XNA using C# - Page 2

Kharza-kzad · 02-28-2008, 03:08 PM

I've tooled around with this for awhile and I think it's just about the coolest thing ever.

I am working on a small simple rpg after work, but I think the art requirements are going to eventually crush me. I can build and rig characters but it takes me a long long time. I'll probably eventually get distracted and never finish this.

I'm doing bsp based worlds so I can easily make maps with quake editing utils like QERadiant or whatever spits out a .map. Collision and pathfinding become super easy in a bsp environment. It's not really needed for rendering anymore but for gameplay stuff it's very handy.

Kharza-kzad · 02-28-2008, 03:09 PM

BTW, anyone got any ideas for database integration on the 360? I'm thinking of maybe porting that SQLite.

Cloud9_ · 02-28-2008, 05:44 PM

I've done the same... i have a TileMap engine built and am working on the simplest battle engine known to man, except I'm having problems with it >.<

How would you consider doing your battle engine? Right now I have all the map data in static arrays in a MapName.cs (like Town.cs, Dungeon.cs, etc)... I have a few ideas but i've been looking at code all day fixing up the tile engine and commenting the hell out of it before i posted it on the net.. was just curious how you would go about doing it.

BTW, if you wanted to see what i've done, the link is here: shackrpg - Google Code

Keep in mind its my first "big" project, never programmed before in my life and learned less than a few months ago. If you have any tips or suggestions, i'd love to hear'em!

Vinen · 02-28-2008, 05:50 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cloud9_

I've done the same... i have a TileMap engine built and am working on the simplest battle engine known to man, except I'm having problems with it >.<

How would you consider doing your battle engine? Right now I have all the map data in static arrays in a MapName.cs (like Town.cs, Dungeon.cs, etc)... I have a few ideas but i've been looking at code all day fixing up the tile engine and commenting the hell out of it before i posted it on the net.. was just curious how you would go about doing it.

BTW, if you wanted to see what i've done, the link is here: shackrpg - Google Code

Keep in mind its my first "big" project, never programmed before in my life and learned less than a few months ago. If you have any tips or suggestions, i'd love to hear'em!

I defined my maps as XML files. Once I get it cleaned up a little I will turn it into a Game Component and share it... it's still pretty buggy.

My battle system is currently a clusterfuck of bad code. I would never share it out of embarrassment lol. Going to refactor it heavily... but I don't think it will ever be what I want it to be. What issues are you haveing with the battle system? The largest issue I personally hit was dealing with the placement of menus, etc... got so sick of calculating shit out.

Cloud9_ · 02-28-2008, 06:34 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Vinen

I defined my maps as XML files. Once I get it cleaned up a little I will turn it into a Game Component and share it... it's still pretty buggy.

My battle system is currently a clusterfuck of bad code. I would never share it out of embarrassment lol. Going to refactor it heavily... but I don't think it will ever be what I want it to be. What issues are you haveing with the battle system? The largest issue I personally hit was dealing with the placement of menus, etc... got so sick of calculating shit out.

I'm pretty much new to programming, so I don't know how to do anything with XML.. but I'm self taught so its something I should learn

I know a lot of the map editors i've found use XML too, like Tiled and Mappy.

as far as menu placement, I found a trick that I read in a book, setting up some unit tests for the method used to draw the menu sprites. I used it a lot when doing the main menu sprites, you can see it at the bottom of GameEngine.cs, just search for #region Unit Test.

Faille · 02-29-2008, 12:13 AM

How good would XNA be for creating an RTS?

Vinen · 02-29-2008, 06:30 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Faille

How good would XNA be for creating an RTS?

Fine really. All XNA is more or less is a content loading and display pipeline... just need to figure out how to use it for what you want.

Cloud9_ · 02-29-2008, 10:21 AM

aye its just a basic framework, you can do whatever you want with it.

Arena Wars wasn't built using XNA, but it was built using managed DirectX and C#

Kharza-kzad · 02-29-2008, 10:46 AM

Cloud I sent you a link in private message.

BTW I was always under the impression that you had to rely on the content pipeline on the xbox, but I was looking at the storage stuff and it looks like you can just load your own assets if you want.

Cloud9_ · 02-29-2008, 11:21 AM

not true, there are a lot of programmers that dislike the XNA content pipeline. One of the books I got to learn how to program using XNA was from a guy named Benjamin Nitschke, (who worked on Arena wars if im not mistaken) and he hates the content pipeline for a lot of big projects because you have to re-compile your shit if you try to do something like load a new texture. I dont fully understand it all, but some people just like to build their own.

Having said that, for games that we're making it works amazingly well because we're not loading 100's of MBs of textures / models / sounds / etc.

Vinen · 02-29-2008, 11:27 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cloud9_

not true, there are a lot of programmers that dislike the XNA content pipeline. One of the books I got to learn how to program using XNA was from a guy named Benjamin Nitschke, (who worked on Arena wars if im not mistaken) and he hates the content pipeline for a lot of big projects because you have to re-compile your shit if you try to do something like load a new texture. I dont fully understand it all, but some people just like to build their own.

Having said that, for games that we're making it works amazingly well because we're not loading 100's of MBs of textures / models / sounds / etc.

Yep, I'm starting to notice it with my project right now. So much as I've 100% disabled sound right now while I work on the rest of the game as I am fucking sick of the compile times. All my textures are small so it's not much of an issue...

Cloud9_ · 02-29-2008, 04:09 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Vinen

I defined my maps as XML files. Once I get it cleaned up a little I will turn it into a Game Component and share it... it's still pretty buggy.

My battle system is currently a clusterfuck of bad code. I would never share it out of embarrassment lol. Going to refactor it heavily... but I don't think it will ever be what I want it to be. What issues are you haveing with the battle system? The largest issue I personally hit was dealing with the placement of menus, etc... got so sick of calculating shit out.

after fucking around with the battle engine pretty much for the last few hours, I have everything placed where I want them to be. Instead of doing a dragon warrior 1 style battle engine, its more of a final fantasy 1 (i know, big upgrade right? lol)

I have all the rectangles where I want them, and it draws the sprites great... and I have done a ton of the logic in psudo code, i just need to actually write the code for it now.

Its actually a great learning experience doing this, besides being really interesting and fun...

When the entire battle engine is done and built, I'll post it on the google site, would love some feedback on it (how you guys would do things differently, etc)

Vinen · 02-29-2008, 06:13 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cloud9_

after fucking around with the battle engine pretty much for the last few hours, I have everything placed where I want them to be. Instead of doing a dragon warrior 1 style battle engine, its more of a final fantasy 1 (i know, big upgrade right? lol)

I have all the rectangles where I want them, and it draws the sprites great... and I have done a ton of the logic in psudo code, i just need to actually write the code for it now.

Its actually a great learning experience doing this, besides being really interesting and fun...

When the entire battle engine is done and built, I'll post it on the google site, would love some feedback on it (how you guys would do things differently, etc)

Heh, honestly I had less issues with the graphical aspect then I did with the workings behind the scenes... friends who I am working on the game more or less talked me into allowing each character to have a different game mechanic that I have to program for.

For example, one of the characters (one of the characters I personally designed) drains life with a large portion of his attacks. While his Katana is unsheathed (he wields a cane sword) the drained life is placed is stored in the sword. Upon sheathing the sword by defending his life is healed for the amount stored. He can also opt to use the stored life to power up special attacks etc...

I have to program shit like that for 6 more characters -.- and thats by far the easiest one.

Cloud9_ · 02-29-2008, 09:40 PM

... and you're putting all that in the battle engine? How are you doing that?

My thought process would be to code the battle engine pretty standard, so you can add items like that all day and take some away.. or add properties to that sword later if you choose. Basically if the health drain was attached to the item, place a method in that items cs file, something like;

Code:

public void OnSwing(int StatToCheckChanceOfHit)
{
// Sword has 10% chance to do life drain modified by the person's StatToCheckChanceOfHit.

If (SuccessfulHit)
Deals extra damage, damage over time, and heals the user by said damage

}

i dont know what you're tryin to do but thats actually a pretty cool idea.. but in the actual battle engine, i'd put a way to find that information... not that information itself. That way if you ever wanted to change what the sword does, or if you wanted to add that effect to another sword, or add 100 items into the game with different effects, you just have to include that OnSwing() method into the item, because the battle engine is just going to check the players equipped items for an OnSwing method.

I know i didn't explain that well, but thats how i'd try to code it... What are some other options? (trying to get a feel of getting many different solutions to problems, see things from other angles, u know? )

EDIT:

Ok i think i have a better way of explaining what i was trying to say

For example, in my battle engine I have a 3 public methods (Initialize, Update and Draw) what i would probably do is

public void Update()
{
UpdateTimers(); // Updates the battle timers (can player attack yet, monster attack yet, any repeating environmental damage, haste / slow effects, etc
UpdatePlayer(); // if player timer is expired, show players options, execute options, set timer, etc etc
UpdateMonster(); // if MOBs timer is expired, let the MOB do their move, set monster timer, etc etc

}//end Update

then later on in UpdatePlayer(), when they swing their weapon do something like
UpdatePlayer()
{
yadda yadda, other code here, do all this jazz...
if (attack)
{ Swing weapon; check weapons OnSwing() method for any additional properties attached to weapon; apply those OnSwing() properties. If haste grant user haste for X rounds... if health leach, drain health while adding to you, etc etc. }
}

Throag · 03-01-2008, 02:25 AM

Seems like you are trying to hard code a lot of stuff Vinen.
What you are trying to do could be defined as behavior for each character.
This behavior could be an attribute of your Character class, and at each frame your game engine would iterate over all your Characters who would in turn process their behavior.
You could have a BasicBehavior class which would be responsible for the basic behavior of a character during battle (whatever that it is you define as "basic"). That class would be the default behavior attribute of a character. And then you can have as many class as you want inheriting from BasicBehavior to implement more specific behaviors such as the one you explained.
This way you can define as many behaviors as you want and change them whenever you want. You could also manage them through a BehaviorManager singleton class which would return an instance of a behavior class on demand.
You could also define your behaviors in a way that allows a Character to have multiple behavior and process them all at each frame. There are a lot of ways to improve that idea

When designing game mechanics like these, you should always try to think them as evolutive as possible. It saves a lot of work for later when you are trying to change stuff.

02-29-2008, 12:13 AM	#21 (permalink)
Faille Fires of Heaven Officer Join Date: Jan 2002 Location: Melbourne, Australia Posts: 2,519 +3 Internets	How good would XNA be for creating an RTS? __________________ Faille Fires of Heaven http://www.fohguild.org/forums/uberw...lopment-forum/

02-29-2008, 09:40 PM	#29 (permalink)
Cloud9_ Registered User Join Date: Jul 2002 Location: Los Angeles California Posts: 188 -1 Internets	... and you're putting all that in the battle engine? How are you doing that? My thought process would be to code the battle engine pretty standard, so you can add items like that all day and take some away.. or add properties to that sword later if you choose. Basically if the health drain was attached to the item, place a method in that items cs file, something like; Code: public void OnSwing(int StatToCheckChanceOfHit) { // Sword has 10% chance to do life drain modified by the person's StatToCheckChanceOfHit. If (SuccessfulHit) Deals extra damage, damage over time, and heals the user by said damage } i dont know what you're tryin to do but thats actually a pretty cool idea.. but in the actual battle engine, i'd put a way to find that information... not that information itself. That way if you ever wanted to change what the sword does, or if you wanted to add that effect to another sword, or add 100 items into the game with different effects, you just have to include that OnSwing() method into the item, because the battle engine is just going to check the players equipped items for an OnSwing method. I know i didn't explain that well, but thats how i'd try to code it... What are some other options? (trying to get a feel of getting many different solutions to problems, see things from other angles, u know? ) EDIT: Ok i think i have a better way of explaining what i was trying to say For example, in my battle engine I have a 3 public methods (Initialize, Update and Draw) what i would probably do is public void Update() { UpdateTimers(); // Updates the battle timers (can player attack yet, monster attack yet, any repeating environmental damage, haste / slow effects, etc UpdatePlayer(); // if player timer is expired, show players options, execute options, set timer, etc etc UpdateMonster(); // if MOBs timer is expired, let the MOB do their move, set monster timer, etc etc }//end Update then later on in UpdatePlayer(), when they swing their weapon do something like UpdatePlayer() { yadda yadda, other code here, do all this jazz... if (attack) { Swing weapon; check weapons OnSwing() method for any additional properties attached to weapon; apply those OnSwing() properties. If haste grant user haste for X rounds... if health leach, drain health while adding to you, etc etc. } } Last edited by Cloud9_ : 02-29-2008 at 09:51 PM.

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02-28-2008, 03:08 PM	#16 (permalink)
Kharza-kzad Registered User Join Date: Jun 2005 Posts: 132 +0 Internets	I've tooled around with this for awhile and I think it's just about the coolest thing ever. I am working on a small simple rpg after work, but I think the art requirements are going to eventually crush me. I can build and rig characters but it takes me a long long time. I'll probably eventually get distracted and never finish this. I'm doing bsp based worlds so I can easily make maps with quake editing utils like QERadiant or whatever spits out a .map. Collision and pathfinding become super easy in a bsp environment. It's not really needed for rendering anymore but for gameplay stuff it's very handy.

02-28-2008, 03:09 PM	#17 (permalink)
Kharza-kzad Registered User Join Date: Jun 2005 Posts: 132 +0 Internets	BTW, anyone got any ideas for database integration on the 360? I'm thinking of maybe porting that SQLite.

02-28-2008, 05:44 PM	#18 (permalink)
Cloud9_ Registered User Join Date: Jul 2002 Location: Los Angeles California Posts: 188 -1 Internets	I've done the same... i have a TileMap engine built and am working on the simplest battle engine known to man, except I'm having problems with it >.< How would you consider doing your battle engine? Right now I have all the map data in static arrays in a MapName.cs (like Town.cs, Dungeon.cs, etc)... I have a few ideas but i've been looking at code all day fixing up the tile engine and commenting the hell out of it before i posted it on the net.. was just curious how you would go about doing it. BTW, if you wanted to see what i've done, the link is here: shackrpg - Google Code Keep in mind its my first "big" project, never programmed before in my life and learned less than a few months ago. If you have any tips or suggestions, i'd love to hear'em!

02-29-2008, 10:21 AM	#23 (permalink)
Cloud9_ Registered User Join Date: Jul 2002 Location: Los Angeles California Posts: 188 -1 Internets	aye its just a basic framework, you can do whatever you want with it. Arena Wars wasn't built using XNA, but it was built using managed DirectX and C#

02-29-2008, 10:46 AM	#24 (permalink)
Kharza-kzad Registered User Join Date: Jun 2005 Posts: 132 +0 Internets	Cloud I sent you a link in private message. BTW I was always under the impression that you had to rely on the content pipeline on the xbox, but I was looking at the storage stuff and it looks like you can just load your own assets if you want.

02-29-2008, 11:21 AM	#25 (permalink)
Cloud9_ Registered User Join Date: Jul 2002 Location: Los Angeles California Posts: 188 -1 Internets	not true, there are a lot of programmers that dislike the XNA content pipeline. One of the books I got to learn how to program using XNA was from a guy named Benjamin Nitschke, (who worked on Arena wars if im not mistaken) and he hates the content pipeline for a lot of big projects because you have to re-compile your shit if you try to do something like load a new texture. I dont fully understand it all, but some people just like to build their own. Having said that, for games that we're making it works amazingly well because we're not loading 100's of MBs of textures / models / sounds / etc.

03-01-2008, 02:25 AM	#30 (permalink)
Throag Registered User Join Date: Aug 2002 Location: Paris Posts: 326 -1 Internets	Seems like you are trying to hard code a lot of stuff Vinen. What you are trying to do could be defined as behavior for each character. This behavior could be an attribute of your Character class, and at each frame your game engine would iterate over all your Characters who would in turn process their behavior. You could have a BasicBehavior class which would be responsible for the basic behavior of a character during battle (whatever that it is you define as "basic"). That class would be the default behavior attribute of a character. And then you can have as many class as you want inheriting from BasicBehavior to implement more specific behaviors such as the one you explained. This way you can define as many behaviors as you want and change them whenever you want. You could also manage them through a BehaviorManager singleton class which would return an instance of a behavior class on demand. You could also define your behaviors in a way that allows a Character to have multiple behavior and process them all at each frame. There are a lot of ways to improve that idea When designing game mechanics like these, you should always try to think them as evolutive as possible. It saves a lot of work for later when you are trying to change stuff.