Wednesday, September 30, 2009

Introducing XNA Game Programming Adventures

Welcome back!

As I mentioned in an earlier post I've been updating my web site that hosts my XNA RPG tutorials. I am calling this new site XNA Game Programming Adventures. This site will host many XNA tutorials as well as the tutorials on creating a role playing game with XNA called Eyes of the Dragon. The new site is online now. I would recommend that you visit the sub domain that I created instead of the old URL. You can find XNA Game Programming Adventures here:

http://xna.jtmbooks.com/

Jamie McMahon
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Proud member of Dream.In.Code

Monday, September 28, 2009

Trying to finish updating my site

Welcome back!

I did a lot of work on the new updated site to host my XNA tutorials. I just have one page left to finish and then I will put it up online. I will try and have a couple general XNA tutorials on the web site as well. I will have the first three in the series of creating a tile engine. I think I will have one other as well.

I might not be able to get to it tomorrow but I will try to.

Jamie McMahon
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Proud member of Dream.In.Code

Sunday, September 27, 2009

Making changes to my web site

Welcome back!

I have been working on giving my web site a nice clean fresh look. I like the design so far. I would like a better graphic for the image in the header. I will see what develops. I'm hoping to have the new version online tomorrow.

I have been busy the past two days with things not related to Eyes of the Dragon but I will be doing some coding on Eyes of the Dragon tomorrow. I have decided to find some simple sprites and add them into the game soon. I am thinking of making a change to the game itself. I have been thinking about it for a while now and the more I think about it the more I think it needs to be done.

Jamie McMahon
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Proud member of Dream.In.Code

Friday, September 25, 2009

21st tutorial on creating a role playing game!

Welcome back!

I have just finished adding the 21st tutorial on creating an RPG with XNA 3.0 to my web site! In this tutorial, like I've been mentioning, I created a custom Content Pipeline import, processor, writer and reader for Tileset objects created by the Tileset generator. I was going to go over how I created the Tileset generator but decided to do that in a separate tutorial. You can find the links to the tutorials on this page of my web site http://xna.jtmbooks.com/project.html

Jamie McMahon
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Proud member of Dream.In.Code

Thursday, September 24, 2009

Not quite finished the tutorial

Welcome back!

I'm sorry to say I'm not quite finished the latest tutorial on creating a role playing game with XNA Game Studio 3.0. I was hoping to finish it today but it looks like it won't be finished until tomorrow. It will definitely be finished tomorrow though. I will have it up on the web site shortly.

Jamie McMahon
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Proud member of Dream.In.Code

Been busy writing the next tutorial

Welcome back!

I've been busy coding and writing the next tutorial. It is about 75% finished. I am hoping to have it finished and up on my web site for download shortly. I've mentioned before that in this tutorial I will be going into creating a Content Importer, Content Processor, Content Type Writer and Content Reader for the Tileset class. I made a generator to generate an XML file for the Tileset object. I was going to add into this tutorial creating the generator but instead decided to just describe the format of the XML file and write a separate tutorial on creating the generator later. I will make the source code for the generator available on my web site for download.

Jamie McMahon
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Proud member of Dream.In.Code

Wednesday, September 23, 2009

Working on next tutorial

Welcome back!

I have the Tileset generator finished pretty much. It will create an XML file that has all of the information needed to create a Tileset object. I'm going to work on creating the components needed to implement this in Eyes of the Dragon. I'm hoping to have it up and on my web site tomorrow evening.

I have a blog on Dream.In.Code where I am writing basic tutorials on XNA. At the moment I'm working on a tile engine system that would be able to be added to any game that would need a tile engine. This one I'm not making with Drawable Game Components. It will be an object-oriented tile engine though. You can find this blog here.

Jamie McMahon
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Proud member of Dream.In.Code

Tuesday, September 22, 2009

Finishing up the Tileset object generator

Welcome back!

I will be finishing up the Tileset object generator today and incorporating it into the game. I have decided to have the generator export everything to an XML file. I chose XML because there are great methods of importing and exporting XML documents with C#.

Jamie McMahon
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Proud member of Dream.In.Code

Monday, September 21, 2009

Will finish up the generator

Welcome back!

The program that will create the rectangles for tile sets is almost finished. I am thinking of writing up a tutorial on how it works but not entirely sure on that. When I have it finished though, I will be writing a tutorial on how to use the output with the content pipeline.

Jamie McMahon
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Proud member of Dream.In.Code

Sunday, September 20, 2009

Going to finish up the tile set editor

Welcome back!

I don't really like coding or writing on Sunday but I think I will try and finish up the tile set editor. What I mean by tile set editor is that given an image, like the tile set I've been using for Eyes of the Dragon, and the width and height of the tiles with the number of tiles wide and high, generate a list of rectangles for the tiles. I am planning on creating content pipeline processors, importers, etc for the rectangles and such.

Jamie McMahon
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Proud member of Dream.In.Code

Saturday, September 19, 2009

Made a little program this evening

I started work on one of the editors for the game this evening. It is a program that will generate tile sets so they can be loaded in at run time instead of being declared at compile time. This will help you with your games. I will be creating a custom content pipeline importer and such for the tile sets.

This is a thumbnail of an early alpha version.



Jamie McMahon
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Proud member of Dream.In.Code

Got some feed back on the screens

Welcome back!

I got a bit of feed back from some people who's opinions I respect on all of the screen. I've made a few changes to the screens. I made a few of them simpler and got rid of a lot of the textured back grounds. I kind of like things with a texture to them but I will go with the new versions. I also found a free font that I like on http://www.dafont.com that I will be using for the game. I will be placing it into the Graphics.zip file on my web site. To use the font you will have to install it. I don't use Vista but for Windows XP you just have to place it into the C:\Windows\Fonts folder. I believe you can double click it in Vista and it will install it for you.

Jamie McMahon
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Proud member of Dream.In.Code

Friday, September 18, 2009

20th tutorial available on my web site!

Welcome back!

I have just finished uploading the 20th tutorial on creating a role playing game with XNA 3.0 to my web site. You can find links to this tutorial, and all tutorials on creating a role playing game called Eyes of the Dragon on this my site http://xna.jtmbooks.com.

I have already started coding the next part and I hope to have the tutorial up very soon.

Jamie McMahon
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Proud member of Dream.In.Code

Finishing up the newest tutorial

Welcome back!

The writing of the tutorial is taking longer than I thought it would. I had done a lot of work again and some of the things I did require a little more explanation than I thought. I am about 90% done. I'm just finishing writing up the new screen. Once that is done I just have to write about a few changes I had to make to the Game1 class. I will have the tutorial done today for sure though and have it available for download.

Jamie McMahon
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Proud member of Dream.In.Code

Thursday, September 17, 2009

A screen shot from my coding

Welcome back!

I finished all of the coding last night. I tried to make things look at least a little nice but I didn't obsess over the little detail. I managed to get the pop up screen that displays the player character's statistics up and going. Just thought that I would post a screen shot of it.

Character Stats




Jamie McMahon
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Proud member of Dream.In.Code

Wednesday, September 16, 2009

Haven't been feeling well

Welcome back!

As many of you have read in my blog I have been kind of sick lately. Yesterday was no exception. I will be writing the next tutorial this evening and try and have it available for download tomorrow. If I have it done and I have the time I will actually try and have it up tonight.

Jamie McMahon
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Proud member of Dream.In.Code

Monday, September 14, 2009

Did a fair bit of coding today

Welcome back!

I did a lot of coding today but it hasn't produced any visual results. What I did was add in the difficulty level system to the player character class. You have all seen that there are four difficulty modes: Easy, Normal, Hard and Ultimate. I'm not sure how many of you remember how I planned on implementing this.

Easier mode characters gain more experience per battle but they are not as strong as the harder mode characters. So if you are playing in easy mode the character will level up faster but the character wouldn't be as strong as an ultimate mode character.

I use two float variables to work this system. To have a character level up faster I multiply their experience by a value greater than one. I had chose 1.25 for easy, 1.0 for normal, 0.75 for hard and 0.5 for ultimate.

The reward for playing a hard or ultimate mode character is that each level the player gains they get more points to distribute to their stats. An easy mode character has a 0.75 multiplier to their stat bonus, normal 1.0, hard 1.25 and ultimate 1.5. I have chosen 4 as the base value. That means an easy mode character only gets 3 points per level while an ultimate mode character will get 6.

There will be other things that difficulty levels will work on as well. I may make the monsters, a generic term for all enemies, easier to kill in easy mode and harder to kill in the harder modes as well.

Tomorrow I hope to add in the screen to display the player's stats.

Jamie McMahon
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Proud member of Dream.In.Code

Sunday, September 13, 2009

Don't like to code or write on Sundays

Welcome back!

Like the title says I don't really like to code or write on Sundays, has to do with my faith. I'm hoping to have a new tutorial up Tuesday evening though. Like I said I was wanting to add in a new screen to the game to display the player's stats. I have a nice background texture for pop up windows like that. I thought I would post it.

Pop Up Window Background



Jamie McMahon
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Proud member of Dream.In.Code

Saturday, September 12, 2009

Working on a new game screen

Welcome back!

I am working on adding a new game screen to the game. It is nice for the player to be able to view the stats of their character. This will be relatively easy to accomplish in Eyes of the Dragon because of the way I've been designing things up until now. First I will have to create a graphic for it. I will not fuss too much over the graphic, as most of you seem to want functionality over appearance. I will try and at least make it look a little nice. It might be Monday before I will have the tutorial up on my web site though. So, I encourage you to either visit this blog or you can visit my web site for these tutorials for the latest news on Eyes of the Dragon.

Jamie McMahon
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Proud member of Dream.In.Code

Friday, September 11, 2009

New tutorial is up on my web site!

Welcome back!

I have just uploaded the newest tutorial on my series of creating a role playing game with XNA 3.0. In this tutorial I focused on cleaning up the project and working on functionality of the game. You can find links to the tutorials on my web site at XNA 3.0 RPG Tutorials.

Jamie McMahon
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Proud member of Dream.In.Code

Working on Eyes of the Dragon

Welcome back!

I am working on Eyes of the Dragon at the moment. I am cleaning the code up a bit and organizing things a little better as well. I am also making a new screen for the game to display the player character's statistics. This tutorial will be kind of long but these are things that need to be done and I thought they should be done now instead of later because it would be even longer down the road.

Jamie McMahon
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Proud member of Dream.In.Code

Thursday, September 10, 2009

Was away yesterday

Welcome back!

I unfortunately away for pretty much the whole day yesterday. I had an early appointment in the morning, another in the afternoon and an over night appointment last night. I will be trying to do some coding this afternoon. I know what I want to code today and I should be able to get it done with out much problems.

Jamie McMahon
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Proud member of Dream.In.Code

Tuesday, September 8, 2009

Was in the hospital again

Welcome back!

I had to go back to the hospital yesterday. I'm sorry about this. I am hoping that this problem will get cleared up very soon. Like I mentioned the other day I'm planning on adding in a sprite for the player's character and have the sprite move with the map. I will start with just animating the sprite. After that is working I will get the sprite to move with the map.

Jamie McMahon
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Proud member of Dream.In.Code

Sunday, September 6, 2009

Was in the hospital again

Shortly after I got up this morning I had to go back into the hospital so I didn't really get any programming done today. I have the plan laid out for the next tutorial though. I will be adding in a sprite for the player's character. I was looking for some nice sprites online but didn't really find any that I liked. What I am going to do though is I have links to a lot free sprites. I will find a couple and set them up for use in the game.

Jamie McMahon
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Proud member of Dream.In.Code

What I am working on

Welcome back!

I am going to be adding in a sprite for the player character now. I will remind you all that I am not a pixel artist so I pretty much have to go with what I can find on the Internet. I do have the sprites from Nick Gravelyn's tile engine tutorial series and I could use those easily. I wanted to find something a little nicer but you, my readers, have said that you would rather I add functionality to the game instead of appearance. I'm writing these tutorials for you so I will try and do what you are asking.

Jamie McMahon
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Proud member of Dream.In.Code

Saturday, September 5, 2009

Uploaded tutorial #18!

Welcome back!

I just finished uploading the 18th tutorial in my series on creating a role playing game with XNA 3.0 called Eyes of the Dragon. In this tutorial I made a couple of changes to the game. I changed the HUD to a small texture at the bottom of the screen and I changed the PlayerCharacter class to be responsible for drawing itself. I made it a DrawableGameComponent. You can find the tutorial as .zip and .pdf format at these links:
http://www.jtmbooks.com/rpgtutorials/xnarpgtut18.pdf
http://www.jtmbooks.com/rpgtutorials/xnarpgtut18.zip

The latest version of the source code for Eyes of the Dragon is at:
http://www.jtmbooks.com/rpgtutorials/New2DRPG.zip

Jamie McMahon
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Proud member of Dream.In.Code

Thursday, September 3, 2009

Was in the hospital again

Welcome back!

I had to go to the hospital again and I'm having problems sitting up again. I am going to try and work on things but I'm not having all that much success at it so far.

Jamie McMahon
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Proud member of Dream.In.Code

Wednesday, September 2, 2009

Been away all day

Welcome back!

I have been away from the house all day today so I haven't gotten to any work on Eyes of the Dragon. I will try and some work this evening.

Jamie McMahon
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Proud member of Dream.In.Code