Channel 9 - Discussions by jbwebb

Coffeehouse - Do you like animation?

jbwebb — Wed, 27 Sep 2006 21:15:58 GMT

jamie wrote:

http://channel9.msdn.com/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=238568#238568

...speak of the devil...

*apologies in advance to matthew van and stuart clearer

I hadn't seen that before. Love it!

Coffeehouse - what source control do you use mostly?

jbwebb — Wed, 27 Sep 2006 19:26:06 GMT

Does anyone use ClearCase?

The many and varied ways that it plays "hide the code" are entertaining if nothing else..

Coffeehouse - Do you like animation?

jbwebb — Wed, 27 Sep 2006 19:16:42 GMT

jamie wrote:

i dont know much about crazy kat - except from bill waterson's rants about the good old days of full page / full colour comic strips - he was also a walt kelly (pogo) fan + peanuts of course.

*my mom bought me pogo books when i was a kid - but there was so much text - i just never really got into them

...that's not animation per say - but cartoons yes.

if we're talking cartoons...

- shultz
- aislin (montreal gazzette)
- mort drucker (mad)
- don martin (mad)
- watterson (calvin)
- gilliam again

Jamie, it's good to know another Calvin & Hobbes fan. It's such a shame Bill Watterson has decided to stay retired. Still, he drew some amazing cartoons.

J

Coffeehouse - Do you like animation?

jbwebb — Sun, 24 Sep 2006 18:43:06 GMT

DangerMouse

Coffeehouse - XNA Express Beta Now Available

jbwebb — Sun, 03 Sep 2006 00:32:45 GMT

figuerres wrote:

so when they say "GamePad" what they mean is: "XBOX 360 GamePad"

True. The XNA team do seem to be getting a lot of feedback about the gamepad being 360 only.
They also don't yet have interfaces for steering wheels, joysticks and flight yokes. But I bet they'll be added too, it's still very early days.

Coffeehouse - XNA Express Beta Now Available

jbwebb — Sat, 02 Sep 2006 23:44:10 GMT

figuerres wrote:

what I have so far is that i'd have to do some kind of assembly with MDX 1.1 and then make that work with XNA.

Isn't it simpler than that?

Reading the gamepad controller:

       // Check the current state of Player One.
        GamePadState currentState = GamePad.GetState( PlayerIndex.One );
        // Process input only if connected and if the packet numbers differ.
        if (currentState.IsConnected == true &&
            currentState.PacketNumber != m_PreviousGamePadState.PacketNumber)
        {
            if (currentState.Buttons.A == ButtonState.Pressed &&
                m_PreviousGamePadState.Buttons.A == ButtonState.Released)
            {
                // Button A has been pressed.
                GamePad.SetVibration( PlayerIndex.One, 1.0f, 1.0f );
            }
            else if (currentState.Buttons.A == ButtonState.Released &&
                m_PreviousGamePadState.Buttons.A == ButtonState.Pressed)
            {
                // Button A has been released.
                GamePad.SetVibration( PlayerIndex.One, 0.0f, 0.0f );
            }

            // When finished with differences, update PreviousGamePadState.
            m_PreviousGamePadState = currentState;
        }

Reading the mouse:

            MouseState current_mouse = Mouse.GetState();

            // The mouse x and y positions are returned relative to the
            // top-left of the game window.

            m_MouseX = current_mouse.X;
            m_MouseY = current_mouse.Y;

Reading the keyboard:
            KeyboardState currentState = Keyboard.GetState();
            Keys[] currentKeys = currentState.GetPressedKeys();

            // First loop, looking for keys just pressed.
            for (int currentKey = 0; currentKey < currentKeys.Length; currentKey++)
            {
                bool found = false;
                for (int previousKey = 0; previousKey < m_aKeysHeldDown.Length; previousKey++)
                {
                    if (currentKeys[currentKey] == m_aKeysHeldDown[previousKey])
                    {
                        // The key was pressed both this frame and last; ignore.
                        found = true;
                        break;
                    }
                }
                if (!found)
                {
                    // The key was pressed this frame, but not last frame; it was just pressed.
                    m_lKeysPressedThisFrame.Add( currentKeys[currentKey] );
                }
            }

            // Second loop, looking for keys just released.
            for (int previousKey = 0; previousKey < m_aKeysHeldDown.Length; previousKey++)
            {
                bool found = false;
                for (int currentKey = 0; currentKey < currentKeys.Length; currentKey++)
                {
                    if (m_aKeysHeldDown[previousKey] == currentKeys[currentKey])
                    {
                        // The key was pressed both this frame and last; ignore.
                        found = true;
                        break;
                    }
                }
                if (!found)
                {
                    // The key was pressed last frame, but not this frame; it was just released.
                    m_lKeysReleasedThisFrame.Add( m_aKeysHeldDown[previousKey] );
                }
            }

Coffeehouse - XNA Express Beta Now Available

jbwebb — Sat, 02 Sep 2006 23:21:58 GMT

figuerres wrote:

shure the "default controller" should be the xbox controller. that's fine. but have a bit of room in there for recognising other devices based on where the game is running, std pc devices should work on a pc and other xbox devices should work on an xbox. thats all I'm looking for in that space.

Have you tried the docs for input?
XNA | XNA Game Studio Express | Programming Guide | Input | Input Overview.

Coffeehouse - XNA Express Beta Now Available

jbwebb — Sat, 02 Sep 2006 22:56:02 GMT

Earlier in this forum I asked what the benefit of XNA & GSE will be.

I hope one benefit will be that more people really appreciate just how difficult it is to actually develop good games. And general frameworks are even more difficult to create than that!

I'm very impressed with what I've seen so far; the documentation in particular is very good. This is going to change things, big time

Coffeehouse - XNA Express Beta Now Available

jbwebb — Sat, 02 Sep 2006 21:23:04 GMT

BrianAThomas wrote:

Like others here, I have been looking forward to this. Of course I am still learning C#, so it may be a while before it does me much good. I did just make my first practical C# program (essentially my first fully functional program in any language) so perhaps I'll share that in the sandbox.
I am surprised there hasn't been a Chanel 9 video for XML Express yet.
Does the sample game need an XBox 360 even though the 360 support won't be out until later? I tried it, and it just sits at the title screen. Speaking of the 360, exactly how do you test your games, does it find the game on your computer via the network? I couldn't find a good answer for that in the FAQ.

Brian, the Space War starter game can be compiled to work with the keyboard. Open the file Common\GamePadHelper.cs and uncomment this line at the start of the file:
//#define USE_KEYBOARD

There are some very good threads on the MSDN forum.

Coffeehouse - Levels of virtualisation

jbwebb — Thu, 31 Aug 2006 16:45:06 GMT

ZippyV wrote:

When you try to run a device emulator from Visual Studio where VS is already running inside Virtual PC you get a message like:
"Can not run an emulator inside a virtual machine.
You just had to try it, didn't you?"

Hey, you have to push the envelope!

Coffeehouse - XNA Express Beta Now Available

jbwebb — Thu, 31 Aug 2006 16:41:11 GMT

billh wrote:

jbwebb wrote:Cool, I've been looking forward to this. Downloading now.

What does everyone think the main benefit will be from XGE?
New games developers? More original ideas? Better development tools?

Hopefully some more original ideas again...that would be fun. Does anybody know what rights you will have as far as distributing what you've created? I don't own an XBox, but this has me seriously reconsidering now.

Funny, hearing about this has finally raised my interest in the 360 too.

I'm not sure what the distribution rights are, but it seems you will have to pay something like $99 a year to join the XBox community in order to publish your work.

Sony will have to do something similar with the PS3 now. They did sell the Net Yaroze PlayStation system a couple of years ago but only for a short while.

Coffeehouse - Levels of virtualisation

jbwebb — Wed, 30 Aug 2006 20:24:25 GMT

Rossj wrote:

It installs itself in Parallels Unfortunately I am in bjam hell atm .. will try again later.

Cool, didn't know that. If you try to install VMware on itself, it pops up a dialog that essentially translates as "Stop being so childish"

Coffeehouse - Levels of virtualisation

jbwebb — Wed, 30 Aug 2006 20:12:34 GMT

AndyC wrote:

jbwebb wrote:
It is fun watching something like Timbuktu or PCAnywhere try to cope when you attempt to remote back into the host machine from the VM.

Hehe, reminds me of the "How big a VNC loop can you make?" game we played in the office when it was new.

What was your record?

Coffeehouse - Levels of virtualisation

jbwebb — Wed, 30 Aug 2006 19:57:21 GMT

VMware also doesn't install itself on a virtual machine.
It is fun watching something like Timbuktu or PCAnywhere try to cope when you attempt to remote back into the host machine from the VM.

Coffeehouse - XNA Express Beta Now Available

jbwebb — Wed, 30 Aug 2006 18:06:51 GMT

Andur, they're saying in the XNA forum that VS2005 will live along side C# Express.

Coffeehouse - Microsoft Office "Office" Videos

jbwebb — Wed, 30 Aug 2006 17:55:29 GMT

I thought these were hilarious! Far too good not to share so don't sack whoever leaked these.

I was actually in pain from laughing during the second epsiode

Coffeehouse - XNA Express Beta Now Available

jbwebb — Wed, 30 Aug 2006 17:28:43 GMT

Cool, I've been looking forward to this. Downloading now.

What does everyone think the main benefit will be from XGE?
New games developers? More original ideas? Better development tools?