Loading another project in runtime

[LucianX]

Hello, I am programming a simple RPG in xna. I have a town project and a battle project. The battle project is at 5000+ lines of code and the town part is about 600. I would rather not combine them since the town part is written in XNA and the other part is written in C#. They both load in C# Express 2005 but Im not sure what code I have to put to be able to load the other project during runtime? When the character collides with the enemy on the map, it would exit the town part and load the battle portion. How would I be able to do this? I know how to exit the town but not load the other project. It's already added to the project just don't know the code line(s) needed.

Also,

If anyone is good with collision.. how would I make two sprites collide if they were loaded into memory from this code:

                ForegroundBatch = new SpriteBatch(graphics.GraphicsDevice);
                BackgroundBatch = new SpriteBatch(graphics.GraphicsDevice);

                MainChar[BartzFront] = content.Load<Texture2D>("./Content/Sprites/BartzFront");
                MainChar[BartzLeft] = content.Load<Texture2D>("./Content/Sprites/BartzLeft");
                MainChar[BartzRight] = content.Load<Texture2D>("./Content/Sprites/BartzRight");
                MainChar[BartzBack] = content.Load<Texture2D>("./Content/Sprites/BartzBack");

                Maps[Coneria] = content.Load<Texture2D>("./Content/Maps/Coneria");

                Enemy[Imp] = content.Load<Texture2D>("./Content/Sprites/Imp");


The animations part for the main character is right here:

        protected void CalculateDirection(SpriteBatch Batch)
        {
            if (left == true)
            {
                Batch.Draw(MainChar[BartzLeft], new Rectangle(spriteX, spriteY, 25, 25), Color.White);
            }
            if (right == true)
            {
                Batch.Draw(MainChar[BartzRight], new Rectangle(spriteX, spriteY, 25, 25), Color.White);
            }
            if (up == true)
            {
                Batch.Draw(MainChar[BartzBack], new Rectangle(spriteX, spriteY, 25, 25), Color.White);
            }
            if (down == true)
            {
                Batch.Draw(MainChar[BartzFront], new Rectangle(spriteX, spriteY, 25, 25), Color.White);
            }
        }


Thanks for your time 

[Nemo Krad]

Now I don't know why you have gone about your application like this so I am assuming this is a design flaw in your approach to the game.

What I would have done is to have ALL the battle functionality (in it's own project) compiled to a DLL and then reference this DLL from my Game assembly.

As far as your 2D collisions stuff goes, I have not done much in the way of 2D games, so cant help you there. If you were using mesh's then you could use the mesh's bounding spheres. Can you not check if the items over lap using there coords along with there height and widths?

[LucianX]

How would I load the dll from the other project?
And how do i make it into a .dll?

Me and 2 others were working on this, and I made a seperate project from theirs that we would combine when we are finished. It's not a full game but it shows some aspects of an rpg.

[mikeschuld]

You can change the project type in the properties to be a Library. As long as it is not set as a startup project when things are run (during debug etc.) that will work fine.

[LucianX]

Thanks.. but how do i execute this other main method during runtime?

[mikeschuld]

There is no other main method... You will have to use instances of the objects in the .dll in a function in your main project.

[Nemo Krad]

Basically, you need to put your Battle functionality into classes that can me used by the game project. Once they are in classes and referenced from the Game project you can create instances of the classes and use there functionality in the game assembly.

[Tiago]

i think his problem is that he has his battle UI in the other project and im gessing it uses windows forms controlls so he cant exactly port them to XNA.

try System.Diagnostics.Process class, dont know how it works exactly but you can google it up or check MSDN documentation for that.

i do think its not good game design but hey, its your game and at least youll learn how to use processes (not fun by the way)

you might want to consider creating a Form in your town project and put your battle code there so you can just call your form (maybe as a dialog) whenever you have a battle. im not too shure that would work either but if it does it will make things a lot easier for you spacially concerning process parameter passing (not fun either)

hope that helps a bit