XNA 2.0 Game Programming Recipes: A Problem-Solution Approach (Books for Professionals by Professionals) [Paperback]

Riemer Grootjans (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 159059925X | ISBN-13: 978-1590599259 | Publication Date: July 11, 2008 | Edition: 1

XNA programming is an increasingly popular way of creating games for the Microsoft Xbox 360 home entertainment system (they also run on Microsoft Windows PCs). The free development tools distributed by Microsoft make it a platform that appeals to both the professional developer looking to create a commercial product and the home enthusiast wanting to put together games in their spare time.

This book is calculated to appeal to as wide a range of people as possible, whether they are complete beginners or already have coding experience in another area. It will provide recipes to help people over the common hurdles that they experience when setting out to create both 2D and 3D applications with XNA. Particularly it will provide helpful snippets of the HLSL coding language built into to XNA in order to help people bind their applications together seamlessly. This is an area that does not receive much coverage in most XNA books and will set this title apart.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Riemer Grootjans received his degree in electronic engineering with a specialization in informatics at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel in Belgium. He is a member of a research team working toward a Ph.D, and is responsible for visualization of 3D data. For several years, Riemer has been maintaining a web site with tutorials for DirectX. Since the early beta stages of XNA in 2006, he has ported all his content to XNA and is helping more than 1,000 people on their path to XNA success every day. In July 2007 and 2008, he received the Microsoft "Most Valuable Professional" Award for his contributions to the XNA community.

Product Details

• Paperback: 648 pages
• Publisher: Apress; 1 edition (July 11, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 159059925X
• ISBN-13: 978-1590599259
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 7 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,196,194 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Rare Author Who's Mastered Both Content and Communication, December 1, 2008

By 

J. Humphreys (Studio City, CA United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: XNA 2.0 Game Programming Recipes: A Problem-Solution Approach (Books for Professionals by Professionals) (Paperback)

This is my first review in almost 10 years of using Amazon. Never have I felt this compelled to share how great a product is. Riemer is, very simply, that rare author who not only fundamentally knows his subject, but understands how to communicate it in ways that make the learning process both intuitive and nearly effortless.

I've been reading software books since I was a kid, and I can say with confidence that most of them fall short in the effective communication department. Sure, there are stacks of books out there packed with useful information, but all the knowledge in the world is useless if you can't understand it. Riemer not only gets the knowledge right, he helps you rightly get at the knowledge. (And this is doubly astounding when you consider that English isn't even the author's first language!)

If you're new to XNA, Managed DirectX, or HLSL shader programming, this book will get you up and running fast. If, like me, you've already had some experience, the tips you'll pick up in this book are a great investment in your programming future. At Amazon's price, this book is a steal.

On a side note, I first came across Riemer's work through his website. (Google for it.) His XNA and DirectX tutorials were the first that actually made sense to me, and I highly recommend them as supplemental material to this book.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Great resource for intermediate 3D developers, February 11, 2009

By 

Daniel Bailiff - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: XNA 2.0 Game Programming Recipes: A Problem-Solution Approach (Books for Professionals by Professionals) (Paperback)

This was the first book on XNA that I bought because I was looking for a book on XNA that wasn't also a tutorial on C#. It definitely assumes you already have some prior C# and XNA programming experience. The recipe analogy is a good one, because the author assumes you know your way around the kitchen, so to speak. This is a two edged sword, because if you're looking for a book to teach you the "right way" to develop in XNA, keep looking because this is only an idea book on how to solve specific problems or goals when creating games in XNA.

The advantages of this book is that you can get what you want out of it. It's laid out such that similar ideas are grouped together, but you can skip around and learn about just the topics that are important to you. There are some really cool ideas in here and it can save you a lot of time to look here first before trying to reinvent the wheel on some key concepts.

The disadvantages of this book is that there is a lot of hand waving and its really short of fleshed out examples in terms of code. The disjointed nature means you can't use previous chapters to build an overall project, it assumes you already have some kind of structure in place and there's no coaching on how to connect the pieces.

One important aspect of this book is that it's primarily geared towards 3D programming, shaders, and lighting. While graphics are arguably the most important topic of game programming, if you're not writing a 3D game, this book won't be of much use to you. There are really only 3 chapters that deal with topics outside of 3D programming. On the other hand, if this is what you want, you will find a treasure trove of tricks and tips for getting some cool stuff out of XNA. I would argue that this book would be better off being renamed as "XNA 3D programming recipes", and leave out the chapters on networking and sound.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Brilliant, August 1, 2008

By 

Mr. Andrew C. Patrick "andypatrick" (Loughborough, United Kingdom) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: XNA 2.0 Game Programming Recipes: A Problem-Solution Approach (Books for Professionals by Professionals) (Paperback)

I wasn't convinced by the "recipe-based" approach before I ordered this book, but I enjoyed the author's online tutorials so thought I would give it a shot. I ended up buying and reading what is, pure and simple the best XNA book currently on the market.

Each "recipe" is direct and to the point with a minimum of fuss. Some are straightforward and can be skimmed over quickly, while others investigate the deepest corners of XNA and shine a light upon them. I've been writing games professionally for six years and there were recipes in this book that made me stop and say, "wow".

I'm not convinced it would be a great purchase for beginners - the direct and succinct writing style may not provide enough detail for those who aren't used to creating basic games already. However, there are a plethora of other XNA books targeted at beginners - this one says, "so you know a little bit about XNA? Now let me show you the good stuff."

If I had to pick up on anything, it would be that the book could have done with more diagrams. Sometimes the only way to actually see the results of a recipe, instead of just understanding it conceptually, is to copy out (or download) the example code. This is a minor quibble, because the explanations are clear and to the point, and more diagrams might have meant fewer recipes, which would have been a far bigger price to pay.