Microsoft XNA Game Studio Creator's Guide, Second Edition
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Product Description
Product Description
Bring your PC, Zune, and Xbox gaming visions to life with Microsoft XNA Game Studio
Develop complete 2D and 3D games with step-by-step hands-on instruction, advice, and tips from two industry professionals. Fully revised to cover the latest features, Microsoft XNA Game Studio Creator's Guide, Second Edition lays out the essentials of game programming alongside exciting examples and C# code samples. Learn how to create 3D models, virtual worlds, and add stunning animation. You'll also discover how to incorporate 3D audio into your projects and handle PC and game controller input devices.
- Create, draw, and update XNA game windows and 3D objects
- Add dazzling animation and fluid character motion
- Render photorealistic terrains, landscapes, skies, and horizons
- Program custom lighting and shading effects using HLSL
- Integrate sound effects, game dashboards, and stat tracking
- Work with game cameras, keyframes, sprites, and loaders
- Design natural collision detection, ballistics, and particle effects
- Develop, import, and control Quake II models using MilkShape
About the Author
Stephen Cawood is a former program manager at Microsoft Corporation and the author of several gaming titles.
Pat McGee is a faculty member and course developer at the British Columbia Institute of Technology. He is a game programmer.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
Format:Paperback
The book provides a good coverage of the XNA studio features, but if you are just starting as a programmer make sure you pick up a good book on c# first.
Speaking as an experienced .Net programmer: I suggest that the code in the book is easy to read, but you really wouldnt want to structure code that way in anything you write yourself.
And I dont just mean the missing error handling, which is appropriate in a book showing the features of an API.
Also - not all the files are where they should be in the downloaded src - it looks like the .raw and .dds files never made it to the images folder. They are in the zipped solution files though.
Speaking as an experienced .Net programmer: I suggest that the code in the book is easy to read, but you really wouldnt want to structure code that way in anything you write yourself.
And I dont just mean the missing error handling, which is appropriate in a book showing the features of an API.
Also - not all the files are where they should be in the downloaded src - it looks like the .raw and .dds files never made it to the images folder. They are in the zipped solution files though.
Format:Paperback
It's a good book, for beginners to advanced. My only complaint is that, for advanced topics such as shaders and 3d graphics in general, there is alot of important knowledge that is omitted, the descriptions given also seem rather superficial. The examples in the book/tutorials are inconsistent, at times i found lines of code missing which he later referred to in his code. (i was able to sort it out by downloading his examples and having a brief look).
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
13 reviews
36 of 37 people found the following review helpful
Best XNA3 Book Yet
20 Feb 2010
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
I teach XNA to undergrad game designers and have assessed almost every XNA book on the market since XNA 1.0. I will shortly be adopting this book for use in the classroom because this is the best XNA book I've seen yet. It covers the basics that are hit by most beginner XNA books, but goes into far greater detail on each subject, so it really takes the learner a lot farther than those books. For example, I'm a huge fan of Aaron Reed's XNA3 book from O'Reilly, but this book goes a lot farther with the same subjects.
Probably the single best feature of this book are the additional learning exercises tacked on to the end of each chapter. I actually like the fact that the answers to these extra exercises are not given, because in each case they're easy to figure out and the learner isn't tempted to just open the answer files. These extra exercises are very well thought out and nicely compliment each chapter. My only complaint is that I wish there were more of them.
Another good idea here is to take a direct, non-class-based approach to most of the code examples. In most 3D chapters, all the code is implemented in Game1.cs, with a separate Camera.cs file being the only external (allowing you to move around the object you've built). This is really helpful to learners, because examples that are separated by class have to be broken down and then rebuilt into new class arrangements to suit their own projects. Here they can focus on the code, then break it down into their own class structures right away.
The downloadable code collection is extensive and very well organized, and handily provides each sample in both Win and Xbox formats. There is an errata sheet at the author's site that seems to be actively updated. There aren't many mistakes in this book (another big plus), but I'm glad to see that they're correcting them.
Note: This book is not for beginning programmers, and has nothing about the basics of programming, such as classes, variables, data types and so forth -- it assumes you already know about the basics of OOP, which I think is appropriate. It does have a very handy intro to debugging and editing in Visual Studio (with some good tips). Rob Miles' "Learn Programming Now: XNA GameStudio 3.0" is a little better for raw beginners, and also a very good book, and a nice compliment to this one.
Recommendation: More experienced users should combine this purchase with "XNA 3.0 Game Programming Recipes" by Riemer Grootjans. That's a one-two punch that will get any new programmer a very, very long way. Less experienced users should combine this purchase with the Rob Miles book mentioned in the paragraph above, which covers much of the same territory but will give you many additional examples and other kinds of problems to work on.
Probably the single best feature of this book are the additional learning exercises tacked on to the end of each chapter. I actually like the fact that the answers to these extra exercises are not given, because in each case they're easy to figure out and the learner isn't tempted to just open the answer files. These extra exercises are very well thought out and nicely compliment each chapter. My only complaint is that I wish there were more of them.
Another good idea here is to take a direct, non-class-based approach to most of the code examples. In most 3D chapters, all the code is implemented in Game1.cs, with a separate Camera.cs file being the only external (allowing you to move around the object you've built). This is really helpful to learners, because examples that are separated by class have to be broken down and then rebuilt into new class arrangements to suit their own projects. Here they can focus on the code, then break it down into their own class structures right away.
The downloadable code collection is extensive and very well organized, and handily provides each sample in both Win and Xbox formats. There is an errata sheet at the author's site that seems to be actively updated. There aren't many mistakes in this book (another big plus), but I'm glad to see that they're correcting them.
Note: This book is not for beginning programmers, and has nothing about the basics of programming, such as classes, variables, data types and so forth -- it assumes you already know about the basics of OOP, which I think is appropriate. It does have a very handy intro to debugging and editing in Visual Studio (with some good tips). Rob Miles' "Learn Programming Now: XNA GameStudio 3.0" is a little better for raw beginners, and also a very good book, and a nice compliment to this one.
Recommendation: More experienced users should combine this purchase with "XNA 3.0 Game Programming Recipes" by Riemer Grootjans. That's a one-two punch that will get any new programmer a very, very long way. Less experienced users should combine this purchase with the Rob Miles book mentioned in the paragraph above, which covers much of the same territory but will give you many additional examples and other kinds of problems to work on.
7 of 7 people found the following review helpful
More than an intro
15 Nov 2009
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
I purchased this book specifically because it was the second edition and it seemed as though the authors' credentials exceeded the average book on XNA. Also, I was interested in the math behind game programming. I was not disappointed. You will need some knowledge of trigonometry and linear algebra (matrices, dot products, cross products, and quaternions). The examples were clear and concise. Most of the examples worked as advertised. And the sample code built on previous chapters' sample code in order to drive home the current points without boring you with the implementation details from previous chapters.
I think the 2D collision detection algorithm in chapter 4 could have used a bit more explanation. I think the chapter on input devices could have been moved toward the beginning of the book. And in a couple of places the sample code didn't do what was described in the chapter. For me this was an additional exercise because I made the sample code do what the book said, and learned something in the process.
This book will be a great resource for me in the future.
I think the 2D collision detection algorithm in chapter 4 could have used a bit more explanation. I think the chapter on input devices could have been moved toward the beginning of the book. And in a couple of places the sample code didn't do what was described in the chapter. For me this was an additional exercise because I made the sample code do what the book said, and learned something in the process.
This book will be a great resource for me in the future.
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful
Great Book for XNA Developers!
25 Oct 2009
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
This is a great book for XNA developers! My son and I are working through this book together and we are having a great time learning XNA! The author takes the time to explain complex gaming concepts simply, the code examples are almost without error, and the reader is taken through a wide variety of examples including everything from collision algorithms to writing games for Zune. Definately a great book for the new XNA Developer. My one disappointment is that the student only gets to build one or two complete games, but I still completely recommend this book more for the great examples and clear explanations.
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