Links, links, links!
We'll start with NemoKrad's BoundingBoxes in XNA 4.0
Next, Stephen Styrchak talks about Debugging the XNA Content Pipeline with C# Express Edition and a bug-fix for Debugging Xbox 360 Content
Bob Taco Industries has two blog posts, one about Turning a Solution into a Template for XNA 4.0 and one about Sizing Apps and Games Properly Using the WP7 Emulator
Xna Creator's Club Online released some new samples for Windows Phone and XNA Game Studio 4.0
And Shawn explains the new Dual Texture Effect
Windows Phone 7 Tools Beta Including XNA 4
We must be getting near to the release of the highly anticipated Windows Phone 7 because Microsoft have just announced the Beta of the WP7 tools including XNA Version 4.
XNA Creators site kindly kept everyone informed here
http://creators.xna.com/en-US/news/xnags40beta
And if you want to get straight into the action go here http://creators.xna.com/en-US/launchcenter and hit the big download link.
Make sure to read the release notes as there's some fairly crucial changes in there if you've been using an older version.
Perhaps this might be a good time to start thinking of a tutorial/sample you can share with others using the new WP7 Beta.
http://www.sgtconker.com/2010/07/teaser-xna-tutorial-contest/
Video: Simple Component Model
This video is a 'program as I go' recording of creating a simple component system.
There wasn't really a design being followed so it may not be the most obvious implementation (or even very good). So I make no claim to it being the best or fastest way either.
You will need silverlight to view the video.
Windows Phone 7 – XNA Brightness and Contrast
With the addition of Windows Phone 7 support to XNA comes some limitations. If one wanted to have brightness and contrast controls for their game, previous methods may not be available. Considering features such as programmable shaders or device gamma ramp to achieve such a task will leave you out of luck. However there is a simple (and perhaps old school) way of doing it, and that is blend states.
Click Continue reading to see how!
How to get your Windows Phone 7 Dev Device
Windows Phone 7 Device Requests: Well, not exactly how but how to increase your chances on being considered at all.
The new phone book’s here! The new phone book’s here!
In case, like me, you've been living under a rock, there has been an update to the Windows Phone 7 CTP that now supports Visual Studio 2010 RTM.
The main blog post from the WP7 dev team is Windows Phone Developer Tools CTP Refresh! and gives a great basic overview. If you want to get straight to the bits, that link is Windows Phone Developer Tools CTP - April Refresh. You will want to pay attention to the Release Notes this release as there are breaking changes if you have any projects created in the first CTP. There is also an overview of what has changed on MSDN, What's New in Windows Phone 7 CTP Refresh.
If you followed my post about Ultimate support (Windows Phone 7 Installation User Errors With Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate RC), there are a couple of caveats to uninstalling the RC bits. You may run into more problems when trying to install the CTP Refresh so hopefully this will help eliminate some headache ahead of time.
- Do not uninstall individual pieces like XNA or heaven forbid Visual Studio 2010 Express. The installer keeps track of everything it puts on your system and will proceed to add it back if it is missing. In the case of no VS2010, as The_Zman found out the hard way and had to reinstall the Express RC separate.
- The CTP leaves two things that the refresh needs to be removed before it will install: Silverlight 4 SDK and Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 Express Prerequisites x86 or x64 depending on your system.
- I had a link to the Silverlight 4 Tools that have now been refreshed to RTM. That link is actually no longer needed as VS2010 RTM installs them for you.
Hope this reiteration will save some of you the grief The_Zman or ElementCy ran into. Happy hax0rin!
Dress Me Up – Windows Phone 7
Matthew "BRUTAL" Randall has been playing with WP7 & XNA 4.0. He has developed a game/app called Dress Me Up.
Simple premise, yet makes good use of touch.
Check out the video on his site here
Windows Phone 7 Installation User Errors with Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate RC
Before you begin:
So, you want to develop applications for Windows Phone 7. You have access to the public Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate Release Candidate and would rather use that because Express feels to wimpy. You should know that before you travel down this rabbit hole, you will have copies of both Ultimate and Express on your computer by the time you are done installing.
Article: Windows Phone 7 Push Notifications
by Sgt. Conker
In this article I will explain how to use the Push Notification features of Windows Phone 7 using 2 very simple samples.
The push notification features of Windows Phone 7 enable you to push a message to a mobile device with 3 options.
- Tile notification – This lets you change the main application tile on the Start experience.
- Toast notification – This lets you popup a message on the device even if your application is not running.
- Raw notification – This lets you send raw data to the running application which you can receive via an event.
For this sample, we’re going to concentrate on Toast notification. While Tile notifications will be cool, we unfortunately can’t make use of them with the current build of the emulator.
As a teaser, here is the result we want.
HOWTO: Choose The Right Framework For Your Windows Phone Game
Michael Klucher posted a quick explanation of the different application models in the Silverlight and XNA Framework to help you deciding what framework to use for your Windows Phone game. Ends his post:
There’s no perfect “one size fits all” answer to help you make the choice for what is best for your game, so you’ll want to think about the tools you want to use, and the type of experience you want to enable when approaching developing your game.