Creating your own file format to import .FBX, .OBJ and .X in your Windows 8 modern UI game (or 3D engine)

There is a lot of different file format when it comes to 3D objects. One of the most used is the FBX from Autodesk. This file format can be exported by all major DCC but the key point is that it can be complex for a game or 3D developer to open such file format.

I would like to propose here a solution that can allows you to easily offline files importation. The idea is to simulate a MSBuild execution to reuse the importation process of the XNA pipeline.

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WinRT/XAML Colour Picker (using SharpDx)

I needed a colour picker for an app I’m building and it turns out no ones built a WinRT XAML one yet. So this is my very simple colour picker! I use bitmaps to represent the swatch (in my case i have 3 different types). I use SharpDx to get the “Pixel Buffer” of the selected swatch. Where ever the mouse or pointer is i get the pixel under that position via the pixel buffer and from that i get the colours (RGBA). This is what the colour picker looks like this.

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Creating a Direct2D game for WinRT

If you want to write a game for Windows 8 and was thinking of using XNA, think again. When creating games for Windows 8 you’ll have to go back to using DirectX. But don’t worry, with Visual Studio 2012 on Windows 8, you’ll get a lot of help doing so. Let’s have a look on how to create a Direct2D game for WinRT!

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Using Shared WinRT C++ Physics Engines in Your WinJS game

Currently there are no Physics Engines that will drop into WinRT and work, but bear in mind that WInRT is used when you need language projection.  That is: You write the code in C++/CX and consume in JavaScript or C# or VB or even C++.  Or C# and consume in the other languages, VB is the same, but JavaScript can only consume.

With respect to existing game libraries like UDK or Autodesk ScaleForm, these C++ libraries can be used with a little more work then I wanted to do, consumed through WinRT and then projected into JavaScript.

Now, it is likely once I post this blog, there will suddenly be 10 or 15 Physics Engines modified to work with WinRT, but for now, there aren’t any that have easily discovered documentation.

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Building a Windows 8 app? Pick your favorite flavour!

When building an app for Windows 8, you have three programming models to choose from: .NET, HTML/CSS JavaScript, or C++

When I started coding, I quickly discovered that a big part of development was making choices. I also discovered myself frustrated when working with tools and platforms that did not give me choices and forced me down a specific path.

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Creating a WinRT component using C++/CX Part 2: Adding a custom Direct2D effect to DeForm

The previous article introduced the DeForm Library: A WinRT component that used Direct2D to apply filters on a picture.

You can download DeForm from CodePlex

This article will show you how to use the Direct2D effect pipeline to create a custom Direct2D effect. This effect will try to apply some kind of Polaroïd effect by applying many filters in a row:

• Black&White
• Sepia tone
• Saturation
• Brightness

To do so, you have to create a COM component for Direct2D (handling reference counting and interfaces querying):

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The Unofficial Windows 8 Developer FAQ

Early this week I’ve been talking to a few current and former Microsoft staffers about all things Windows 8. In my discussions I’ve started to gather some gossip in around what happened to Silverlight and lastly the specifics around the DevDiv fall out between Steve Sinofsky and Soma.

It’s an entertaining read should I share the chat logs but what did struck me throughout the conversations was how much positivity Microsoft has been squandering due to petty internal squabbles or “dare not speak of that, for the overlord Sinofsky shall smite thee down for saying the nameless one outloud”.

Today, I’m going to attempt to dos something Microsoft staff should have done long ago or didn’t do correctly or simply were held back from doing so. I’m going to release the Unofficial FAQ on “What Just happened” in Microsoft for developer(s) worldwide.

Read full article here

Creating a WinRT component using C++/CX: DeForm, a Direct2D effect toolkit

Back to my first love, I’m thrilled to present you DeForm which is a WinRT component that uses Direct2D to apply bitmap effect to a source image.

The library and a sample C# client can be found there:

https://deform.codeplex.com/

The goal of this article is to describe how I proceeded to write DeForm component.

Note : You can create WinRT components using C++ or a .NET language. Details can be found here

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Windows 8, XNA and MonoGame - Part 3, Code Migration and Windows 8 Feature Support

n Part 1 of this series I introduced you to MonoGame for Windows8, an implementation of the XNA namespace that allows you to get your XNA code running on Windows 8 as a Metro Style App.

In Part 2 I documented how to get your development environment configured using GitHub and Visual Studio 2012

In Part 3 I will cover migrating XNA code to Windows 8.and the Windows 8 features you will need to support in order to make your game Windows 8 Store worthy.

The Shooter Tutorial

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Building your own Windows Runtime components to deliver great Metro style appsFor Windows 8, we completely reimagined the platform, allowing you to choose the programming language and technologies you already know to build apps tailored to the device and form factor. With the Windows Runtime, you can even easily use multiple languages within a single app. You can build a great Metro style app with HTML and JavaScript that can interact with the Xbox 360 controller through building your own Windows Runtime component in C++. You can build reusable XAML controls exposed via Windows Runtime components that are instantly consumable by Metro style apps written in both C++ and C#. Essentially, we have let you build apps on the Windows 8 platform using the languages of your choice with no comprises. In this blog post, we talk about what you need to know to build your own Windows Runtime components.

For Windows 8, we completely reimagined the platform, allowing you to choose the programming language and technologies you already know to build apps tailored to the device and form factor. With the Windows Runtime, you can even easily use multiple languages within a single app. You can build a great Metro style app with HTML and JavaScript that can interact with the Xbox 360 controller through building your own Windows Runtime component in C++. You can build reusable XAML controls exposed via Windows Runtime components that are instantly consumable by Metro style apps written in both C++ and C#. Essentially, we have let you build apps on the Windows 8 platform using the languages of your choice with no comprises.

In this blog post, we talk about what you need to know to build your own Windows Runtime components.

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Windows 8, XNA and MonoGame - Part 2, Getting Started

In part 1 of this series I gave you an overview of MonoGame, an open source cross platform implementation of the XNA namespace and class model and how you could use that to port you existing XNA code to Windows 8. In this article, I will show you how to get your development environment setup to support your porting effort.

         

Note: special thanks for Dean Ellis (dellis1972 ) who posted a video on YouTube outlining this process. I highly recommend that you view Dean’s video before you follow the steps below

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Windows 8, XNA and MonoGame – Part 1, Overview

Games are likely some of the most popular apps on Windows 8 and you are in a great position to take advantage of this huge opportunity.  How huge?  The Windows Store Blog sums it up well:          With more than 630 million Windows 7 licenses sold to date, across 200+ countries and regions around the world, Windows has an unrivaled global reach. Combined with the flexibility of monetization options that the Store provides, Windows 8 represents the single biggest developer opportunity for any platform.

      

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Casual game developers have been using XNA since 2004 to easily create games for Windows, XBox and most recently Windows Phone. XNA is a .NET framework for game development providing a content pipeline and game asset load functionality, animation, math, sound and user input tracking via gamepad, mouse, keyboard and touch with game logic organized in a straightforward game loop architecture. Game development is not trivial and XNA was a level up for a great number of students and developers who wanted to learn how to create games. XNA along with Visual Studio made it as easy as File –> New –> XNA Game Studio Project and you were off and gunning.

Why Would you Want to Write Applications for Windows 8 Now?

Last week, we had our first Windows 8 webinar titled, “Why build for Windows 8 and how RadControls for Metro can help.” One question that we attempted to answer is, “Why build for Windows 8 now?” “Why not wait until a future date when the platform is more stable?” These questions are valid from a consumer and an enterprise point-of-view and I’ll try to explain why we believe that you should start writing applications for Windows 8 today.

4 Solid Reasons to Start Building Today

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Matthew Baxter-Reynolds' Programming Metro-style Apps Workshop (WINDOWS8-01-01)

Programming Metro-style Apps Workshops are a unique event in the UK designed to help developers get started on the road to building software for Windows 8 and Windows RT. We take you from the point of having done "Hello, world" and the basics and lift you up to the next level where you can start building real retail and line-of-business apps on the platform.

LEARN HOW TO:

We guarantee by the end of the session you'll have a firm understanding of Metro-style development on Windows 8 and Windows RT.

PROGRAMME     

• How and why Windows was "reimagined"
• The fundamentals of moving from .NET
• Asynchronous programming
• Sandboxing and protection
• Unit testing
• Working with SQLite
• Sharing, search, notifications
• Application lifetime and background activities
• Packaging, private deployment, and store deployment
• ...and more

Click here to register

Hardware accelerating everything: Windows 8 graphics

With Windows 8 we set out to enable all applications to have the beautiful and high-performance graphics enabled by modern graphics hardware.  This work builds on the well-established foundations of DirectX graphics, which have been providing an increasing breadth of APIs and capabilities. In Windows 7, we expanded the capabilities of DirectX to provide a common hardware-accelerated graphics platform for a broader range of applications. Whereas previously, DirectX mainly provided 3-D graphics, we added functionality for what we call “mainstream” graphics. Mainstream uses center on the typical desktop applications most people find themselves using every day, including web browsers, email, calendars, and productivity applications.  Windows 7 added two new components to DirectX: Direct2D for two-dimensional graphics (shapes, bitmaps, etc.) and DirectWrite for handling text. Both of these additions not only focused on performance but also on delivering high-quality 2-D rendering. With these additions, DirectX became a hardware-accelerated graphics platform for all types of applications. Indeed, we showed what a typical application could achieve by using DirectX when Internet Explorer 9 brought hardware-accelerated graphics to the web.  WinRT bring these capabilities to the full range of new Windows 8 applications.  In this post, authored by Rob Copeland the group program manager on our Graphics team, we look at the details behind the scenes in enabling this new class of graphical application.  --Steven

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Microsoft Details Windows 8 Graphics, Showcases Power Gains

With Windows 8 coming on October 26th, Microsoft has been publishing a number of insightful looks at some of the system's underpinnings. It's been pretty fascinating to watch. With prior Windows releases, there really hasn't been too much pre-release outreach with the public. But in a word where social media rules and communication is expected, these "Building Windows 8" columns act to give users of both avid and casual backgrounds an ability to see what's going on behind the scenes.
The latest post involves a dear subject: graphics. It reminds us that Windows 7 added two new components to DirectX: Direct2D for two-dimensional graphics (shapes, bitmaps, etc.) and DirectWrite for handling text, but things are evolving even further in Win8 / WinRT. DirectX became a hardware-accelerated graphics platform for all types of applications, and even Windows RT will be able to take advantage.

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Metro, Direct2D and XAML – Burst of Performance in Windows 8

Now that Windows 8 Release Preview is out we are eager to explore the new framework and the features it offers. While part of it is the good old XAML, there are plenty of other unique features, one of them being the DirectX integration at XAML level. While XAML is a great technology and offers literally unlimited features regarding layout and UI richness, sometimes there are cases where we need to push the framework beyond its limits in order to achieve highly-performing components with responsive and fluid user interaction. Although in most cases writing efficient algorithms and using the proper data structures will be enough to achieve the desired performance, there are scenarios where extensive UI scenes are rendered frequently and the density of the updated pixels is high. So I was most excited by the opportunity to present Direct2D content directly in XAM and started a research on how it actually works and how the performance is affected.

WinRT is a brand new framework and there is little to no information over the Internet about Direct2D and XAML integration, so I decided to summarize my efforts and to hopefully help other people who are doing the same tests. In this post I will show you a simple C++ demo that uses Direct2D and a SurfaceImageSource instance to render a Polyline with 5000 points. Microsoft has done a great job with introducing three different entry points where DirectX content may be directly embedded in a XAML application. The demo also compares the same scenario implemented with a XAML Polyline shape.

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