Game Programming is very Hard

You will need understanding of 3d concepts to be able to handle collision detection, physics and so forth. I'm not sure how XNA handles matrix calculations, but I would guess you will still need to understand that topic.

It is not that hard to grasp. Just don't chew over too much in the beginning. Start with being able to display a polygon, then understand how to rotate it. How to put light on it and how to set up a scene. How to set up camera and field of view. Then move on to understand how textures works and effects work.

Roger Larsen

twospoons at 2007-8-30 >

Geek Squad wrote:

I've been reading DirectX sdk tutorials and MDX tutorials and things like that, and it seems VERY VERY VERY hard. Will this new XNA studio and the documentation simplify this? All these vectors and whatnot is very complicated and I'm having trouble understanding seemingly basic concepts in game programming in 3d.

Yup. I do recall saying that pretty clearly on the DirectX 101 forums: http://forums.microsoft.com/MSDN/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=77027&SiteID=1

DavidWeller-MSFT at 2007-8-30 >

Many people look down on game programmers but they don’t know that games are one of the most difficult things to program. It funny that when I am working on my resume or talking to a recruiter about a job I feel embarrassed when I talk about any games I have programmed.

aka_Big_Wurm at 2007-8-30 >

Btw, I found a few MSDN tutorials and they're much more simple and informative than the MDX ones I found...

A couple last questions:

1) Am I missing out on a lot by using Managed DirectX?

2) What about OpenGL? Regardless of managed and unmanaged DirectX, am I missing out on something important by not doing Open GL?

By missing out on I mean missing out on features and speed and things like that...

Also (kind of off-topic), about what percentage of Windows users have .NET framework installed (can you give some kind of estimate)?

GeekSquad at 2007-8-30 >

PdCNZ wrote:

Will XNA simplify this process and make it easier to create 3D environments?

From what's been posted by the MS guys, they're trying to make getting a game up and running as easily as possible a goal. The Starter Kits that should be included will help accomplish this. I'm sure the community will help as well by providing samples, info, etc.

JimPerry at 2007-8-30 >

1) What is the best performing render loop (in your opinion)?

I've encountered ones that use application idle events, others that use on paint events, and some really long ones that I don't have any idea how they work...

GeekSquad at 2007-8-30 >

Framework - that's one of the things we take care of for you! Just hook

up to the Update and Draw events on our Game object, and off you go.

(of course you can still write your own render loop if you really want

to for some reason, but I suspect the standard version in the Game

class will do the right thing for 99.9999% of people)

ShawnHargreaves at 2007-8-30 >