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XNA Game Studio (RSS)

All posts about my work and thoughts on XNA Game Studio.

Shader Series: Which Direction?

Posted Tuesday, August 19, 2008 2:15 PM by RickHos
I’ve started work again on the Shader Series of XNA Creators Club samples. I left off with Shader Series 4: Materials and Lights. I’m working on the documentation for my next sample now, in which I show multiple pass (additive) opaque lighting. It’s another Read More...
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Domain Model for Game Design Part 2

Posted Friday, March 14, 2008 2:29 PM by RickHos
Yesterday I listed the domains for the design model; today I'll list what they're used for. In later updates I'll post more specifics on these uses, but for now, I’d just like to scope things. This list is not final, and there are probably additions as Read More...
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Domain Model for Game Design Part 1

Posted Thursday, March 13, 2008 1:47 PM by RickHos
I’m treating the Domain Model for Game Design like an unproven scientific theory. The Academy of Arts and Sciences states that a theory must have two properties: 1. It must be an explanation of a feature supported by experimentation 2. It must be able Read More...
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Back on the Blog

Posted Tuesday, March 11, 2008 8:11 PM by RickHos
River’s End is mostly complete. It’s not much of a game, but it is a very relaxing experience. It just needs some polish, a few new graphics systems, and a little more content and it’ll be ready to go. However, I don’t know yet how or if I can distribute Read More...
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GameFest 2007: Mission Complete

Posted Wednesday, August 15, 2007 6:53 PM by RickHos
I’m back from GameFest 2007 and I can start to take back parts of my life. The last 3 months have possibly been the busiest and most stressful of my entire life. The rewards have been incredible though, and I’m still glowing about the fantastic reception Read More...
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Lamp Lighting

Posted Wednesday, April 04, 2007 4:07 PM by RickHos
In this update on River's End (previously Rox 3D), I'll be talking about the process by which I arrived at a lighting model for the paper lanterns that feature prominently in my new game. Early on, I decided I wanted to blur the line between realism and Read More...
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Brief Update on Rox 3D

Posted Monday, March 19, 2007 4:36 PM by RickHos
I have a very limited amount of free time these days, so the total time to date working on this project has been less than 25 hours. However, I'm very happy with the results so far, and I'm very excited to get all of the new game mechanics implemented. Read More...
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Rox 3D: Game Simulation Design

Posted Monday, March 05, 2007 4:28 AM by RickHos
Greetings from GDC! My involvement has been pretty low key so far, so I’ve had a little time to dedicate to my test game. I’m using this game as both a learning experience, and as a test application to try various performance techniques and API features. Read More...
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An Unimportant Post about Rocks

Posted Thursday, March 01, 2007 12:33 AM by RickHos
I update this blog so infrequently it’s somewhat embarrassing, but I finally think I have something to talk about. I wanted an informal chronicle of a very simple game I’m working on based off of source and assets from XNA Game Studio Express documentation. Read More...
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XNA Beta Resources for MDX Developers

Posted Wednesday, August 30, 2006 4:05 PM by RickHos
The XNA Games Studio Express beta is available. It's not a complete representation of the final Games Studio Express functionality, but it's a good way to get acquainted with the style of the thing. There's a lot to go over, even for Managed DirectX veterans. Read More...
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MDX, XNA, My Book, and My Job

Posted Wednesday, August 23, 2006 8:51 PM by RickHos
Before I say anything else, I want to address the topic of my book. Yes, it is on Indefinite Hold, at least with me at the helm. The reasons were many-fold, but the primary reason is that MDX 2.0 never shipped. The API on which I'd based my entire book is deprecated, which obviously made the book somewhat irrelevant. Perhaps someday I'll return to it and finish what I started, using a technology that might be called MDX's Conspicuous Successor. Read More...
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Thought for The Day

Posted Tuesday, July 19, 2005 6:46 PM by RickHos
I don’t think I'm really writing a book about how to write games in the context of .Net. I think I'm writing is a book about how to write .Net code in the context of games. As I look over my revised chapter list, I realize that this book could be useful Read More...
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Ideal Winforms gameloop: Corrections and Additions

Posted Monday, April 04, 2005 3:53 PM by RickHos
I discovered something this weekend while playing around with the game loop I outlined in my post last week. Seems I completely misread the function of SendNotifyMessage and was using it in place of PostMessage. However, if SendNotifyMessage works similarly to SendMessage when used on the same thread, why was I not getting a stack overflow exception like I would have received with SendMessage? Read More...
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The ideal System.Windows.Forms 3D Gameloop, Take 15.

Posted Wednesday, March 30, 2005 9:11 PM by RickHos
I thought I'd take a break from my book to talk about some of the trickier points of using System.Windows.Forms for gaming. If you read Tom Miller s's blog, you've probably seen him address similar issues in his lengthy discussions on game loops in Managed. Read More...
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ISBN? Fail!

Posted Monday, January 17, 2005 2:34 PM by RickHos
Well, it seems the book that sites like Barnes & Noble have listed under my current ISBN are using information outdated by over a year. I'll take to my publisher ASAP to get that worked out. In the meantime, here's the book info: Managed DirectX Game Read More...
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