XNA Tutorials, Samples and Thoughts
Archive for July, 2008
Community Games reviews
Jul 30th
Michael Morton (Ziggy) has just put up the first version of the Ziggyware Community Games Review system. Obviously, this will be a place to find out about new community games, read reviews, and rate them, so good games get noticed, and come on top.
Remember that this is just the first look, and Ziggy would love your support with suggestions, bug reports, and any help you can give.
Congratulation to Ziggy for his initiative!
Ziggyware voting
Jul 30th
Ziggy is looking for judges to vote on the articles in his Summer Ziggyware Contest.
The vote count has just been reset, since Ziggy forgot to add 3 entries to the voting list, so you have until August 8 to vote for your favorites. And now, after the updated list, you can even vote for me 
All you need to do is send an email to ziggy at ziggyware dot com with your top 3 pick from the list of articles.
July Sample: Rim Lighting
Jul 18th
I’m going to go on vacation soon, so I’m putting the July sample online. It’s not much, since I’ve been busy writing the Fur Rendering Tutorial, but I think it’s a nice effect.
The sample is dedicated to Rim Lighting, an effect seen in some "cute" games. Read more about it and get the source code here.
Fur Rendering in XNA
Jul 18th
My fur rendering article just went online on Ziggyware. It is an entry for the Summer Ziggyware XNA Article Contest, so if you like it, vote for it when voting begins, in a few days.
The article explains how to draw fur, animate it, and apply it on models.
You can read it here.
My new best friend
Jul 5th
I introduce to you my new best friend. I made him yesterday and today, and he’s my first organic creature modeled.
I still have some work to do on him, mostly texturing and tweaking (and maybe sometime in the far far away future even animations), but he will feature in my samples and tutorials from now on.
Here are some pictures of him showing off with some XNA effects:
You will hear from him more soon enough.
Coming Soon…
Jul 2nd
Fake Rim Lighting, for use in cute games (inspired by Super Mario Galaxy screenshots)
Fur
June Sample online: Voxels on Zune
Jul 1st
For this month’s sample, I worked hard to try and render some heightmap terrain on Zune, using voxel rendering, but wasn’t very successful.
Voxel technology was used to render terrains in some older games, like Delta Force, Commanche series, and the game that did the best job ever with voxels (and one of my top 3 games of all time), Outcast.
Some pictures of the sample:
- Running on the Zune, at 320*240
- Running on the PC, upscaled to 640 * 480
You can find the sample and source code here.
