You had me at "Hello World!"

Exposed: 5 methods to create game loop: which is the best?

Edit: fixed broken links What is the best method to create a game loop? I created a small experiment comparing 5 different animation methods. The results, along with code samples and test screenshots are summarized in this document: 5 Game Loops in Silverlight: Read More...

Posted Wednesday, August 19, 2009 8:57 AM by nikola | 6 Comments

Attachment(s): gameloop.jpg

Large Star Field - Take 2, how to make it look "deep" and more reallistic

Check out the new starfield and compare it with the old one. Edit: thanks to fashai for pointing out an issue, I updated the code again - now the stars no longer form straight lines if the Silverlight control was invisible for some time. Also updated Read More...

Posted Monday, August 10, 2009 9:29 PM by nikola | 8 Comments

Large Star Field in Silverlight - Taste of Game, Part 2

Edit2: After posting this, I made a significant improvement on the star field... will post it tonight. In the new version there's more sense of depth not just "dots" like the one below. The star speed and brightness now is calculated better (based on Read More...

Posted Monday, August 10, 2009 8:54 AM by nikola | 5 Comments

A Taste of What's To Come - My New Game Concept Art

Here...a quick bite from the new game coming out... Silverlight 3, full screen, Got an idea for a name? Read More...

Posted Thursday, July 16, 2009 11:42 PM by nikola | 4 Comments

Attachment(s): ship1.png

Silverlight 3 Speed Optimizations - The Ultimate Game Loop!

Edit: this post is now replaced by the more in-depth view here: http://blogs.msdn.com/nikola/archive/2009/08/19/exposed-5-methods-to-create-game-loop-which-is-the-best.aspx Nice! I just ported my Shock game to Silverlight 3. Getting the graphics to work Read More...

Posted Sunday, July 12, 2009 7:28 PM by nikola | 13 Comments

Human Movements - The Easiest Motion Capture File Format

This is the second post of the "Reallistic Human Movements with Silverlight" series. I'll spend a little time talking about the .bvh file format structure. I’m still working on the code and that’s why I’ll make this post short in order to get back to Read More...

Posted Friday, May 29, 2009 11:02 AM by nikola | 10 Comments

Attachment(s): MocapView.zip

Reallistic Human Movements in Silverlight - My Own Motion Capture Viewer!

Hoho! yes! How to make reallistic human movements in Silverlight? Check out this stickman animation demo here: http://www.nokola.com/mocap.html Download source code for the above sample in the attachments to this post below. You're looking at 3D realtime Read More...

Posted Tuesday, May 26, 2009 12:36 PM by nikola | 6 Comments

Attachment(s): MocapView.zip

Silverlight: Super-fast Dymanic Image Generation Code (Revisited)

I decided to give a third spin of Joe Stegman's dynamic image generation code. This time, it's many times faster (about 10x) than the original implementation and the png is generated in-place (no recoding necessary). I used some hacky optimizations :) Read More...

Posted Wednesday, March 04, 2009 5:33 PM by nikola | 11 Comments

Windows 7 Look-alike Taskbar Button Control in Silverlight

Last night, inspired by the cool taskbar in Windows 7, I decided to see how easy it will be to make a similar control in Silverlight. Here's the screenshot of the first stab on the Win7 taskbar in Silverlight: Click here: http://www.nokola.com/NavSeven Read More...

Posted Saturday, February 28, 2009 1:36 AM by nikola | 1 Comments

Attachment(s): buttonseven.jpg

Silverlight Game Competition - $5000 prize

Submission deadline is April 30, 2009 Check it out: http://www.serverquestcontest.com/ Too bad I can't participate (I'm not eligible because I'm Microsoft employee) Whoever reads this, please do your best! Thank you! :) I'll still be doing my own game Read More...

Posted Sunday, February 22, 2009 8:15 PM by nikola | 4 Comments

Anatomy of a Silverlight Game: Avoid Common Mistakes When Building Online Games

Last week I created a document that incorporates my experiences developing the Shock Silverlight online game so far. The document discusses the basics of online games in Silverlight and has a lot of practical examples (code) and a working project that Read More...

Posted Thursday, February 05, 2009 12:04 AM by nikola | 15 Comments

Attachment(s): Anatomy of a Silverlight Game.docx

Play this Silverlight Game Online: Shock v2

I'm very proud to announce version 2 or my online Silverlight game "Shock": Play it here: http://www.nokola.com/shock Edit: I appreciate if you leave your comments and suggestions in the comment field for the game. Also, if you like it, please vote for Read More...

Posted Wednesday, February 04, 2009 11:49 PM by nikola | 3 Comments

Attachment(s): Shock2.jpg

Cool All-age Silverlight Game

I found a pretty cool chill-out style game in Silverlight. Just go and draw your first animal :) it's pretty nice to see those things come to life. Also there are some cool things you can play with friends and share the animals and joy :) You don't need Read More...

Posted Monday, October 27, 2008 11:36 AM by nikola | 1 Comments

XAML PowerToys for VisualStudio - Speed up Development of Business Apps and Just Edit XAML Faster!

Check them out - including screenshots - on Karl’s (one of my friends) site: http://karlshifflett.wordpress.com/xaml-power-toys/ XAML Power Toys Speed up production of Business (LOB) Applications in WPF and Silverlight! Automatically create XAML views Read More...

Posted Sunday, October 05, 2008 4:40 PM by nikola | 1 Comments

Cool Silverlight Splash Screen Concept Demo (including Source Code)

In this tutorial: Creating a cool (and easy) Vista-like "ray of light" effect in Silverlight Creating images for splash screens The demo below shows a "core" that emits rays of light as a hypothetical download progresses. Download source code Images used Read More...

Posted Thursday, August 14, 2008 12:19 AM by nikola | 4 Comments