For me, there was XNA and DirectX9; and I absolutely love using XNA. It's major advantages to me starting out was the fact it was in C# (the language I use at work), and it had a truly awesome community. Not just the MVP's that would help us all out (I even became one!), and the XNA team, but all the people that posted on the XNA creators club site, and sites like Ziggyware.
But, alas I fear XNA has had it's time in the spot light, ad while I still use it and will continue to blog about it, I have decided to start moving on and looking to the future, which to me, looks like DX11 with C++.
Now, I was a C/C++ programmer back in 1995 (I know I am old, for 8 years before that I was a labourer!) and used it in anger for about 5 or 6 years. I have to be honest the thought of moving (as a hobby) from C# to C++ is a little daunting, so, I thought I would do what I did when I was starting out with XNA and blog about my adventures using C++ and DirectX11
And that's what this blog is going to be, me showing you how dire I am at C++ and hoping you guys are going to help me out as I go, and with any luck I may post up some stuff that will help you guys out there too.
I have some previous with blogs, the first one I did was here on blogspot called Randomchaos 3D Engine which then moved to the XNA-UK User Group site, which is where I have been for quite a while now, and have started to archive those posts here on the XNA-UK: Randomchaos Archive blog.
So, here's to the future, I hope you will join me in this little adventure :D
Well I am a total C++ noob, die-hard C#/XNA fan, old as feck, and somewhat concerned over XNA's lack of love from MS.
ReplyDeleteSo here I am ready & willing to be educated :P
lol, welcome to the adventure Sharky! Well as I have noted above, my C++ isn't too hot either, hoping to get some basics up soon so we can all start learning :)
ReplyDeleteFirst follower!
ReplyDeleteI'm a bit rusty with C++, too; fortunately, there are great options for those of us that love C# and want to create DX11-based games!
Ive delved deep into various 3D APIs including DirectX, XNA, WPF 3D and WebGL - I can say by far the most productive and enjoyable 3D programming environment I have ever seen is Unity3D - a high level (C# or Javascript) abstraction over DX and NVidia Havok physics engine.
ReplyDeleteThe low level graphics API of DirectX is suitable for building game engines, not actual games.
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ReplyDeleteHi, I was trying to add terrain picker into my program which is edited riemers advanced terrain, but it doesn't work well. Could i get Your terrain source somehow? All the source links are dead-end now in Your blog... :'(
ReplyDeleteYes, they all point to my old site, let me know what pages the links are on and I'll put them right when I can.
DeleteThanx for reply, the site is http://randomchaosuk.blogspot.fi
ReplyDeleteI had made some project in DarkBasic: a terrain and some animated objects walking on it. It was very simple to work with, but on the other hand, less control on details and lower performance.
Now am learning C# with XNA. And I like it. Already made some GUI windows and buttons, basic pathfinding function for my game. But I need some way to control 3D objects. I am not good at all in HLSL and all that directx graphic stuff.
The game am working is RPG-just don't laugh- I know it is impossible to create good 3D RPG alone, but it just a hobby for me. Some idea to be implemented while learning programming. So I need 3D models to be doing something (animated) on 3D terrains surface (height of terrain), and to be able to pick terrain coordinates with mouse(picking). Maybe I will succeed to extract what I need from those tutorials.
Animating object might be too difficult to understand for me anyway. Plan B on this is building my own animated object class from meshes and then calculating translation matrices for each mesh according to animation it should play. That is not the best approach, but I don't have 3D models anyway, so could make separate meshes with blender :D
Awaiting for the fixed links ;]
OMG that blog is very very old, not sure I still have that old code... Check out my new archived samples links at the top of here for my new stuff or take a look at my open source engine.
DeleteIn
Deletehttp://code.google.com/p/illuminati-engine-xna/source/checkout
this link:
# Non-members may check out a read-only working copy anonymously over HTTP.
svn checkout http://illuminati-engine-xna.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/ illuminati-engine-xna-read-only
doesn't work. if remove space doesn't work either.
That was a trap!!! This blog is designed to kill me xD
1) links not working
2)Am temporarily in Finland, all the settings for browser or google account are english, but still get some popups in finnish and dont understand them. Thats why double posted my first post...
PS already created some hardcoded animations for my CubeMan (thats the creature I made yesterday- 10 scaled and translated cubes ;D ). This morning was spent on making him walk. He can do it! But not so well as I expected. I should calculate joints locations and then place meshes between them and rotate accordingly. Now calculating matrices for every mesh separately. It would take days to calculate all the translations and rotations for a good animation manually :'( And if I need 10 or more animations... for several types of creatures. Suicide xD
It looks like learning how to play already animated object would be better :/
To get the source code you need an SVN client like TourtoiseSVN.
DeleteIt is much easier if you use Skinned Mesh's rather than having to animate the mesh in code, there are samples on the XNA creators site to do this, and tutorials for Blender on line too.