D-SIPL Moderator Posts: 1345 From: Maesteg, Wales Registered: 07-21-2001 |
I expect most of you have heard a lot about XNA recently and it's recent launch. If not check out http://msdn.microsoft.com/directx/XNA/default.aspx As a trip for us studying a Game Development degree at our uni, they took us to the UK launch of XNA. It was a really good and interesting day. On arrival they gave us each a number and at the end of each seminar they gave away an XBox 360 by calling out a randomly picked number from a hat! Unfortunately I didn't get one... but I did get a bunch of freebies They gave us a very good overview and demo of XNA as well as writing a few quick games in front of us to show how simple it was. What impressed me was that they compiled and run the game on the PC and then transferred it to the XBox wirelessly, in about 30 secs. No code changes at all! I came away from the day really inspired having heard how many had made their break into the games industry. Having been a Linux only user for around 14 years, my wife was baffled and surprised when I walked through the door with a Microsoft bag full of goodies and wearing a Microsoft XNA t-shirt ------------------ |
MastaLlama Member Posts: 671 From: Houston, TX USA Registered: 08-10-2005 |
That sounds awesome! I'm glad you had a good time and got some free stuff. Are you thinking of trying out some programming for the xbox 360 now? ------------------ |
bennythebear Member Posts: 1225 From: kentucky,usa Registered: 12-13-2003 |
that's great that it's(xna) based on c#, it gives me even more incentive to continue learning it. what's the professional version of xna, or i mean, what's something the professional developers use for xbox programming?(i'm just curious). i heard microsoft gives away all kinds of freebies at their events, one of these days i'll get to go to one...maybe. ------------------ proverbs 25:7 www.gfa.org - Gospel for Asia www.persecution.com - Voice of the Martyrs |
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D-SIPL Moderator Posts: 1345 From: Maesteg, Wales Registered: 07-21-2001 |
They are handing out a bunch of Creator Club subscriptions to Universities so hopefully I should have mine through soon. I have started writing some stuff in it, i'm really shocked how easy it is. They give you a couple of starter projects (Spacewar for XBox360 and PC). There are a lot of pro's using XNA already from what they said. Lionhead are using it as well as Rare (they were both represented there). Rare have only had it for 2 weeks and have made some awesome demo's with it. The graphics pipeline is very very good. ------------------ |
SSquared Member Posts: 654 From: Pacific Northwest Registered: 03-22-2005 |
Wow! Glad you liked the conference. Can't wait to try XNA 1.0. They have resolved several of my issues from the beta. Don't forget to download TorqueX from GarageGames too!!! If you like XNA, you will like it even better with TorqueX. It's a FREE download. Check out my post elsewhere regarding this release. And if you already have Torque Game Builder, TorqueX is a terrific complement. |
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MastaLlama Member Posts: 671 From: Houston, TX USA Registered: 08-10-2005 |
as soon as you release something i'll transfer it to my xbox 360 and try it there :-) ------------------ |
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Maybe I am not hearing it right... So David's game axis can go on the Xbox360 easily? within 30 seconds? I must be not hearing it right. lol ------------------ |
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Matt Langley Member Posts: 247 From: Eugene, OR, USA Registered: 08-31-2006 |
The XNA Launch is awesome... We (GarageGames) have launched TorqueX Open Beta at the same time as XNA (see details here). ------------------ |
HanClinto Administrator Posts: 1828 From: Indiana Registered: 10-11-2004 |
Call me a party pooper, but I'm not that excited about the XNA hype. In all fairness, I'm not that excited about Vista, and I plan on hanging back with XP as long as I can. I don't own an XBox, and while I play some games on Windows, my wife games on Mac, and I plan to make my next computer purchase a Mac as well. I also like supporting gaming on Linux. So what does XNA get me? Distribution on the Xbox 360? *shrug* Sounds cool I guess, but I'm not really into that market. The biggest thing is, if Microsoft can't make it cross-platform, then I'm really not that interested. I'd rather spend my time and money on something like Irrlicht, Unity or Torque. [This message has been edited by HanClinto (edited December 15, 2006).] |
steve_ancell Member Posts: 37 From: Brighton, East Sussex, Southern England, United Kingdom. Registered: 09-16-2006 |
I don't like the idea of Microsoft charging people to put there creations onto the XNA network, without the artists being able to make a bit of cash from it. ------------------ |
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bennythebear Member Posts: 1225 From: kentucky,usa Registered: 12-13-2003 |
so you can make games for your xbox 360, but you can't sell that game to anyone for some $$$? ------------------ proverbs 25:7 www.gfa.org - Gospel for Asia www.persecution.com - Voice of the Martyrs |
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Matt Langley Member Posts: 247 From: Eugene, OR, USA Registered: 08-31-2006 |
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SSquared Member Posts: 654 From: Pacific Northwest Registered: 03-22-2005 |
Clint, you have reminded me of some of my issues with XNA. I really don't care about the Xbox feature, and XNA seems heavily geared towards Xbox development. When working with XNA, I had to take a step back from some of the cool features of C# and .NET, as XNA is not based on the Forms namespace (since Forms do not exist on Xbox). An XNA game is based on constant polling for the mouse, keyboard, etc., rather than something like events. I'll mention it again, I hate to keep harping on it, but it's frustrating...XNA is bitmap based which is lame when wanting to write text on the screen. For console development, this is probably normal, but I want to use some simple TextOut type of call. But as I started seeing what people were creating and writing with XNA, I was blown away. Someone wrote helpful classes to make writing text much easier. It may now be integrated into 1.0. People have been creating some really great classes and games. Another point regarding XNA. It is not just an API or extension to C#. It is an environment. Do a search for 'XNA content pipeline' or 'XNA Build' to find some good information regarding this. It really helps in maintaining, adding, and using your game assests. I think it also takes a lot of headache off your artists. |
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bennythebear Member Posts: 1225 From: kentucky,usa Registered: 12-13-2003 |
quote: ok. i wasn't thinking about it like that. thanks for clearing that up for me. ------------------ proverbs 25:7 www.gfa.org - Gospel for Asia www.persecution.com - Voice of the Martyrs |
