Right now our Sprite class can only place an image at a specified location on screen. The SpriteBatch class, however, provides much more flexibility than that, so let’s take advantage of it with our Sprite class. The effects we are interested in are as follows: – Origin/Rotation: These two properties allow us to specify an [...]

In this episode of the Game Engine Tutorial (we’ll return to the editor next week) we are going to build a better terrain, but the emphasis is more on implementing some simple HLSL effects. We will cover: – Better terrain construction – Texture mapping – Multiple texture mapping – Directional lighting – Fog Better Terrain [...]

In this chapter, we are going to focus on the Tool Box part of the editor. This toolbox will be a tree of categories and the components available in them, which will be constructed by scanning for components in the assemblies linked to by the game’s .csproj that we are working with. To start, add [...]

In this chapter, we are going to get started on our editor. To get started, add a new project to your solution. However, this time we will make it a “Windows Forms” project. This will create a project with the necessary references to use windows forms in your project. These forms are the basis of [...]

Microsoft made some announcements at GDC (the Game Developer’s Conference) this week, one of which contained some information about an update to XNA coming this spring. To quote from the Gamasutra article: In further XNA Game Studio-related news, the company announced XNA Game Studio 3.1, which will bring in new features to enable easier content [...]

One of the most common types of transformations that are simulated in 3D Engines is rotation. There are a number of way of representing rotations: in matrices, quaternions, angle vectors, and in degrees and radians. The most accurate and least limited way of storing them is in matrices. A matrix is a mathematical concept that [...]