External Happenings
Promit Roy shares a KISS way to serialize interfaces with the .NET serializers (with a bit more work it might even be possible to emit valid XML).
Nick Gravelyn scales retro sprites at build time with a KISS custom content importer.
And last but not least Stephen Styrchak found the code for his custom game template exporter and pushed it onto CodePlex.
Article: Using XNA Content pipeline extensions for localization. (Part 2)
by Roy Triesscheijn
Recap
So… last time we made our strings localizable and added-in a new content manager. Today we are going to make all our content localizable, but first we should revisit and refactor “yesterday’s code”.
After publishing part one and having a good week to think about part two, I found that some of my design choices, which seemed nice, where actually at bit cumbersome.
Also the xml parsing (in BABProcessor) wasn’t as robust as I wanted it to be because I forgot about localized formats for dates and numbers.
Fixing our xml loading is easy, so let’s first fix that!
Good Morning Gato
…as Robin Williams likes to shout. This time there’re alarming developments to be reported from the Ska Studio headquarters, complete with a classic countdown clock. Real news at the 24th.
SlimDX February 2010 Released
Well, as the title says: The February 2010 version of SlimDX has been released. Head over to the download page to get the bits while they’re hot!
Update: Josh Petrie has some interesting changes and the full release notes linked.
Curious Nick Yields
Nick Gravelyn learns about the yield keyword and uses the new discovery to show how to implemented a simple script engine. Crazy voodoo indeed.
Henge3D Physics Library for XNA
There’s a new Physics engine targeting the XNA FX (hat tip to to Nick Gravelyn for the discovery):
Project Description
Henge3D is a 3D physics library written in C# for XNA. It is implemented entirely in managed code and is compatible with the XBOX 360.
Overview:
- Rigid body simulation with collision detection, response, and approximated friction.
- Supports collision skins consisting of arbitrary convex polyhedra, spheres, capsules and planes. Collision detection against triangle meshes is also supported.
- Supports a number of constraints, including body point constraints, revolute joints, universal joints, prismatic joints, etc.
- Multi-threaded collision detection and collision response.
- Ability to import collision skins from Blender and potentially other modeling programs.
- Supports ragdolls using collections of rigid bodies with constraints (see the Holodeck program for examples).
What “Clover: A Curious Tale” Inspired
Deejay shares the story about how Graffiti inspired Clover: A Curios Tale, whose worldwide PC release date has just been announced, too, complete with a shiny new teaser trailer.
Hopefully by now you should have seen the below video. If you haven't, stick on your headphones, get ready to pay attention, and click play.
Concurrent Programming in the Design of a 3D Game Engine
The GameCareerGuide.com site published an article by Jarret Tierney about Concurrent Programming in the Design of a 3D Game Engine (not specifically about concurrency in the XNA FX/.NET world but still a Good Read™).
We have taken an in depth look at what concurrency means and both its benefits and issues. While concurrency may still not be frequently used in general purpose software, the use of multi-threaded programming in the gaming industry has sky-rocketed because of multi-core processors and game consoles like the Playstation 3. Designing a concurrent game engine is a complicated task that challenges programmers to think about how programs run in a different way.
HOWTO: Common Kanji Character Ranges
Renaud Bédard shares a way to define the Common Kanji Character Ranges for XNA SpriteFont Rendering, including a little tool to generate said ranges.
Then They Met…
INTERMEZZO
Bellevue & Redmond, the 2010 MVP Global Summit
Enter Them Almost All.
Jim. At BWI waiting for my flight to Detroit, then Seattle for#MVP10
Jim. On the plane getting ready to head to Detroit for #mvp10
Jim. Just landed in Detroit. A bit of snow, but not bad. An hour before my next flight.
Jim. Just boarded the plane for Seattle. About 4 hours or so to go!
Michael. up and getting ready for day one #mvp10
John. Jealous of all those attending #MVPS10 
George. Argh! Just want to sign in an sync my Zune! Stinking LIVE service is down (at least the Hotmail portion)
Richard is making candy.
Michael. Registration done #mvp10 now what?
Andy. @mcummings : DO a little dance - cos its dancing time#kissypoo does #mvp10
Andy. @NemoKrad : The whole gang is back in town... i shall be over later this afternoon
Jim. Just landed in Seattle. Snow in Detroit caused problems with icing on the plane.
Andy. @MachXGames : I prefer my icing on a cake
Jim. On the shuttle to the hotel. I hope to have time for lunch before side sessions start. #MVP10 is ON! 
Jim. @The_Zman so do I. Now I'm an hour behind schddule.
Michael. In codeplex session #mvp10
Michael. Heading to DPE session with @corymiller
Chris. Sitting in the DPE session
George. I'm here at #mvp10 need to figure out what to do next..
Chris. @clingermangw start drinking?
Jim. @chrisgwilliams doesn't that start tonite? Don't be an early adopter. 
Chris. @MachXGames when and where?
Jim. Welcome speech getting ready to start for #MVP10
Jim. @chrisgwilliams after the keynote in the Evergreen ballroom where it's free, unless you're buying for everyone!
George. XNA mvps catching up at #mvp10
Jim. Who is the Alaska MVP?!? 1396 MVPs here at #MVP10
George. We need to write a required reading FAQ on how to ask questions at #mvp10 ....
Richard is sad not to be at #mvp10. Have fun, guys! I expect to hear stories of drunken debauchery and old men yelling 'SUPERPIG!' in crowded rooms
Jim. @Superpig not the same without you. Richard already did the "SUPERPIG" text messages.
George. @Superpig we'll do our best superpig was the first text I got when I arrived
Jim. Fish throwing at #MVP10! WTF?!?
Chris. hanging out by the fireplace, just outside the Twister Dork… err, I mean Twisted Cork.
Joel. I just put up a new version of nBayes: http://nbayes.codeplex.com
Catalin. George Clingerman: The first unit test is the C# compiler. #mvp10
Catalin. XNA MVPs are all awesome and fun! #mvp10
Catalin. going to sleep soon. @clingermangw is already asleep, and I shouldn't wake him up. He's violent sometimes Exciting day tomorrow at #mvp10
Andy. #mvp10 - no secrets - its NDA don't you know - just lots of drinkin'
Andy. @CatalinZima : @clingermangw i such a wuss these days
Photos courtesy Charles Humphrey.