Beginning XNA 3.0 Game Programming (eBook)

Bruno Evangelista is a lead programmer at Tectoy Digital (TTD.com). Previously, he was a graphics programmer at Ilusis (Ilusis.com) and a software engineer at Olympya (Olympya.com). As an XNA developer, Bruno was a finalist in the first and second Microsoft XNA Challenge Brazil. He also maintains an open source skeletal animation library for XNA, named XNAnimation (Codeplex.com/xnanimation). Besides his professional experience, Bruno had hosted some talks and courses about game development at conferences, including SIBGRAPI, SBGAMES and Microsoft Gamefest (Brazil). Bruno received bachelor's degree in computer science from Pontifical Catholic University of Minas Gerais in Brazil, and is a master's student in computer science at the Federal University of Minas Gerais. He lives in the beautiful city of Belo Horizonte, Brazil. His works can be found at BrunoEvangelista.com.

Contents at a Glance 4
Contents 5
Foreword 12
About the Authors 13
About the Technical Reviewer 15
Acknowledgments 16
Introduction 17
Who This Book Is For 18
How This Book Is Structured 18
Prerequisites 19
Book Code and Errata 20
Contacting the Authors 20
Chapter 1 Game Planning and Programming Basics 21
Planning the Game 21
XNA Game Programming Concepts 25
Summary 33
Chapter 2 2D Graphics, Audio, and Input Basics 35
2D Graphics 35
Game Input 49
Game Audio 52
Summary 57
Chapter 3 Creating Your First 2D Game 59
Design for the First Game: Rock Rain 59
Let’s Get to It 60
An Xbox 360 Version of Rock Rain 77
Summary 79
Chapter 4 Improving Your First 2D Game 80
Planning Rock Rain’s New Version 80
Creating the Game Screens 80
Navigating Between the Scenes 129
Summary 134
Chapter 5 Basics of Game Networking 135
Introducing Multiplayer Games 135
Introducing XNA Networking 144
Summary 167
Chapter 6 Rock Rain Live! 169
Planning Rock Rain Live 169
Adding the Support for Network Games 170
Changing the Opening Screen 171
Creating the Network Game Scene 173
Creating the Game Sessions 184
Let’s Talk 188
Synchronizing the Players 193
Summary 200
Chapter 7 Rock Rain Zune 201
Planning Rock Rain Zune 201
Organizing the Game 202
Modifying the Classes 204
Deploying the Game on the Zune 214
Summary 216
Chapter 8 3D Game Programming Basics 217
3D Coordinate Systems and Projections 217
Vertices and Primitives 219
Vectors, Matrices, and 3D Transformations 223
Lights, Camera . . . Effects! 227
Drawing the 3D Axis in XNA 228
Models and Meshes 238
Summary 242
Chapter 9 Rendering Pipeline, Shaders, and Effects 244
Rendering Pipeline 244
Shaders 245
High-Level Shading Language 247
Techniques, Passes, and Effects 252
Shader Authoring Tools 257
Summary 257
Chapter 10 Lights, Camera, Transformations! 258
Cameras 258
Lights 270
Camera and Light Managers 271
Object Transformation 274
Summary 276
Chapter 11 Generating a Terrain 277
Height Maps 277
Creating the Terrain Class 280
An Overview of Terrain Techniques 291
Creating the Terrain Effect 293
Drawing the Terrain 304
Extending the Terrain Effect with Normal Mapping 305
Querying the Terrain’s Height 307
Ray and Terrain Collision 310
Summary 313
Chapter 12 Skeletal Animation 314
Types of Animations 314
Skeleton and Bone Representation 317
Extending the Content Pipeline for Model Animation 319
Using the AnimatedModel Class in XNA 334
Summary 351
Chapter 13 Creating a Third-Person Shooter Game 352
Designing the Game 352
Starting the Game Engine 354
Creating Helper Classes 358
Creating the Game Logic 366
Finishing the Game Engine 394
Summary 409
Chapter 14 Closing Words 410
Where You Are Now 410
Where Do You Go from Here? 411
Create Your Own Game 412
Index 414