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Professional XNA Programming: Building Games for Xbox 360 and Windows with XNA Game Studio 2.0
 
 
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Professional XNA Programming: Building Games for Xbox 360 and Windows with XNA Game Studio 2.0 (Paperback)

by Benjamin Nitschke (Author)
1.8 out of 5 stars See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
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Frequently Bought Together

Professional XNA Programming: Building Games for Xbox 360 and Windows with XNA Game Studio 2.0 + Microsoft XNA Game Studio Creators Guide: An Introduction to XNA Game Programming + Microsoft® XNA® Game Studio 2.0: Learn Programming Now! (PRO-Developer)
Price For All Three: £49.13

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Product details

  • Paperback: 600 pages
  • Publisher: John Wiley & Sons; 2nd Edition edition (22 Feb 2008)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 0470261285
  • ISBN-13: 978-0470261286
  • Product Dimensions: 22.6 x 18.8 x 3.8 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 1.8 out of 5 stars See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 432,456 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Product Description

Product Description
Professional XNA(r) Programming

Building Games for Xbox 360(r) and Windows(r)with XNA Game Studio 2.0, 2nd Edition

This improved and updated edition of the bestseller will get you up and running quickly with building games for Xbox 360 and the Windows platform. Professional game developer and Microsoft MVP Benjamin Nitschke begins by explaining how to install the free XNA Game Studio 2.0 and then goes on to share essential advice for using it in a productive way.

Before you know it, each successive chapter will have you developing small games that increase in difficulty. By using the chapters as building blocks, you′ll evolve from 2D programming to 3D, and you′ll ultimately create a full–blown graphics engine that can be used for more advanced game projects. Plus, you′ll get an inside look at six fully functional games, including the popular Racing Game and the new Dungeon Quest.

What you will learn from this book
∗

Tips for adding music and sound with XACT
∗

Techniques for creating unique visual effects through Shaders
∗

Ways to access keyboard, mouse, and Xbox controllers with XInput
∗

How to write your own XNA graphics engine and create a game engine
∗

How to manage content in XNA
∗

Myriad ways of fine–tuning, debugging, and troubleshooting
∗

How to make sure games run on the Xbox 360
∗

Ways to generate landscapes and tracks
∗

How to take advantage of XNA′s new networking APIs

Who this book is for

This book is for anyone who wants to create games on the Xbox 360 and Windows platforms. Experience with C# or a similar .NET language is necessary, but previous game programming is not required.

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.

From the Back Cover

Professional XNA® Programming

Building Games for Xbox 360® and Windows®with XNA Game Studio 2.0, 2nd Edition

This improved and updated edition of the bestseller will get you up and running quickly with building games for Xbox 360 and the Windows platform. Professional game developer and Microsoft MVP Benjamin Nitschke begins by explaining how to install the free XNA Game Studio 2.0 and then goes on to share essential advice for using it in a productive way.

Before you know it, each successive chapter will have you developing small games that increase in difficulty. By using the chapters as building blocks, you′ll evolve from 2D programming to 3D, and you′ll ultimately create a full–blown graphics engine that can be used for more advanced game projects. Plus, you′ll get an inside look at six fully functional games, including the popular Racing Game and the new Dungeon Quest.

What you will learn from this book

  • Tips for adding music and sound with XACT

  • Techniques for creating unique visual effects through Shaders

  • Ways to access keyboard, mouse, and Xbox controllers with XInput

  • How to write your own XNA graphics engine and create a game engine

  • How to manage content in XNA

  • Myriad ways of fine–tuning, debugging, and troubleshooting

  • How to make sure games run on the Xbox 360

  • Ways to generate landscapes and tracks

  • How to take advantage of XNA′s new networking APIs

Who this book is for

This book is for anyone who wants to create games on the Xbox 360 and Windows platforms. Experience with C# or a similar .NET language is necessary, but previous game programming is not required.

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.

Inside This Book (Learn More)
Browse Sample Pages
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
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Customer Reviews

6 Reviews
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Average Customer Review
1.8 out of 5 stars (6 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars A solid book for developing games under XNA, 25 May 2007
By Mr. Andrew C. Patrick "andypatrick" (Loughborough, United Kingdom) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
This review is from: Professional XNA Game Programming: For Xbox 360 and Windows (Paperback)
"Professional XNA Game Programming" is a decent introduction to developing games under C# and XNA. A word of warning: it's not appropriate for complete beginners. A certain level of competence in C# and programming in general is assumed (if you don't know what delegates and generics are, for example, read a C# primer first).

For those of us who already know how to program, maybe even have written some games, but want to know how to write games in C# and XNA, this is an excellent introduction. The examples are clear and well explained, and each chapter or part leads to the creation of a complete yet extensible game. Very little is pure theory in isolation, almost everything is concerned with the practicalities of XNA. I learned a lot reading through it and working through the code.

Minor negatives:
- the author is a bit too keen to evangelise test driven design. Alright, we get it, unit tests are good!
- bits of the book are out of date already since the 1.0 Refresh release. (In fairness, the author's website and forum are well supported which should alleviate this).
- the chapter on XACT is slightly on the brief side and evidently affected by the fact the author clearly doesn't like it.
- a few areas of the book are slightly hard to read - English is clearly not the author's first language. However this is a very minor quibble and the rest of the time, the author's informal style is entertaining while remaining clear.

In summary, I would recommend this to anyone who already knows C# and wants to make games in XNA. Working through this book is probably the first thing you should do after installing XNA GSE... you may move on from it after that but it will give you a very thorough grounding in the basic techniques, and enough hints to know where to go with the advanced stuff.
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5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars Hard to read - keep Google and Wikipedia handy, 15 Jul 2007
By Alan Gorton (Lancashire, England) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
This review is from: Professional XNA Game Programming: For Xbox 360 and Windows (Paperback)
It's obvious that the author knows what he's doing. The games that he's produced and are described in this book are amazing. There was a real buzz around XNA Racer on the community forums at the start of the year.

However, I buy a book to read offline with occasional keyboard time and as such, I find this book difficult to recommend. There is too little exposition around the key concepts and the book lurches from over-explaining the basics to assuming black belt matrix algebra knowledge.

A few examples:
* This book is about 3D games programming but has way too few explanatory diagrams.
* The author mentions point sprites as an alternative to billboards. OK, so what's a point sprite? What are the pros and cons of point sprites vs billboards? This is a minor example but a good editor would surely have demanded an explanatory paragraph or two.
* Did the author think the book would be published in colour? The text often refers to coloured elements in black and white diagrams.
* The sample code contains too much of the author's own engine library code, making it difficult to incorporate into your own efforts.
* If it's a bad idea (and it is) to use foreach in game loops, NEVER use foreach in code samples.

Probably the most frustrating thing about the book is the prose style that is at times unreadable and occasionally nonsensical. The book also has an extraordinarily high number of mistakes in the text - I'm guessing this was rushed to market to beat the inevitable XNA book rush.

A very talented developer let down by his publisher (and apparent lack of proofreading effort). When does Petzold's XNA book come out?!
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4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars Not as helpful as I'd hoped - intermediate user, 26 May 2007
This review is from: Professional XNA Game Programming: For Xbox 360 and Windows (Paperback)
First off, I am not an accomplished C# programmer - I've only been learning for a while (say, an intermediate user), and perhaps that is one of the reasons I didn't get on so well with this book. So please, bear this in mind - I was not the target audience and your mileage may vary.

The unit-test aspect really caught me off guard and left me feeling cheated. If you plan on buying this book, DO be aware that the author uses almost every opportunity to sing the praises of this particular methodology and don't let it be a surprise to you.

The early simple example code quickly gives way to empty unit-test listings that the reader is assumed to fill in for themselves. There were sections that were longer than they ought to be for the sake of clarity, and ended up more confusing than they should have been. There were several typos, but no doubt these will be put in an errata soon.

All in all, this will not be a book that I return to nor will I recommend it to my workmates. I am, however, very relieved to know that others have found it useful (from other reviews).
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Most Recent Customer Reviews

2.0 out of 5 stars Some useful information but its well buried
This a rather odd programming book (and i have quite a few). The author seems to have missed the point of an writing an XNA book. Read more
Published 6 months ago by Skye L. Maidstone

1.0 out of 5 stars Steer Clear!
This book is rubbish, I would give this book a wide berth. I am a professional C# developer looking to advance my knowledge of the XNA Framework. Read more
Published 14 months ago by Mr. J. Grimshaw

1.0 out of 5 stars Tell me about XNA not Agile Project Management Methods
Pointless book where the author has used it as a soapbox to promote completely unrelated subjects like Agile project management. The text is error prone and hard to follow. Read more
Published 23 months ago by Mr Reviewer

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