General

Re: QuickStart Engine (3D Game Engine for XNA)

The ZMan — Mon, 24 Dec 2007 02:35:30 GMT

This thread was really here for announcements on the engine but since its obviously very popular the thread has turned into Q&A which are much better asked on the project codeplex forums so that Lord Ikon and the other devs don't have to watch this forum all the time. Mr Ikon will be making a new announcement only thread for the next release and this one will stay for reference however its now locked.

See XNA Quickstart engine discussion forums for all followup and discussion.

Re: QuickStart Engine (3D Game Engine for XNA)

Lord Ikon — Mon, 24 Dec 2007 00:49:02 GMT

jano:
Mmmh... nowadays, in my opinion, your engine is more "an easy engine to help 3d programmers" than a "good start point for people who wants to learn 3d programming".

The original template was intended for people starting out in 3D. The engine as it stands in 0.182b is not even close. If you'd like to start with a much simpler and easier to use code base, I suggest one of the early versions like 1.1.

You can find the old versions here, look towards the bottom of the pages, all old versions are highlighted and underlined.

Re: QuickStart Engine (3D Game Engine for XNA)

Lord Ikon — Mon, 24 Dec 2007 00:45:56 GMT

You'd have to re-write any portion of the Terrain, QuadTree, and TerrainPatch classes that use index buffers to let them use 16-bit buffers.

My guess is that a card that is old enough to not support 32-bit buffers likely won't perform too well if the terrain were working. That is only a guess though.

Might I ask what Graphics card / integrated chip you have?

Re: QuickStart Engine (3D Game Engine for XNA)

Javafox — Sun, 23 Dec 2007 14:56:20 GMT

I got the v.182 (not beta) working except that when I try to put the terrain into the scene, it throws the following error in the TerrainPatch class:

InvalidOperationException was unhandled. This device does not support 32-bit indices. Use IndexElementSize.SixteenBits or a type that has a size of two bytes.

when i take out the terrain from the scene, the water, snow, sky, spheres, and light all work correctly. So I know the problem is in the terrain. Is there any way I can correct this error so 16 bits will work with my graphics card?
Any ideas?

Re: QuickStart Engine (3D Game Engine for XNA)

ShawMishrak — Sun, 23 Dec 2007 12:52:08 GMT

Honestly, teaching 3D math and the basics of the Direct3D rendering pipeline are outside of the scope of the project. I would highly recommend picking up a book on 3D graphics math and a beginner Direct3D/XNA book. XNA tries to abstract some of this in a way that you really don't need to know what you're doing, but you really need this knowledge to go very far.

Re: QuickStart Engine (3D Game Engine for XNA)

jano — Sun, 23 Dec 2007 05:28:05 GMT

Mmmh... nowadays, in my opinion, your engine is more "an easy engine to help 3d programmers" than a "good start point for people who wants to learn 3d programming".

I mean... when I load the engine I see code, code and more code... which I'm not able to understand. I'm getting mad just trying to understand the use of the matrix or what's a viewport (even I've I read the msdn help... is quite far to be clear). But also I see lots of classes I don't know I should read and understand or not... just in the first lines we have "EventLog" class, what's that? I go to its definition but still I don't get it... more code I can't understand, calling more and more different classes.

I don't know how to explain... I want to start, and I want to learn, but I just can see lots of information "messed up", without a readme file, without a starting point or a tutorial...

Re: 3D Game Template For Download!

Javafox — Sat, 22 Dec 2007 14:46:16 GMT

What are the basic requirements for running this engine? I have a laptop with an Intel graphics card that is fairly decent (i've implemented particle systems and other advanced features) but when I try to debug the beta, it goes full screen, shows a grey color, freezes and doesnt let me change focus to another window or exit. is it because of the graphics card? or some other requirement?

Re: 3D Game Template For Download!

Lord Ikon — Sat, 22 Dec 2007 13:28:24 GMT

I believe he does have a laptop.

Re: 3D Game Template For Download!

pesto126 — Sat, 22 Dec 2007 13:26:22 GMT

Why not just spend $50 and buy a new video card? Unless you are on a laptop, you'll get so much better performance than an integrated card and they are a snap to install.

Re: 3D Game Template For Download!

Twilight in Zero — Wed, 19 Dec 2007 22:26:13 GMT

Chxfryer:
If it runs so slowly in windowed mode and relativly fine in fullscreen, it might be the desktop settings (wrong color depth or something) or turn off aero. Of course my laptop wont't play HD-DVDs if aero is off, so that was a wild guess.

I already said earlier that I went back to XP. I'm glad I did. :)

For now, I've decided to continue using Irrlicht CP. I'm definitely going to take another look at this in the future, though! Good luck with everything! :)

Re: 3D Game Template For Download!

Lord Ikon — Wed, 19 Dec 2007 14:34:03 GMT

Thank you, I'm glad to see people actually sifting through code, and not wanting to hurl at the same time. :oP

But seriously, I have to give some credit as well. Riemer Grootjans (www.riemers.net) taught me a lot when I first started with XNA, and the XNA team has had some great samples as well, not to mention absolutely the best forum support I've ever seen.

While the template code (v0.182b or earliar) was mine, the new engine is a team of people, so I can only take partial credit from here on in :).

I'm all about open-source though, I just want a free engine out there for people to either use for their own endeavours, or to be able to sift through the code and learn something from it.

Re: 3D Game Template For Download!

JROliveri — Wed, 19 Dec 2007 14:20:44 GMT

Lord Ikon nice work on this. I like how the structure of the code is really neat, well commented.

Being an old Developer/Moderator for Irrlicht I can say your off to a good start and the XNA framework + the vast amount of new developers springing up will thank you for your contribution.

Re: 3D Game Template For Download!

Chxfryer — Wed, 19 Dec 2007 11:17:15 GMT

If it runs so slowly in windowed mode and relativly fine in fullscreen, it might be the desktop settings (wrong color depth or something) or turn off aero. Of course my laptop wont't play HD-DVDs if aero is off, so that was a wild guess.

Re: 3D Game Template For Download!

Lord Ikon — Tue, 18 Dec 2007 21:45:31 GMT

I won't be offended either way, if you're running the template (v0.182b) I wouldn't expect great results, it is highly unoptimized, and is part of the reason we've started a new engine, which won't be done for months.

Good results on the new engine so far, but that won't help you much, because of the months it will take.

Irrlicht has been around for years now, and has probably much more support as it uses C++. I'm honored our engine was considered with Irrlicht as another option.

Re: 3D Game Template For Download!

Twilight in Zero — Tue, 18 Dec 2007 21:04:19 GMT

Okay, anyways... My goal is to eventually create a Tales-style RPG, with Tales of Symphonia style graphics. I think DirectX 8 can handle it. Hopefully, you guys won't be too offended that I might use Irrlicht CP... that is if I can find an input library that will work with it.

But XNA has everything I need, as well as samples and tutorials, though it will probably run slower. This will be a hard decision.

EDIT: Hey, wait a second. What about my horrid performance in windowed mode? That might be related to my performance issues.