I need innovative ideas on Gaming Application for Windows Phone. Can anyone guide me to how to approach new ideas on gaming application? How shall i start as i am new to this domain? No gaming experience at all? Also i have worked only on C & C++. But now i have to work on gaming application using C# with XNA framework & Silverlight for windows phone 7.
Thanks
Before bumping into a certain framework, and even before approaching a gaming idea, you might wanna invest some time learning C# first. Knowing that you're from a C/C++ background, you should find yourself highly familiar with C#.
Later on, the XNA creators community have extensive libraries, samples and tutorials that can guide you to assimilate XNA.
I wouldn't recommend going for Silverlight unless you want to build an application, and not a game. XNA has an enormous performance/quality boost because it natively uses the GPU for most graphics algorithms including 100% hardware accelerated rendering. Additionally, it has so many game-programming specific libraries and classes that can make your life a lot better.
I remember a highly-animated XNA 2D game of mine was consuming around 2-3% of CPU usage compared to 60% of a much simpler Silverlight game.
XNA will be better for graphics intensive, 3d or games with complex animations utilising more of the GPU. Silverlight can be used for games less demanding of graphics processing.
Related
I have an android game thats basically completed and I want to start porting it to iOS.
I'm completely foreign to objective c and I have no idea where to start. In android I have a surface view, canvas, and a game loop which draws and posts the canvas. What's the iOS equivalent?
First, be very careful of trying to transliterate between languages. You can't just pick up Java idioms and "do the same thing" on iOS in many cases. Many things are done with a completely different approach (threading is a major example; drawing is often done differently as well). You should spend some time learning the platform first or you'll get something that "almost" works and chase bugs and performance problems forever.
That said, the tool you probably want to study is Cocos2D which is a very good 3rdparty toolkit for building 2D games on iPhone. This is generally a much better approach than trying to build it up from scratch and should have a lower learning curve for game dev.
It's difficult to know how you should port without knowing the nature of your game but most iOS games are written in OpenGL which is very extendable. It has some optimization tricks that can play a big role in how you architect your rendering pipeline though.
If you decide to go with OpenGL you should check out this Stanford talk presented by NGMoco on how to do this...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VNr5I3ZRecE
This is something I've pondered/struggled with and would love to hear some opinions on. I have a good deal of familiarity with the iOS sdk but not so much with the opengl related aspects and not really any with the various SDKs, especially game SDKs build to work on iOS.
If I want to create 2D games for iPhone/iPad, is it easy/better/practical to use some simple collection of iOS SDK objects such as the UIImageViews etc to build a plethora of sprites interacting on the screen, or much better to go with an SDK for that? I'm assuming that going with gl is overboard for 2d requirements, but please voice any dissent if I'm wrong there.
I'm mainly interested in what the quickest route to getting things done is, combined with the smallest requirements to ramp up on technologies. Obviously if it is well worth it to use an SDK simply because it is cross platform for other OSs, that is reasonable to mention.
The advantage of using a framework on top of OpenGL can greatly increase productivity, maintainability and reduce programming errors.
Personally I work with cocos2d-for-iphone. It's written in Objective-C and is based on top of OpenGL. It was created with the aims to create 2D games and thus unlike UIKit or QuartzCore, it's designed for that. It provides a lot of convenience API to manage scenes or sprites, to create animations, etc. Or even libraries for the sounds for example.
There is a very good article which describes some open-source game engines available on iphone here. It could help you in your search.
I am really interested in using Unity3d to develop an app.
I like the fact that I can develop once and port the app to multiple platforms (Mac/Windows/iPhone/Android), and the performance on my Mac seems to be quite good.
This will be the first time I write an app for iPhone, and I am curious about performance issues down the road. I think I will definitely use Unity3d on iPhone for a prototype, but am wondering if building an iPhone Unity3d app will use the iPhone resources as efficiently as a native app written in Objective-C.
The Unity3d site seems to suggest that Unity3d algorithms are optimized, and I thought that if I asked that question in the Unity3d forums, that would be the kind of response I would get. Ideally, I'd be interested in hearing from someone who has built an app in Unity3d and Objective-C and can compare the two.
The discussion that got me thinking about this was Andrew and Peter Mortensen's response to a question about iOS development cost, which begins "There is a much easier way to develop iPhone apps than learning Cocoa."
There are specific resources in Unity that will help with mobile development including resources, shaders, etc. that are specifically designed with mobile in mind.
You certainly won't want to take 'unoptimized' PC-quality assets and drop them into a Unity project and export that for the iOS platform as you will ensure poor/unreliable performance. What you want to do is start building out a scene using assets of similar quality to those you want for your game and then seeing what the performance is on a real device. This will give you a feel for what level of performance you can expect from your game in production.
Remember that the performance of a iPhone, iPad, iPad2, etc will vary wildly depending on what you're doing and which features you're touching. While Unity3D has been heavily optimized to deal with a variety of the scenarios, you can certainly do things like fogging which push the fill rate (a known limitation of the platform) and end up with horrendous performance.
Could you possibly get more performance out of building your application purely in Objective-C? If you have the right skillset in engine development to design a specific implementation of technology for your specific requirements - Certainly.
You just need to decide if you want to spend your time writing technology or building product. Most people who choose Unity do so because you get an exceptionally good engine which most people cannot beat the performance of (try building your own landscape engine), while at the same time getting exceptional time to market... and really its time to market that really matters in most cases.
This is an old post, but I figured I'd answer it because no one here has really got it quite right.
It's important to keep in mind that the internal core workings of Unity is entirely native. The physics engine and resultantly everything dealing with collision. The occlusion system (umbra). The entire rendering engine core. All of that is written in C/C++ and runs at full native speed on any platform. What AmitApollo says is not correct at all, the unreal engine 3 is not more direct 'native' at all when compared to unity. Both Unity and Unreal engine 3, as well as any other 3D engine like Ogre or cocos3d, their core rendering system is all written in c/c++. Some of these engines may have certain internal rendering algorithms implemented better than others, and may thus produce better performance, but this has nothing to do with whether or not they are 'native', because the internal core rendering system is native for all of them.
The internal workings of the physics engine is written in c/c++ as well, and thus the physics engine in UE3 and Unity both run at 'full native speed'.
The epicCitadel demo also does not show greater technical prowess or performance than Unity on iOS. Much of the 'visual impact' of the citadel demo comes simply from the fact that it is really good artwork. The citadel demo is not pushing any higher vertex count than what Unity could handle on iOS, the citadel demo is not demonstrating any more advanced shader or lighting techniques than what Unity can do on iOS. In fact there are more examples of Unity showing off more advanced mobile rendering techniques than what Unreal Engine 3 has demonstrated. Look at games like Shadowgun or BladeSlinger made in Unity, both these games demonstrate more advanced mobile rendering techniques than what Unreal Engine 3 has shown. Light Probes, Mobile BRDF shaders with translucency and normal mapping and well implemented dynamic mobile shadows to name a few. The vast majority of the most successful 3D games in the App store are Unity games, and Unity has thus put alot of R&D into Unity's mobile rendering performance and capabilities.
Now Unity is scripted in C# and Mono. Which does run slower than native code, about 50% slower on iOS by most estimates. But you must keep in mind that you are only doing game logic in this code. You are not writing any code in C# and Mono in Unity that deals with the working of it's internal rendering system, nor the internal workings of the physics system. You only write game logic in C#, that then interfaces with the rendering and physics core, which then executes at full native speed. Mono C# does execute slower than native C++, but if you program intelligently, I think you will find this is hardly a hindrance at all because you only do game logic in Mono C# and game logic is not necessarily CPU heavy. In my experience, it is really quite difficult to make an iPad 2 drop below 60 fps on purely game logic written in Mono C#. I have never actually been hindered by this at all.
If we are to compare to Unreal Engine 3, keep in mind that UE3 also is set up to have it's game logic programmed in a non-native language, UnrealScript. Unrealscript is a language much like Mono C# or Java, where UnrealScript is compiled down to byte code then interpreted at runtime. Meaning, just like Unity, game logic is not 'native' in UE3.
Now if you look here:
http://lua-users.org/wiki/LuaVersusUnrealScript
That is a benchmark comparing UnrealScript to C++ on a simple arithmetic operation using ints. It shows that unreal script is 1/4 to 1/20th the speed of C++.
Then have a look here:
http://www.codeproject.com/Articles/212856/Head-to-head-benchmark-Csharp-vs-NET
If you scroll down to the C# vs C++ Simple arithmetic benchmark. It shows Mono C# is 3/4 the speed of C++ doing simple int arithmetic. Mono C# is about 1/2 the speed when doing simple arithmetic with floats. The int64 and double benchmarks don't really mean much to us because typically you'll never use those in performance critical code in iOS game logic.
Now other benchmarks on there do show Mono C# at times having as bad as 1/20th the performance of C++. But these are through very specific tests, really the best apples to apples benchmark I could find are those simple arithmetic tests.
So really, since Unity's scripting runs on Mono C# and UE3 runs on UnrealScript. Unity is actually the engine that will offer you radically better performance in game logic code.
The notion that UE3 is any more advanced, or offers any more performance, or any greater graphical capability than Unity on iOS is simply not true. Quite the contrary is true.
Now it is true that if you used something like cocos3d you could potentially get better performance because your game logic could be written natively in C++ as well. But the benefits of working with a scripting language like c# to do game logic I think far outweighs the performance loss that is generally never an issue. Namely the benefits of using a scripting language for game logic is that it offers you faster iterations of design, which when doing games is really critical due to how quirky things can be and how frequently you have to recompile and test code.
However, in Unity, it is really easy to write native code plugins with the Pro version. So if you ever do have a piece of performance critical code that needs to run at native speed, you can write it in C++, compile it to a native library, then call that from Mono C#.
Also keep in mind if you are targeting all iOS devices the difference for heavy GPU graphics means drastic performance discrepancies between iPhone 3GS to 4, then from 4,4S to iPad2,& 3 Even certain games on the new iPhone5 or iPad4 could run at a higher FPS than it's predecessors. Keep in mind to keep poly's low, and of course in your terrain keep resolutions low, and even something as subtle as pixel error could drastically effect. Fog will always produce a strain. Textures > 512x512 may cause a problem, same with multiple light sources. It's much faster to have no light rendering, and bake the shadows and highlights. I also found that running in Native Resolution as opposed to best performance may hinder performance (Unity 4). Billboarding, Occlusion Culling are also topics you want to lookup. There is a fine line between looking good, and running slowly.
If performance is an issue to you, you may want a different engine altogether. A more Direct "native" engine like Unreal Engine 3 is amazing with it's capabilities. And it can do it without much overhead. Case and point, Epic Citadel Demo App running on an iPhone 4 or 3GS. Something comparable in Unity would be slow, and wouldn't quite look as sexy.
Perhaps its a good idea to take a look at other games made with Unity and see where yours fits in and what kind of performance you can expect.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7aVttB25oPo
http://unity3d.com/gallery/game-list/
One asset that is helpful to increase performance on IOS is KGFSkyBox.
We found out, that unity3d skyboxes are using up to 6 drawcalls! This is guite a problem on devices having limits of max 30DCs!
We solved this by implementing KGFSkyBox which reduces the drawcalls to 1 if you have terrain (Hides bottom sky hemisphere). If you do not use terrain KGFSkyBox will render using 2 drawcalls which is still better than 6!
Check it out here:
http://u3d.as/4Wg
If you have any questions or suggestions just contact us here: support#kolmich.at
I have used PyGame for a while now, and quite enjoyed doing so, but only 2D experience is not going to cut it when I apply for video game jobs, and besides, I have a number of ideas I want to try out in 3D. What 3D library should I go into first? I was considering Irrlicht, which will also force me to work on my C++ again, but I was also looking towards XNA, as it would be cool to write 360 games. Any suggestions?
You can try Unity3D http://unity3d.com/. In the fall they released their engine for free that is cross platform (Mac, Win and possible Linux) and it can also be targeted for iPhone and web browser and is starting to build an open community and looks promising.
I've done some XNA stuff and the Unity tools look pretty good in comparison making it easier to get content into your games.
In my opinion, going with Irrlicht or OGRE is a good idea. It will help you get back in touch with C++ and experiment with 3D without making it too easy. It is a good idea to learn XNA as well and build a few 3D game prototypes there.
Summary: Do both, eventually. Learn OpenGL/DirectX later.
All the best.
XNA Game Studio is a fantastic framework and let's users jump into creating games quite quickly if you are comfortable with the .NET Framework.
However, if you decide that you want to move to the 3D world, you have 1 more dimension to take into consideration and it makes things exponentially harder. Simple collision detection, isn't so simple anymore. However, with the vast amount of information available for XNA Game Studio, you should find yourself getting to grips with the 3rd dimension quite quickly.
If you haven't done the whole Nehe type tutorials, it's probably best to play with the API, so that you get comfortable with it.
Create a Triangle
Spin the Triangle
Color the Triangle
Load some assets (models and textures) and render them
Try your hand at Alpha Blending
Take into consideration that XNA Game Studio does not have a fixed function pipeline and you will have to use Shaders (HLSL).
I have personally used Irrlicht, Ogre3d, Unity & Xna. Because you want to do this to help for when you apply for jobs in the game industry in my opinion I would suggest Irrlicht as you will want to work on your c++ skills. I also suggest Irrlicht as it is a 3D engine not a specific game engine which will allow you to work on your physics and maths skills as well which are highly sought after in the games industry.
I would suggest avoiding Unity if you are looking for experience to take to industry as it is a package that handles a lot for you and as such could limit your learning.
Ogre3D is a viable option as it is similar to Irlicht, maybe look into the tools available to help you make a choice between those two.
Xna is another interesting choice, it will give you a lot of chances to learn as Irrlicht could and there are a huge amount of resources to help you learn but at the same time you lose the c++ experience that comes with irrlicht.
Can XNA and C# be used to create commercially feasible PC/XBOX games?
Is it the best approach for creating 3D games with C#? If not, what would be?
Actually you can do that but it is a little bit tricky.
You need to pass via an approval process by the "community" (XNA Creators club Online users).
You will also need to pay an Xbox live account plus an Xbox live developper licence.
According to XNA FAQ:
Do I need an XNA Creators Club premium membership to create games?
You don't need a premium membership to make games for Windows or Zune. However, you must be a premium member and in a supported region to create games for the Xbox 360, to release Xbox 360 games to Community Games on Xbox LIVE, or to peer-review submitted games.
Who can peer review XNA Community Games?
A member of the Creators Club whose premium (paid) account is in good standing and is a legal adult (for the countries we currently serve this means 18 years of age or older).
And:
Why does my game have to be peer-reviewed? Why can't I just send it to Xbox LIVE marketplace?
Peer reviewers help creators write better games, and protect game players from experiencing highly offensive or malfunctioning games. Peer reviewers will reject your game if:
Your game contains prohibited content, which is content not allowed on Xbox LIVE services
You misrepresent what is in the game play or in the promotional materials for the game
The promotional content for your game ( for example, the box art, description, banner or title) is not appropriate for all ages on Xbox LIVE Marketplace
The game crashes, it has too many bugs, or it is technically defective in some way
the faq is can be read here
If you want to do it simplier you can play with DirectX directly or even other libraries like SDL (for 2D games). Actually C# is very good for a variety of things and it gets better as the time goes.
A short answer to your first question would be, yes. It is entirely possible to create just about any kind of game with the XNA library. It can be used to make simple 2D platformers, or moderatily complex 3D shooters.
Depending on the game, the amount of logic you'll need to create for your game may vary.
Of course, while creating 3D games, you'll either have to create your own 3D engine, or get your hands on one pre made. XNA in and on itself does not provide an engine that would be fully usable out of the box. It does, however, provide wide variety of tool to help you in the process of making your own engine.
XNA is dedicated primarily to garage games, small projects with small teams, and hobbyists. Also, it's a really good learning tool for game architecture and 3D programming. But for commercial applications, there's a clearly huge gap between the XLA and the XDK.
Using the XDK allows you to access to a much deeper level of hardware, which is definitively a must if performances are an issue. Also, most of commercial game engines are developed for use with the XDK (the Unreal Engine, for example). The debugging and profiling system of the XDK is also an amazing tool which is not available using XLA.
So yes, it is technically possible to make commercial games using XNA, but the real world tends to prefer the XDK.
C# is not that much slower than C++, however C#'s memory management is not really Game friendly (in the AAA style). Never the less rendering is basically the same, as you'll be using DirectX I guess, so there is no reason a very professional game like Gear of Wars couldn't be made with C# (As a game dev my self, I've seen the source code for Gears of War, and can tell you this first hand). But you'll need great artists.
The real roadblock, is if your source is in C#, you have just locked your self out of other Platforms that aren't from Microsoft (Say Sony or Nintendo), but then again GoW is Microsoft bound, ASFAIK.
As for XNA, the best selling Arcade/Community Game Braid, was written in C++, but that's because the author didn't want to lock himself out of other platforms, and he had lots of experience and a large code-base that was already C++ based
XNA saves you a lot of the low level tedium associated with making games. This can be a huge time savings for a handful of people banging out games that don't need to push the hardware to its limit; however, most AAA games require a few people getting down and dirty with the hardware to push the limit as much as they can.
Having said that by no means does your game have to be AAA to be commercially feasible or fun - one could even argue it hurts more than it helps. Technology is rarely the bottleneck of making good games.
I doubt you will create the next Gears of War with it, but XNA works fine for many types of games. Most (all?) of the Community Games on XBox Live are created using XNA.