	*new*
Song	*new*
SongCollection	*new*
VisualizationData	*new*
Net
InviteAcceptedEventArgs	*new*
NetworkGamer	*changed*
	byte Id
	bool IsGuest
NetworkNotAvailableException	*new*
NetworkSession	*changed*
	EventHandler<> InviteAccepted
	IAsyncResult AddLocalGamer(SignedInGamer)
	void BeginCreate(..., IEnumerable<SignedInGamer>, .....)
	IAsyncResultBeginFind(...., IEnumerable<SignedInGamer>, ....)
	IAsyncResult BeginJoinInvited()
	NetworkSession Create(..., IEnumerable<SignedInGamer>, ....)
	NetworkSession EndJoinInvited(IAsyncResult)
	AvailableNetworkSessionCollection Find(...., IEnumberable<SignedInGamer>, ....)
	NetworkGamer FindGamerById(byte)
	NetworkSession JoinInvited()
PacketReader	*changed*
	Color ReadColor()
PacketWriter	*changed*
	void Write(Color)
SendDataOptions [enum]	*changed*
	Chat	Does this mean text chat is now unencrypted and allowed?
Storage
StorageContainer	*changed*
	StorageContainter(...., bool AlloweTransferBetweenPlayers...)	Interesting - explicit file charing between profiles I think.
Framework
BatteryChargeStatus [enum]	*new*
FrameworkDispatcher	*new*	Something we can use?
FrameworkResources [internal]	*changed*	More stuff about leaderboards!
Helpers [internal]	*changed*
	InstancePlayLimitException	New exception called from here
MathHelper	*changed*
	float WrapAngle(float)
PowerLineStatus [enum]	*new*
PowerStatus	*new*
Rectangle	*changed*
	Point Location
	Point Center
	bool IsEmpty
	Rectangle Intersect(Rectangle, Rectangle)
	void Intersect(ref Rectangle, ref Rectangle, out Rectangle)
	Rectangle Union(Rectangle, Rectangle)
	void Union(ref Rectangle, ref Rectangle, out Rectangle)
TargetPlatform [enum]	*changed*
	Zune
Game	*changed*
	Protected ShowMissingRequirementMessage	If you need to change the message when the device isn't good enough
	void SupressDraw()
	ContentManager Content	Now has Set{} - no longer readonly
Resources [internal]	*changed*
	NoAudioHardware message
	NoSuitableGraphicsDevice messages

Micael Klucher just announced over Twitter that the bits are being pushed to download.microsoft.com and it should be ready 'in an hour or so'.

The announcement page is up and ready and has the link to the download. Make sure you read the readme first eh? Aaron has enough installer questions to answer without you adding to the volume

Download XNA Game Studio 3.0 Beta

XNA Game Studio 3.0 ReadMe

XNA Game Studio 3.0 FAQ

Summer is over and the user groups are picking up again.

Its time for our friends 'up north' to have a meeting about the content pipeline. Matthew Randall (aka EvilDed/Dedilus from IRC) will be speaking as as the author of QuickXap he's a good guy to be speaking about it.

Full details on the XNACALUG page

Chris Williams may love the sound of his own tweets a little too much and he may have more tattoos than your grandma but apparently he did enough bad things in his previous life that he feels the need to give back...

So on September 24th in Bloomington Minnesota you can help him and the rest of the Twin Cities XNA user group raise some money for a good cause.

  

Yes even shorter notice than Tuesdays talk announcement... so I'll just give the link and you can work it out yourself.

Turns out The ZMan needs to be able to read dates properly (it doesn't help that after 12 years I'm still not quite cool with having the month go first!). The talk is actually AUGUST 21st. So in fact you have over a months notice! New XNA MVP Joel Martinez will be giving the lowdown on XNA Game Studio

XNA at ONETUG. Orlando City Hall, Orlando, Florida

Whiplash from PHStudios has a 10 part video and 55 page document walking you from start to finish of a pong clone called Paddles.

Paddles video tutorials

DVD quality is available for everyone and the quality seems just about good enough to read the code window. HD versions are available for paying subscribers

They also have some c# and Photoshop tutorials

Digital Tutors has a new training video out for XSI and XNA Game Studio. I've not actually seen any of these videos so I'm not sure of the quality but the preview seems quite watchable.

If you have used any of the digital tutors stuff let me know what you think of it

Shader Pipeline with XSI and XNA

Looks like they have some other XNA related videos too

Can't find a copy of the conference just yet but it seems like GameSpot will have a copy to watch soon

So yesterday was the big Microsoft press conference and there were a few things that caught my eye from a game development point of view. (though I only caught the last hour so I may have missed something)

1. XNA Community games got a very short mention. They showed a video that had some of the current community games as well as few that I seem to remember from last years Dream Build Play. The 'date' mentioned was Fall which might sound different to the Holiday 2008 we have been hearing but since Winter starts December 21st I guess they technically overlap. No new news announced here.
2. New dashboard - I missed this bit so I don't know if this will affect the Community games part of the dashboard.
3. Avatars - similar to the avatars on other consoles you can customize a look alike (or not look a like) and have it appear in games. Lets hope the XNA Framework allows us access to these models as some point.
4. Some new fun stuff to do with the Xbox camera. The new Viva Pinata game uses the camera to read trading cards and You're in the movies records your actions while you play fun games and then edits the footage into short little movie clips. Seems like some fun things to do with the camera... maybe one day we will get some access to that.
5. Finally a couple of new controllers - an improved Guitar Hero controller which should hopefully just map to an standard XInput device and a new Microphone for the Lips karaoke game which, like the Rock Band microphone will need special drivers and a new API.

So looking forward to some announcements at GameFest where maybe we will learn if any of this new stuff will be available to us

Sorry for the short notice - I only just found out about this myself.

If you are close to Dallas then head along to the SMU Guildhall tonight at 7pm. Check out the details on Chris Koenig's blog