Professional XNA Game Programming: For Xbox 360 and Windows

By Benjamin Nitschke

You haven't experienced the full potential of Xbox 360 or Windows until you've created your own homebrewed games for these innovative systems. With Microsoft's new XNA Framework, the only thing limiting you is your imagination. Now professional game developer and Microsoft DirectX MVP Benjamin Nitschke shows you how to take advantage of the XNA Game Studio Express tools and libraries in order to build cutting-edge games. Whether you want to explore new worlds or speed down a city block in a souped up dragster, this book will get you up and running quickly. You'll learn how to implement 3D models, generate huge landscapes, map cool-looking shaders to your 3D objects, and much more. Nitschke also steps you through the development of your first fully functional racing game. You'll then be able to apply this information as you write your own XNA cross-platform games. What you will learn from this book Tricks for managing the game engine and user interface How to program an old school shooter game and space adventure Tips for improving racing game logic and expanding your game ideas Methods for integrating amazing visual effects using advanced shader techniques Steps for adding sound and music with XACT-bringing your game to life How to fine-tune and debug your game for optimal performance Who this book is for This book is for anyone who wants to write their own games for the Xbox 360 or Windows platforms. You should have some experience coding with C# or a similar .NET language. Wrox Professional guides are planned and written by working programmers to meet the real-world needs of programmers, developers, and IT professionals. Focused and relevant, they address the issues technology professionals face every day. They provide examples, practical solutions, and expert education in new technologies, all designed to help programmers do a better job.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0470126779
• ISBN13: 9780470126776
• Release Date: April 2007
• Publisher: Wrox Pr Inc
• Length: 476 Pages
• Weight: 2.31 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.3" x 1.0" x 7.3"

Customer Reviews

This book is not for everyone but it contain knowledge I needed

I really enjoyed this book, let face it if it says professional then its not for beginners. This book covers shaders in more depth than any other book I've read not generally directly replaced to GPU's. This is the second edition of this book and alot of the complaints reference the first editon. The code does compile, it is for XNA version 2.0 and in most cases automaticlly updates to version 3.0. So who should read this book. Well somebody who read another XNA book first or used the tutorials on the web for atleast 3 months on and off. Start with "Microsoft XNA Game Studio Creators Guide" by Stephen Cawood and Pat McGee if your an experienced C# programmer or the Microsoft XNA how to book if a newbie. If you've seen the XNA racing game on the microsoft creators web site, this book explains alot of the custom shaders that are used and how he programmed that game. It's an amazing example of programming and it works well. If you are going to attempt to use that as your start kit get this book. The book covers cover custom shaders, animated models and how to use them. The game programming behind them. People complain about the fact he uses his own helper classes. They work and I prefer not keep doing the monkey code everytime just link it in. It a good advanced book which most books don't cover.

A good advanced resource with "real" examples

I take exception to the negative reviews written here. I have worked with DirectX for quite a while and was looking for a good transition book for XNA. This book fit the bill for several reasons: 1. It contained "real" examples. The examples are actual games the author has written and deployed. Some reviewers have bemoaned the fact that time was spent on his 'helper' classes, but every real game will have these and he had to explain them. He doesn't imply you have to use them. 2. It covers the shading issue and the different pipeline approach (versus DirectX) very well. 3. It covers practical considerations for the game author, such as how to write for the PC and the XBOX, and also performance issues. I read this book as well as introductory books. The mix worked well for me, but this book and its code is now my "go to" reference.

Excellent introduction to XNA

Professional XNA Game Programming is an excellent introduction to XNA. The book starts out with some 2D games (Pong, Breakout and Tetris clones) to teach the foundations of game programming and moves into 3D from there. Along the way, the differences between writing a game for Windows and the Xbox 360 are discussed and the author provides some debugging tips for the Xbox. Benjamin Nitschke's writing style is clear and easy to follow and he promotes good programming practices. Some of the code examples printed in the book aren't completely consistent with the text that discusses them, but downloading the code from the website resolves any problems.

An excellent book for the experienced game developer or a dedicated newbie.

One of the first things that struck me when I first glanced through this book is the massive amount of information on XNA game programming. The book goes from creating a simple 2D Pong game all the way through to building a very impressive 3D racing game using advanced shader techniques and a simple physics engine. In order to cover this amount of material in such a short space (450 pages) the author makes some assumptions about the reader's programming and math skills. Although, I believe any dedicated reader could make their way through this excellent book it may be advisable for some to have a C# programming book and math text as reference. Many of the later games built in the book not only demonstrate the concepts of advanced game programming excellently but also with the same pizzazz and flair we are all used to seeing in today's modern games. I was more than pleasantly surprised when I ran the demos. If you are or plan to be a serious XNA hobbyist/developer then this book should certainly be on your book shelf. I will certainly look forward to the next installment on XNA game programming from this author.

First look at Professional XNA Game Programming Book by Benjamin Nitschke

From my blog [...] After waiting several months now, I finally got my hands on this new book. The author has a nice blog on game development and he has created a series of videos on game development in directx where he created the rocket commander game. I'm hoping that Benjamin can create the videos on how he created the rocket commander game with XNA. One bonus for this book is that it's not just about coding games using XNA. The author adds input to his own experiences on creating games and emphasizes making a plan using the Agile Methodology which is a conceptual framework for software development. The book is broken down to 4 parts. Part I on the XNA Framework Basics, Part II on Basic Graphics Engine, Part III on Improving Your Game Engine and Part IV on Writing a Racing Game. Part I has you creating the famous Pong game. The author emphasizes a great deal on unit testing and the reason why you test certain methods out before they are implemented in the final product. I plan on using this book with my computer science students and this is something they need to see in code development. The author does a good job at explaining collision in this game and shows how to test for it. Finally, you don't have to wait until the end of the book to add some fun to your game like sound because the pong game uses XACT for game sounds. At the end of each chapter are some tips and some ideas on improving the game. Part II reviews the Basic Graphic Engine and 3d Programming. He talks about the Camera and ScreenshotCapturer Class and how to load your game on your XBOX 360. Chapter 6 has a good chapter on shaders and the chapter starts with a history of shaders. The chapter includes a shader tutorial as well. Chapter 7 goes deeper into shaders and how they work. The ShaderEffect Class is covered in full detail. Chapter 8 reviews post screen shaders and the rocket commander game which Benjamin wrote and can be downloaded for free. Part III is called Improving Your Game Engine and covers adding sound, player input and the user interface. Finally, you get to create an XNA Shooter game with 3d Effects. BANG! Part IV puts everything together with Writing a Racing Game. Chapter 12 covers generating landscapes and tracks. Chapter 13 covers Physics and finally Chapter 14 covers Fine Tuning & Modding the Racing Game. My goal on teaching XNA is to use this book along with online tutorials with my students next school year when I teach them C# and XNA. I'm sure they will get stuck on certain concepts and I'm sure their teacher will as well but I know that there's a big community of XNA developers willing to help. All in all, this is a must book if you want to learn about XNA Game programming. I can't wait to start teaching it. Go to wrox to get the book which comes with source code as well.