Archive for category Xbox 360
Robbie Bach Uni Talk
Posted by Michael in Games, Programming, Students, Xbox 360 on January 31st, 2010
Robbie Bach, President of Microsoft’s Entertainment and Devices division is giving a public talk at the University of Sydney on Tuesday 9th February 2010.
For any readers who are in Sydney, this would be a great event to attend. E&D covers everything from the XBOX to the Surface, even Keyboards + Mice from MS hardware.
Hopefully there will be a Natal unit on display, and maybe a demo, although no confirmation yet.
RSVP by emailing kumarman[at]microsoft.com
Rewrite of LPP Article Planned
Posted by Michael in Programming, Xbox 360, directx, xna on December 12th, 2009
I recently went about making the current Light Pre Pass system run on the XBOX 360, and had to fix some issues that appeared there. As a result, the next article to go up will be a rewrite with all of these fixes included. I should also be able to provide the sample code at the same time.
This time around I will cover Point, Ambient and Directional lights in the same post, as well as including information about an alternate light buffer format that allows for improved specular + per-material specular.
Expect this either during the weekend of 20-21st Dec, or shortly after that.
Unfortunately I could not test the code on the XBOX the first time around due to subscription issues, however everything is fine now, and I can and will test on both XBOX and my desktop PC beforehand. (Perhaps also other PC configs depending on who I can find online at the time, and what other machines I have on hand 
)
Light Pre Pass in XNA: Basic Implementation
Posted by Michael in Programming, Xbox 360, directx, xna on December 1st, 2009
In this part I will cover how to implement the basic form of the Light Pre Pass renderer, with support for point lights, and the basic Blinn-Phong shader, including Albedo texture support.
As this article is fairly advanced in nature, I have to make certain assumptions about my audience, so that I do not spend half my time explaining basics. Firstly, you should have an understanding of basic concepts such as Cameras, Fullscreen Quads (including how to render one) and rendering a mesh with custom effects.
This pretty much means that as long as you have done some 3D work before, you should be fine. It would be best if you also knew XNA, as I will be using that to write this implementation, however as long as you can translate from C# and get the basic idea, that should be enough.
As you can see from these requirements, this article is not aimed at beginners, and if you are looking for tutorials on how to get started with XNA for 3D development, I would recommend you visit some great sites such as:
Those sites will help you get started with XNA, and once you are familiar and comfortable with the concepts behind 3D graphics, you can return here to learn an advanced renderer implementation.
My focus in this article will be on the implementation of the renderer, as a result, I will not be referring to the implementation of cameras or scene graphs.
Now that the housekeeping is out of the way, we can begin.
Nebulon Now Available
Just letting everyone who reads this know that Nebulon is now available on XBOX LIVE Community Games. The official website for the game is http://nebulon.darkomengames.co.uk and you can go through there to buy online, or find it on your XBOX 360 console.
We are considering bringing this to PC, there are some things that need to be done before that can happen, but if DapydTheBard is willing it will probably happen.
Nebulon in Peer Review
I mentioned previously that a game by fellow DOG member DaphydTheBard was undergoing play testing. Well I am happy to report it is ready for peer review and hopefully should be out soon. If anyone has a Creators Club Premium account, it would be great if you could peer review Nebulon and help speed up its release.
You can get to the peer review page using this link: http://catalog.xna.com/en-GB/GameDetails.aspx?catalogEntryId=7432580d-50e3-439e-b180-f1ca39df65a3&type=1
Hope you enjoy the game, and let us know what you think on the DOG blog.
Edit: Seems it failed due to a MU issue that should be fixed soon. The DOG blog and other places will have further info when the game goes back into peer review.
Nebulon in Playtest
For those of you out there with a Creators Club Premium membership, head on over to http://creators.xna.com and help us (Dark Omen Games) out by playtesting Nebulon, our first game on the service. You can see a trailer for Nebulon in my last post here, and using the normal interface on the Creators Club website, you can access the build of Nebulon we have up there and try it out. Let us know what you think and if you encounter any issues in the associated forum thread.
Hope you enjoy it!
You can find out more about Nebulon here. We hope to have a game website up shortly with screenshots, videos, and information on both the PC and XBOX 360 versions.
[Review] Halo Wars
Platform: Xbox 360
Developer: Ensemble Studios
Publisher: Microsoft Game Studios
Rating (USA): T (Teen)
Rating (AU): PG (Parental Guidance Recommended)
Demo: Available on Xbox.com
(This review is based on a release copy of the game graciously provided by MGS)
Halo Wars is the final game to emerge from the venerable Ensemble Studios (Age of Empires series), and the first title from Ensemble to be exclusive to the Xbox 360 console. The game will be released in PAL territories on the 26th February 2009, and in North America on the 3rd March 2009. The title is available in Standard and Limited editions, with the limited edition contained in a plastic covering that holds a Steelbook case for the game, and an extras package for the bonus items, just like Halo 3.
The limited edition contains a code for a Honour Guard Wraith vehicle that can be redeemed on Xbox Live, and a code to download the upcoming Mythic Map pack for Halo 3. It also contains a rubber patch from the Spirit of Fire (the UNSC ship in the game), 6 leader cards that describe the leader powers, and a graphic novel set in the Halo universe.