DotNetKicks.com : Stories kicked by jsedlak

When string.ToLower() is Evil

Sat, 02 Feb 2008 17:16:01 GMT

Did you know how evil string.ToLower() can sometimes be? See an example when string.ToLower() is definitely not an option.

Domination

Mon, 28 Jan 2008 01:59:43 GMT

John Sedlak has been working on a small game for the Dream Build Play Warm Up Challenge, now that the entries for the comp have finished he has posted the game he has been working on.

InteliShade Beta 1.2

Tue, 15 Jan 2008 15:39:55 GMT

HLSL Syntax Highlighting and Intelisense (Ctrl-Space) add-in for Visual Studio 2005 Standard (and above) has been released. New features include better support for syntax highlighting as well as auto-completion and faster operation.

Building A Better Xml Serializer

Fri, 11 Jan 2008 23:07:09 GMT

How to handle the serialization and deserialization of objects that maintain a recursive reference, that is an indirect reference to itself.

Little Gamers XNA Game Beta Available for Download

Tue, 03 Jul 2007 00:31:01 GMT

Epsicode has released a beta of his Dream Build Play XNA Game: Little Gamers. This game is one of my favorite entries I have had the fortune of playing. Little Gamers is an awesome game with literally TONS of weapons, enemies and excellent graphics and game play.

Tower Defense for Dream Build Play!

Thu, 28 Jun 2007 16:18:40 GMT

have uploaded final versions of Tower Defense for the Dream Build Play competition. This new version includes a few subtle enhancements and an all new "How To Play" screen showing exactly what happens when playing the game. You can get the binary files by downloading from this page and source code from this page. I am also happy to announce that since the Beta 3 release of Tower Defense a little more than a month ago, it has been downloaded over 670 times!

The most useful .NET utility classes developers tend to reinvent

Wed, 27 Jun 2007 02:46:01 GMT

Some useful .NET utility classes you may mave missed

Content Manager and Editor

Thu, 28 Jun 2007 11:01:01 GMT

Tonight I am introducing a new application I have been working on for just a few days called "Content Manager by Focused Games" or FGCM for short. The main goal of the Content Manager is to bring realization to my goal for the website.

Sample XNA Effect Editor Tool

Tue, 26 Jun 2007 18:31:01 GMT

I have created a small sample XNA Effect editor tool to use as a base for your own tool projects. Please note that this editor is only meant to be a simple sample and does not contain alot of the functionality you would find in a professional package. However there is complete source code and it is still fun to mess around with while learning HLSL.

SQL Server 2008 Will Have 7 New Datatypes

Wed, 27 Jun 2007 11:46:01 GMT

SQL Server 2008 will have 4 new date datatypes and also new datatypes for GeoSpatial data. The Spatial datatypes will be exposed as .NET system UDTs.

Thrust Preview 3 (Pre-Alpha) Release & Roadmap

Sat, 23 Jun 2007 07:51:18 GMT

New version with much more functionality and added classes. You can find the full list of changes below. This new release includes the new Font Rendering functionality, much more functionality in the GUI core and many changes in the main library of Thrust. This marks the last Pre-Alpha release of Thrust. Find out more about this release, where to get it and what the future of Thrust holds in place.

I CAN HAS A .NET COMPILR?

Thu, 21 Jun 2007 06:31:01 GMT

A programming language with compilers for many platforms including .NET, based on the captions featured in the popular LOLCat images found in the Internet.

Thrust Font Rendering Update

Tue, 19 Jun 2007 21:28:51 GMT

Thrust gets new Font Rendering functionality in the way of TextBox based rendering with word or letter breaking and text clipping (when it goes out of bounds).

String.IsNullOrEmpty can lead to runtime Null exceptions!

Tue, 19 Jun 2007 15:31:01 GMT

The author shows a flaw in String.IsNullOrEmpty of the .NET 2.0. Microsoft replies that this bug won't be fixed until Orcas. (see bug report at: http://connect.microsoft.com/VisualStudio/feedback/ViewFeedback.aspx?FeedbackID=113102 )

3D Studio Max Tutorial - Model and Texture a Nokia 6210

Fri, 15 Jun 2007 21:08:19 GMT

The guys over at The 3D Studio have posted a free tutorial that will take you through the process of modeling a Nokia 6210. This tutorial will show you some simple techniques to get the job done, which includes the texturing of the model. All of the skills in this tutorial can be carried across to Game Models.

Thrust Preview 2

Thu, 14 Jun 2007 21:05:11 GMT

John Sedlak (aka Krisc) over at jsedlak.org and Focused Games brings news of an updated pre-alpha release of Thrust: an awesome 2D graphics library built on the Microsoft XNA Framework. Thrust Preview 2 contains many new features including Line drawing, simplified render target creation, component management, font rendering and much more. Check out the updated Thrust Preview.

Thrust Preview 2 (Pre-Alpha) Release

Thu, 14 Jun 2007 21:31:01 GMT

Tonight I am releasing an updated version of the Thrust libraries that includes a lot more functionality, especially in the core. You can find the entire list of changes below, but overall the main core of Thrust is what been working on, making sure that data is loading correctly and through a unified approach.

XNA Soft Shadows

Tue, 12 Jun 2007 07:23:58 GMT

Bacon over at oasis games has released a screenshot and video of his new soft shadowing system in XNA. The rendering engine, named Kaos, looks absolutely amazing. I finally finished implementing soft shadows. It works by rendering the shadow stencil to a buffer and then blurring the buffer and drawing it to the screen. It's the same process used to render glowing textures. Slight update: I was messing around the light to make it zoom in on the camera location, and it really improves the quality of the shadow maps. I'll try and get a video up later, have to tinker with some Fraps settings.

Next Thrust Release

Mon, 11 Jun 2007 21:23:37 GMT

The next release of Thrust (Alpha) gets a date and brand new functionality based on user feedback and requirements.

Ziggyware is looking for donations

Sun, 10 Jun 2007 14:28:12 GMT

Do you like Ziggyware? Then do not forget to donate to Ziggyware. In order for new contests and other great things to happen, you must find it in your heart to donate or purchase thru the amazon links. Currently all of the donated funds have been exhausted by the latest XNA Article / Tutorial contest. Please support this site. 100% of the money donated goes into contests and therefore goes back into the XNA community. Ziggyware is non profit wich means if you don't donate, there are no more contests. Thank you for your support.

Thrust Preview (Pre-Alpha)

Wed, 06 Jun 2007 10:16:25 GMT

Today I am releasing the first "version" of the Thrust libraries. This release is meant to be a preview of the libraries and of what is to come. A lot of the functionality hasn't been bug tested, refactored, commented or even in place, but this release gives a good idea of the new GUI concepts, screen management and stronger core.

Hardware Instancing in XNA

Wed, 06 Jun 2007 13:16:02 GMT

Hardware Instancing is an interesting topic that has quite a few uses. The idea of instancing is to use the hardware to generate transformed vertices to reduce draw call overhead. Now I know that sounded like a bunch of senseless technical jargon, and it was. In plain English, sometimes it is faster to let the GPU do all the work for us so the CPU can go off and do other work; and this is what Hardware Instancing does. This article covers how to setup a simple program that uses instancing to render a few rotating squares.

Graphical User Interfaces in XNA

Wed, 06 Jun 2007 17:01:01 GMT

Krisc from jsedlak.org has sent in an article on Graphicsl User Interfaces in XNA. Krisc covers several GUI related topics including input management, graphics rendering and using XML. The article summarizes with example code for a simple GUI screen complete with configurable XML.