XNA Framework Content Pipeline

InstancedModelSample problem

cristiandonosoc — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 16:06:17 GMT

Hi, sorry if this doesnt go in this section or if it has been asnwered yet (I have searched for an answer, but lo luck :( ).

I'm trying to get the instanced model sample into my game and I think I got everything right, but I keep getting

Error loading "Models\Cats". Cannot find type MultipleModel.InstancedModel, MultipleModel.

I found a thread that said I had to update the reference to where the actual InstancedModel class is, and I did.

                            [ContentSerializerRuntimeType("MultipleModel.InstancedModel, MultipleModel")]         
                public class InstancedModelContent         
                {         
                    // Internally our instanced model is made up from a list of model parts.         
                    [ContentSerializer]         
                    List<ModelPart> modelParts = new List<ModelPart>();         
                     
                     
                    // Each model part represents a piece of geometry that uses one single effect.         
                    [ContentSerializerRuntimeType("MultipleModel.InstancedModelPart, MultipleModel")]         
                    class ModelPart         

And here is the class InstancedModel

                            namespace MultipleModel         
            {         
                       
                /// <summary>         
                /// Custom model class can efficiently draw many copies of itself,         
                /// using various different GPU instancing techniques.         
                /// </summary>         
                public class InstancedModel         

Am I doing something horribly wrong here?? Thx for helping

(Sorry if english is a little bad)

Load an asset inside an MSBuild thread

Crazy coder — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 17:27:46 GMT

The question is really simple, but don't have found anything on internet or inside this forum.

I can load a compiled assed (.xnb) inside a content pipeline project or inside a .dll to use onto an MSBuild instance?

I've builded a world editor and I use MSBuild to build contents bypassing Visual Studio.
Inside a .dll I have all processors and importers and work really well but now I need to load a compiled asset at compile-time.

The necessity to load compiled asset is for this reason:
- I compile first small assets that are detail meshes
- next i compile the main world and I need to load the compiled detail meshes to calculate illumination and other things to save per instance of a detail mesh inside the world asset file.

I hope to be clear...and all your help guys are wellcome!
Tanks in advance.

ContentSerializer attribute and design question

Kainsin — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 15:52:30 GMT

I am currently working on my grid for a 3D tactical RPG and am trying to make sure everything is good for a future level editor. While I have a solution that works, I think I can make it better (while learning more about XNA) and wanted to run my design idea here first.

The main design is broken into four classes:

The first class is the grid square that the game will use. It has a Texture, Effect, VertexBuffer, etc. like the Model class but also other game-related properties.

The second class extends from the first grid square class and adds in extra fluff stuff that the level editor will use.

The third class is a Content match for the first grid square class, using TextureContent and things to serialize correctly.

The fourth class is a custom content processor that will take in the second fluff grid square and output the Content grid square that can be serialized.

The process should flow as such:

- Level editor creates fluff grid squares and saves it to XML with the IntermediateSerializer
- Custom processor takes in the fluff grid squares and uses them to load the correct textures and set the vertices in the content objects so they can be serialized
- Game loads the serialized objects into the basic grid square

So first off, does this seem like a good approach?

My main concern is this: How will the ContentSerializerIgnore attribute work when deserializing the objects at run-time? I plan on ignoring the Texture/VertexBuffer/BasicEffect classes so that when the level editor outputs the XML file it will not attempt to write those (since it can't), but will doing this make it so that those classes aren't populated with the correct information when deserialized? Am I stuck with custom writers/readers in this situation or can I still leverage automatic serialization?

Thanks in advance.

Content Pipeline bug when adding items

elpablo — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 03:52:21 GMT

Hi,

I'm having a weird problem over here. When I'm adding an element through the content pipeline, VS C# 2008 Express close without any reason. Adding a new or existing element makes no difference. I tried dragging a file it does the same thing.

If I open a project that already have some items in the content pipeline, when I try to build it, VS C# Express closes.

Is there any known solution to this problem?

Thanks nick

ContentTypeSerializer with content pipeline ignored ?

Matan — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 21:46:33 GMT

I seem to have a bit of a problem when using the ContentTypeSerializer<T> class from some reason.

i have created a Pose class (i bet you can guess what it contains, even though it doesn't really matter), and a pose serializer class, where i store "I" string instead of data if the data is "identity" (static property on the class).

using my level builder the serializer works perfectly fine, both read(deserialize) and write(serialize) functions.

however when i have loaded an .xml file into my actual game project, which is a content item of a custom class, that one of it's properties type is the Pose class.

however i am getting a build error that the class doesn't contain one of it's original properties (it contains the "I" instead).

adding System.Diagnostics.Debugger.Launch() line into the read function of the content serializer also doesn't seem to actually do anything, as if the content serializer is not even used.

example .xml file:

    
            1
            <XnaContent xmlns:Core="GameLibrary.Core"> 
        
            2
               <Asset Type="Core.A> 
        
            3
                 <Name>MyAClassName</Name> 
        
            4
                 <Pose>I</Pose> 
        
            5
               </Asset> 
        
            6
            </XnaContent>

example pose code data:

    
            1
            namespace GameLibrary.Core  
        
            2
            {  
        
            3
                public class A  
        
            4
                {  
        
            5
                    private String _name;  
        
            6
                    private Pose _pose;  
        
            7
                      
            8
                    [ContentSerializer()]  
        
            9
                    public String Name  
        
            10
                    {  
        
            11
                       get { return _name; }  
        
            12
                       set { _name = value; }  
        
            13
                    }  
        
            14
              
            15
                    [ContentSerializer()]  
        
            16
                    public Pose Pose  
        
            17
                    {  
        
            18
                       get { return _pose; }  
        
            19
                       set { _pose = value; }  
        
            20
                    }  
        
            21
                }  
        
            22
            }

Any help is thanked for.
Yours, Matan.

ContentPipeline and level data

Make 0ut — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 00:13:37 GMT

Hey,

I've kinda hit a wall on my project. Not really sure where to go from here.

Basically, my game is at the same time my tools.(I have no plans on giving access to the tools in the games ill make with it)

I'm not trying to do anything overly complicated as ill only be making 2d games with this. So far it works perfectly for my playfield editor.

Where im stuck is on the level editor. I'm not too sure how to go about doing the serialization part. This is what I was hoping to achieve.

A level contains multiple game objects.

A game object contains common parameters and instance parameters.

In my level's xml file I want to save the list of game objects with the instance parameters. Then for each gameobject type, I would have a file for the common parameters.

For example, if I have a class called Enemy.

I could create 2 game objects in xml that would link to this Enemy class, one called Cat, the other Dog. Both of type Enemy but they would have different common params that make them behave differently. Then in my level I could add multiple Cats or Dogs using the xml files. And I could modify additionnal parameters that would only affect the instance of my cat or dog. Lets say their HP.

Where im stuck is how would I go about create the content pipeline to support this? Ive done content pipelines but none this complicated. And I dont know where to begin with the xml writer part.

Wow this is really hard to express. I'm sure I lost most of you midway. But thanks for those that make it thru.

extending project item properties in visual studio

KawaRacer — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 07:49:55 GMT

As you know, the XNA Game Studio extends the properties in the solution explorer to offer a configuration possibility for content importer and content processor. Does anybody know how to extend visual studio in order to achieve this in other project types? I would like to implement such a thing for my c++ project. For simplicity I would prefer to implement the visual studio extension using c#. But c++ wouldn't be a problem too. thank you!

WinForms Series 2: Content Loading - Build Logger Initialization error

Prometheus722 — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 04:49:54 GMT

I am trying to implement this XNA sample into my level editor but I keep getting this error. I followed the sample to the character and I continue to get this error. The only apparent difference I can see between my project and the sample is that mine is an XNA project, not "windows application". the complete error details are as follows:

Microsoft.Build.BuildEngine.InternalLoggerException was unhandled
Message="The build was aborted because the \"ErrorLogger\" logger failed unexpectedly during initialization."
Source="Microsoft.Build.Engine"
ErrorCode="MSB4016"
HelpKeyword="MSBuild.FatalErrorWhileInitializingLogger"
StackTrace:
       at Microsoft.Build.BuildEngine.InternalLoggerException.Throw(Exception innerException, BuildEventArgs e, String messageResourceName, String[] messageArgs)
       at Microsoft.Build.BuildEngine.Engine.RegisterLogger(ILogger logger)
       at WinFormsContentLoading.ContentBuilder.CreateBuildProject() in L:\Xna Project Files\MapEditor\MapEditor\Classes\ContentBuilder.cs:line 147
       at WinFormsContentLoading.ContentBuilder..ctor() in L:\Xna Project Files\MapEditor\MapEditor\Classes\ContentBuilder.cs:line 90
       at MapEditor.Form1..ctor() in L:\Xna Project Files\MapEditor\MapEditor\Forms\Form1.cs:line 88
       at MapEditor.Program.Main() in L:\Xna Project Files\MapEditor\MapEditor\Program.cs:line 16
InnerException: System.EntryPointNotFoundException
       Message="Entry point was not found."
       Source="Microsoft.Build.Engine"
       TypeName=""
       StackTrace:
            at Microsoft.Build.BuildEngine.Engine.RegisterLogger(ILogger logger)
       InnerException:

In advance, thank you for your help.

Custom Content Build Directory XNA

B Fatz — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 01:50:00 GMT

I am working on a Content Builder based off the WintFormsContentLoading sample from Creator's Club.

My builder is building the .xnb files fine, but I can't get them to go in the right directory.

In the project I specify the directory as follows.

                            msBuildProject = new Project(msBuildEngine);         
                     
            msBuildProject.FullFileName = projectPath;         
                     
            msBuildProject.SetProperty("XnaPlatform", "Windows");         
            msBuildProject.SetProperty("XnaFrameworkVersion", "v3.1");         
            msBuildProject.SetProperty("Configuration", "Release");         
            msBuildProject.SetProperty("OutputPath", outputPath);         

Where outputPath = "C:\\temp"

It creates the directory "C:\\temp" just fine but then it tacks on "content" to the end, building the files to the "C:\\temp\content" directory.

At no point do I instruct it to do this and when I write the outputPath to the console after the build it still reads "C:\\temp".

I could change my ContentManager to look for the files here, but I am trying to implement a certain directory structure and would rather not do that.

I've been all over google and the forums and have no idea what could be causing this.

Any help would be greatly appreciated as this is holding up the progress of my class' project.

Thank you.

Dynamic building/loading (for Xbox)

sam0478 — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 10:44:03 GMT

I have a whole bunch of PNG files in a directory that are constantly changing (edited/added/removed) as we develop. Therefore, I don't want to load each one of these into the XNA project. And apparently I can't use Texture2D.FromFile() on the XBox.

What I'd like to be able to do is use the content pipeline to convert the whole directory of PNG files into XNB format at build-time. Is this best done using an MSBuild project? If so, will an MSBuild project be able to copy these files to the XBox when deployed? How do I access these files after they are built?

Thanks.

Dynamic Loading

Venatu — Sat, 24 May 2008 19:33:42 GMT

I was wondering how to load some textures dynamically, as I wont know them at compile time. How could this be acheived? From my (little) knowledge of the content pipeline I have to specify them at compile time. I want my porgam to iterate through a list of .bmp files to be displayed using rectangles.

Thanks, Mike

Model animation with blender.

KaosKlown — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 20:34:52 GMT

Hi everyone !

I'm working on a game with three friends and I am the graphics-guru ^^.

I made some models with blender and as long as they weren't moving, everything was OK.

But recently I animated a character and exported it with the "modified for XNA" .fbx exporter of Blender, and once loaded in the skinning sample, the model moved but the bones were quite screwed up...

In fact, the movement weren't totally absurd, I can recognise the animation, but there's a part of the legs that go all the way inside the body, getting disconnected from the feet.

Here is an exemple of what I get (in Blender then in XNA):

You can see that the legs don't touch the feet.

I could join a "test" version of my model in .blend and .fbx just in case, but I don't really know how to do that here...

Thanks.

Modifying a models texture coordinates

FireFly — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 12:56:02 GMT

Hi,

Is it possible to loop through all of the meshes in a model in the content pipeline and modify each meshes texture coordinates? I have been searching but I can't find anywhere how to access and change the texture coordinates of a mesh. I have found out the texture coordinates are stored in a MeshContent's GeomertyContent in one of it's channels but i'm not sure how to access the data. Any pointers would be great!

Thanks,

Simon

No Texture with Custom Shader help

viperld — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 01:19:13 GMT

Hello. I'm currently stuck in a rut. I have implemented a custom shader successfully however, there are no recognized textures. The model files are .fbx and BasicEffect displays them just fine(I'm using the fbx importer). I'm sure its a very simple problem to solve however I am unable to do so myself.

I've looked at and implemented 2 or 3 Content Pipeline overrides. References I've used include ShawnHargreaves, and Ziggy.

But my problem remains! There are no textures on my rendered .fbx models. Am I supposed to manually set the EffectFile Parameters as I do with the other parameters?

If any of you can give me vital information I can use to resolve this I would be very grateful (Preferably a code snippit of someone's Content Pipeline who has both custom shaders and textures working togeather to go with the explination).

Serializing from an Editor

Qudeid — Sat, 14 Nov 2009 15:52:27 GMT

Hi there,

I'm currently making an Editor and I'm looking for a way to get out xml files for the Map.

The thing is, how exactly does this whole thing with the ContentTypeReader and ContentTypeWriter work?
I already used ImmediateSerializer, but I neither know if that uses those two mentioned above or how I the xml files are going to compile at build time, when building the game, nor how to read those files.

In another editor I used the approach of manually writing everything down which resulted in two huge functions and was a big hassle to write.

Could anyone point me into the right direction?

thanks in advance

Qudeid

Problem with ContentSerializer attributes and GS 3.1 Express

FPS JonJon — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 21:27:13 GMT

I can't seem to figure out a problem I'm having and I'm hoping someone can shine some light on it for me. I am developing a map editor and am using the intermediate serializer to create xml files for me. The XML files it creates obey the attributes I set using the ContentSerializer and ContentSerializerIgnore on both the full version GS 3.1 and GS 3.1 Express. This is as expected... However, only the full version will read in the outputted XML file when using the ContentManager to load the xml content. The express version will give me compiler errors in the XML file where it expects fields or properties that have been attributed as ContentSerializerIgnore. It also doesn't complain that private/internal/protected fields or properties are missing when they have been attributed as ContentSerializer. So, basically it seems that the express version doesn't take the attributes into account it just deserializes under default behavior.

Is this a problem with GS 3.1 Express or am I missing something?

BSP tree collision detection

thema — Sat, 24 Jan 2009 14:55:30 GMT

Hey guys,

I developed a collision detection system for XNA that is fully integrated into the content pipeline. It consists of a content processor that can add collision data to arbitray models during the build stage. A set of runtime classes perform highly efficient mesh - sphere collision detection based on the pre-computed data. For average sized models (10k - 100k polygons), the intersecting triangles can be usually determined in less than 1 ms.

The system is based on my previous samples, using a Binary Space Partitioning (BSP) tree as data representation. Note that it only works with static (not animated) models.

For more details, souce code, and a quick tutorial, see my homepage: http://www.theomader.com/public/collidable_model.html

Hope it might be useful to some of you,
Cheers
thema

Adding Content Pipeline in XNA3.1?

Flaming Turkey — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 21:56:09 GMT

Does anybody know how to add a content pipeline file in XNA 3.1? I'm looking for the button inside the Project's properties window for the button that is described in this tutorial : http://www.ziggyware.com/readarticle.php?article_id=69. ( Scroll to near the bottom). It seems there should be some tab or button to click to make the "Content Pipeline" button appear, but there doesn't seem to be this in my program. I'm using XNA 3.1 with Visual C# 2008 Express. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Getting the asset name from a custom processor

Culin23 — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 06:19:40 GMT

Is there a way to get the Asset's name from within a content processor?

I'm writing a processor that takes a heightmap as input, and then generates two meshes from that heightmap: the level, and a water mesh. I need to support multiple levels (obviously). Currently I'm using BuildAsset to build the water mesh. If I supply null as the asset name, the asset gets named after the terrain heightmap, but with "_0" appended. I'd rather have the water asset named <level mesh asset name>_water. If I could get the asset name specified for the heightmap, it's a simple matter to append "_water" and supply that to the BuildAsset method.

I can't figure out how to get the asset name from within the content processor. I can get the source filename, and can figure out what the default asset name would be. What happens if I customize the asset name property, though, such that it doesn't match the file name anymore?

I have heightmaps named level1.png and level2.png. My goal is to end up with a level1.xnb (terrain) and level1_water.xnb (water).

Thanks,
Cullen Waters

Export simple box from max

yxrkt — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 07:24:07 GMT

Hello.
When I export a sphere from max, it's origin in my game is correct. When I export a box, however, the origin is at the center of the bottom face. When I export a sphere and box together, the sphere's origin is still at zero, but the box's origin is still wrong. Changing the pivot point and/or actual origin in max does nothing. I am exporting as a .X, though I have also tried fbx.
Thanks.

Edit: I should mention that the models look fine in the .X viewer. Also, rotations in max change nothing to the model loaded in the game.

Wish List for the Content Pipeline

UberGeekGames — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 14:52:47 GMT

I couldn't find this anywhere, so if someone has already asked and opened a Connect issue then I'll be happy to be pointed there.

I'm working on a very large project at the moment, which has a very robust object loading and handling system that loads object definitions from XML files and loads models and other data specified in the XML. In short, lots and lots and lots of little files in the content tree! I've been keeping to a strict folder system to manage it and it's working pretty well, but there's one feature that would make life absolutely perfect:

Set object property defaults on a folder.
What this feature would do is allow me to set default property values on certain content types, at a folder level. For example, let's say I have a folder named Foo that contains a certain type of XML files. They all need to have Compile set to none and CopyToOutputDirectory to IfNewer. As another example, there's another folder named Bar which contains only .X models that all need to use the SunBurn Model Processor, be rotated 90 degrees on their Y axis, and scaled down to .1.

Ideally, I'd just right click on the folder, select the entry for this, and fill in a little dialog for file extension and default properties. Currently, when more content is created, the process of adding it to the game looks like this:

1) Copy and paste the new files into their respective folders in Explorer.
2) In Visual Studio, click "show all files"
3) Select each file that isn't included
4) Bring up the Properties toolbar
5) Be veeeery careful not to click anywhere and accidentally deselect the files, lest the tedious project of opening Explorer again and trying to find which files are new and reselecting them is begun!
6) Add the properties, making sure you do all of them correctly in one go (for the above reason)
7) Cross your fingers and hit F5.

In my perfect world, it would go like this:

1) Copy and paste new files
2) Show all files
3) Include them
4) F5
5) Profit!

Much easier, faster, and a whole lot less error prone!

I'm going to open a Connect issue on this. I couldn't find one already, but I thought I'd ask first just in case I missed something, and to also see what other developers think about it.

As long as I'm dreaming, :) another thing that would make life easier:

Auto-import file types in folders
Similar to the above feature, this would automatically check if there are new files with a certain extension in a content folder and add them in without any input from the user (well, maybe a confirm dialog). This would be especially helpful for model content folders, since they usually have one or more texture and material files associated with them, but you only import the actual model file in the content pipeline.

And if anyone else has any wish list items, I'll be happy to add them to the Connect issue.

[edit]: Oops, this was meant for the Content Pipeline forum but I missed it by one... Could a mod please move it? [edit2]: Thanks to whoever did that! :)

Automatic XNB Serialization and Collection types

ChanceEncounter — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 01:20:33 GMT

Hi all,

I've recently experienced what seems to be odd inconsistencies between the capabilities of the IntermediateSerializer and the automatically generated XNB type readers. The issue pertains specifically to collection types. IntermediateSerializer handles collection-type properties adequately, for instance in the following:

    
            public class MyDataType 
        
            { 
        
              private readonly Collection<string> data = new Collection<string>(); 
        
              public Collection<string> Data 
        
              { 
        
                get { return this.data; } 
        
              } 
        
            }

Even though the property is read-only, since it is a collection type, both XmlSerializer and IntermediateSerializer follow the most sensible behavior of serializing collection items via the Add() method without needing to replace the backing store via a setter method.

Apparently, however, automatically generated XNB serializers don't follow through on the promise. The above data type successfully compiles through the content pipeline, and serializes/deserializes correctly using IntermediateSerializer. However, upon runtime loading (via ContentManager) of a non-empty XML collection of the data-type above, the created runtime instance will have 0 items, indicating that the property data was somehow ignored.

More specifically, the only way I got it to work with collection data-types was using the following declaration:

    
            public class MyDataType 
        
            { 
        
              public List<string> Data = new List<string>(); 
        
            }

This declaration successfully works with both IntermediateSerializer AND automatic XNB serialization. However it doesn't seem to work with the Collection generic base class. More freaky still is that if you use the first declaration pattern with a List<> instead of a Collection<> the ContentPipeline blows up with a circular dependency of some sort. Weird stuff.

Has anyone experienced anything of the sort? I find these inconsistencies too hard to believe, but I managed to break it down to a really concrete and simple "now works/now doesn't work" example and I can't see where I could have gone wrong in my analysis.

Thanks for all the help in advance and best regards,

Gonçalo

Custom ContentManager

invisghost — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 09:00:17 GMT

Well I was working on a XNA wrapper to make things quicker & a lot more simpiler. I came up with a useful overload for the Load function, Enjoy!

    
                public class ContentManager 
        
                { 
        
                    private Game _Game; 
        
                    private Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Content.ContentManager Content 
        
                    { 
        
                        get { return _Game.Content; } 
        
                    } 
        
                    public string RootDirectory 
        
                    { 
        
                        get { return Content.RootDirectory; } 
        
                        set { Content.RootDirectory = value; } 
        
                    } 
        
                    public IServiceProvider ServiceProvider 
        
                    { 
        
                        get { return Content.ServiceProvider; } 
        
                    } 
        
                    public ContentManager(Game game) 
        
                    { 
        
                        _Game = game; 
        
                    } 
        
                    public T Load<T>(string assetName) where T : class 
        
                    { 
        
                            return Content.Load<T>(assetName); 
        
                    } 
        
                    public T[] Load<T>(string[] assetNames) where T : class 
        
                    { 
        
                        List<T> items = new List<T>(); 
        
                        for (int i = 0; i < assetNames.Length; i++) 
        
                        { 
        
                            items.Add(Load<T>(assetNames[i])); 
        
                        } 
        
                        return items.ToArray(); 
        
                    } 
        
                    public void Unload() 
        
                    { 
        
                        Content.Unload(); 
        
                    } 
        
                }

Build Content at Runtime

Omnicoder — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 06:47:23 GMT

I need to be able to build Texture2D content at runtime for my level editor. All existing stuff related to building at runtime just doesn't work (at least not on 3.1).

Can anyone help please?

Blank Serialized File

Steve Johnstone — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 15:25:48 GMT

I've been trying out the automatic content serialization that Shawn describes on his blog and I've come across a bit of a problem. So far I've created a library called GameData, which has a data class in it to be serialized, and I've added that library to my game and the game's content project. I've then created an instance of the data class and filled it with data, before serializing it to an xml file using the intermediate serializer (as described here). I then copied this serialized file to the game content project, and tried to load it in the LoadContent section of my game. This all compiles correctly, and the xnb file appears, but when loaded the file contains no data. If I deserialize the xml file manually then the content loads perfectly.

I'm probably missing something obvious, but any help would be most welcome. :)

1	<XnaContent xmlns:Core="GameLibrary.Core">
2	<Asset Type="Core.A>
3	<Name>MyAClassName</Name>
4	<Pose>I</Pose>
5	</Asset>
6	</XnaContent>

1	namespace GameLibrary.Core
2	{
3	public class A
4	{
5	private String _name;
6	private Pose _pose;
7
8	[ContentSerializer()]
9	public String Name
10	{
11	get { return _name; }
12	set { _name = value; }
13	}
14
15	[ContentSerializer()]
16	public Pose Pose
17	{
18	get { return _pose; }
19	set { _pose = value; }
20	}
21	}
22	}