Tutorial 9 - any requests?

[mikeschuld]

Alright everyone, here is your chance to get your word in about the next tutorial/feature you would like to see added to the HMEngine XNA series. Let me know any ideas you have and your reasons why you think they are the best for the next tutorial and we'll take a vote when we are all done to see what you all think.

Here are some topics on my mind already:

Geographic Grid Registration for Objects (a simpler replacement for the octree tutorial #9/10 from the old series)
Particle Systems (simple emitters and billboard quad based particles for now)
Text and GUI additions (buttons panels etc. where the GUI system handles input events as well)

Any other ideas? Let me know soon!

[Amnesiasoft]

My vote goes to GUI, since we already have an OCtree, we can survive without GGR for now, well, that , and I don't feel like finding GUI tips elsewhere

[muchrejoicing]

My current XNA interest is actually none of the above: scripting. It probably doesn't fit into your plan, though (I ended up not using any HMEngine structure), so I would vote for the GUI stuff, too... as much as I love the computational geometry/culling/spatial data structures.

That said, particle effects are generally extremely sexy -- I did a VR project a while ago, and a big part of its 'success' was creative use of particle emitters. Still, the bigger part of its success was the cool motion-tracking interface. So, GUI!

Edit: Hey, the OP was at 22:33:44! Sweet.

[Chr0n1x]

GUI

GGR was done nicely by Nemo, and there are a fair amount of particle emitter tutorials online. It would be better to get a tutorial for something that is rare online.

[Maverick]

GUI is the one.

[Mikeske]

GUI! GUI! GUI! GUI! GUI! GUI!

I'm starting a GUI-march at the moment 

Like Chronix mentioned, nemo did it already very nicely, just you take gui for your account, the faster we can have a splendid engine!!!

My interest goes to a winform-like editor, fat chance that's happening I guess? 

roflol

[Chr0n1x]

Mikeske
http://badcorporatelogo.spaces.live.com/Blog/cns!43EB71B104A2D711!253.entry?wa=wsignin1.0

It is easier than you think.

[Nemo Krad]

hmmmm, GUI you all say, but to be honest, if you have ever done any win forms dev and are familiar with wiring events then this is not that attractive, but then I guess this is home brew and most of us are not developers by trade so who am I to stick my nose in.

A nice LOD model would be cool (not that I know anything about it, yet), even a simple one, or even some physics, having been writing a simple engine myself, you don't realize how important it is until you see it in action and I think a simple implementation could be done quite nice.

But if you all say GUI then I guess we are going to go GUI...

Oh, and glad you all like the GGR system, I think that too would be a nice addition to the engine, I may have put it on my blog, but it is not in the HM engine and I think it would be a nice addition, maybe next time eh...

[mikeschuld]

Here are a few email replies from the announcement that went out with the post:
I vote for particle systems or GUI stuff...

and later on....

Oh yeah, I have a HUGE interest in learning how to do decals...

Spencer Grey
I would like to see your take on how to handle pathfinding.  Thus far your tutorials have been pretty easily digestible, and there don't seem to be that many tutorials out there on the subject of pathfinding.  Those that can be found usually only deal with the A* algorithm.   I would like to see a different way of doing pathfinding.

Another good subject would be collision detection.  Almost every game seems to need this in one form or another whether you are building a racing game, a first person shooter or an adventure game.

It might also be good to do a simple demo game that uses all the parts of your engine.  Sometimes the usages of things only become truly clear in their context of use, especially for first-timers.

If I had to pick from your suggestions, it'd be GUI stuff.  I personally haven't seen many tutorials on how to build a GUI for a game (have to admit that I haven't been looking that much lately either).

Let us know what you come up with.

Robert
Hi all!

> Alright everyone, here is your chance to get your word in about the next
tutorial/feature
> you would like to see added to the HMEngine XNA series. Let me know any
ideas you have and
> your reasons why you think they are the best for the next tutorial and
we'll take a vote
> when we are all done to see what you all think.

Cool. I think the time of "start-up tutorials" is ended. XNA community needs
some of "xna: the next step" tutorials.

> Geographic Grid Registration for Objects (a simpler replacement for the
octree tutorial #9/10 from the old series)

This is ok for me. I think octrees in managed code are not so FAST. Maybe
some simplier spatial partitioning algorithm will works well.

> Particle Systems (simple emitters and billboard quad based particles for
now)

Hmm... the world if full of "Simple Particle System Tutorial". I think we
already have it. You could go with the "Advanced Particle System Tutorial",
implementing multiple-hyerachical emitters with timelines and so on

> Text and GUI additions (buttons panels etc. where the GUI system handles
input events as well)

This is ok. Tipically GUI is a boring thing to develop, but you need it ;P

> Any other ideas? Let me know soon!

Hmm..., ok:

- Fighting the GC on the 360
- Effective Multithreading
- Make your math with gpu
- Scripting your game and events
- Crash, bang, thud!: a little of physic

No more ideas, sorry

Bye

XeviaN

[Chr0n1x]

I could probably do a decals tutorial for you Mike. It will take a little while, end of semester now, you know what that means.

Charles, I have done Winforms dev in C# myself, however a GUI is absolutely Crucial to games, more so than Physics or other spatial systems.
If you have a PC game without a GUI system to change options and navigate around menus, people will find the game lacking and unpolished. So to cover that, a tutorial on a gui system with Buttons and maybe Check Boxes and/or Drop down menus would be great. This is also why I support the GUI idea.

There are plenty of GUI implementations out there for XNA, however the same is said of Physics, both 2D and 3D. There are barely any tutorials for creating a GUI, and if you intend to take techniques into the workforce, then implementing a GUI from scratch is done more often than implementing a Physics engine. There is a reason that PhysX and Havok are well known products.

It does not have to be done with events, that is up to Mike. I am more interested in the checkbox and drop down menu areas which are common in games, but are not just your basic button.

I am of the opinion that high performance code should be done natively, however that does not work for the Xbox, so a physics tutorial would be ok, however there is so much in physics and to fit it into one tutorial is not so easy without skipping out on things.
There is a reason why mechanics takes  half a year to teach in high schools here.

If you want to do that, that would be cool, however rather leave it for a longer series of tutorials after some smaller topics are done.

Now I would agree with the pathfinding request. That is something that is rare to find online in C# form.

As for XeviaNs ideas,
#1 has been written about extensively, just take a look at posts by Shawn Hargreaves to get that.
#2 Multithreading is a very large subject that would be interesting, but it is very large and complicated.
#3 - CUDA
#4 - This would also be an interesting topic. There is a fair bit of debate over using something like LUA, or rolling your own. It is a topic that is usually tailored to engines or games, depending on what you need from it.
#5 - See above

Mike, make a poll:

GUI
Particles
Spatial Partitioning
Simple Physics
Pathfinding

[zorg19]

I think I would rather see GUI as well...learning how to do stuff like in game HUD's would totally rock!

Cheers!

[Mikeske]

Mikeske
http://badcorporatelogo.spaces.live.com/Blog/cns!43EB71B104A2D711!253.entry?wa=wsignin1.0

It is easier than you think.

Chronix,

thx for the URL, but I'm guessiing that I'm lost in translation, can't find anything about source code or whatever, strangely...
cuz what he is doing is the same as me, using the winformsgraphicsdevice as a lead for my own development...

greetz

[Chr0n1x]

Oh no source code, the magic of his version is that the designer for it is Visual Studio itself, so you can drag/drop the interface.
Thats what I thought you meant by winform-like editor.

He says that source will be released once he gets the thing done, and I would say he knows how to write tools well since he is the one working on XNA GS.

[mikeschuld]

Per Chr0n1x' mention, the poll is being created in this board Go VOTE!!!!

[osaforich]

If there is one thing I can ask for, I think it will be collision detection in 3d. This has been a major issue for me and there is very little information on it online.Not even a sample of a vehicle traversing a random terrain.