XNA 2.0 had been released only a few months before hand so it was certainly a cutting edge paper. We didn't have a text book as there weren't a lot available. The lecturer had spent his summer studying XNA and putting together a series of modules for us to work through.
The first series (2D) covered:
- Input Management
- Audio Management
- Menus messages and data entry
- Sprites, 2D camera and scrolling backgrounds
Second series (3D) covered:
- Introduction to 3D worlds
- The content pipeline
- 3D models and animation
- Movement and collision detection
- Terrain maps and skydomes
The basic idea was that over the duration of the paper we would each build up the basics of a game engine. The idea of “do it once, do it right, so then you can forget about it” was stressed over and over. Because of this, we ended up creating a lot of Manager classes.
Mentioning Classes.. For anyone considering doing XNA (or any games) programming, I can't stress enough the benefit of Object Oriented methodology!
Next few posts will cover more of my XNA experience over the last year. Hopefully I will be able to share some of what I've learnt.
G
