XNA 3.0 Game Programming Recipes: A Problem-Solution Approach (Expert's Voice in XNA) [Paperback]

Riemer Grootjans (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 11, 2009 | Series: Expert's Voice in XNA

Join the game development revolution today! XNA 3.0 greatly simplifies the development of your own games, lowering the barrier for programmers to get into game development. In XNA, you can start coding your games from the very start, a true revelation compared to other game programming environments. XNA doesn’t sacrifice power for this ease of use—it is built entirely on DirectX technology.

Completely updated for XNA 3.0, expert Riemer Grootjans brings together a selection of the hottest recipes in XNA programming for the Xbox 360, PC, and Zune. Advanced XNA programmers, experienced coders new to game development, and even complete beginners will find XNA 3.0 Game Programming Recipes an invaluable companion whether building games for fun or as commercial products.

What you’ll learn

This title covers virtually every feature of the XNA 3.0 Framework. It focuses primarily on 2D and 3D graphics programming, but other game programming features such as audio playback, networking, and mobile gaming are also discussed in detail.

These are some of the topics that are being covered in depth:

• How to create 2D graphics
• 3D rendering techniques at various levels of difficulty
• Creating games for the Zune mobile device
• Loading, rendering, and animating 3D models
• How to read input devices: keyboard, mouse, and Xbox 360 Controller
• Using audio to spice up your game
• Adding networking to your game to challenge your friends
• Architectural XNA features, such as GameComponents
• The content pipeline: one of the three major components in XNA game development
• A whole list of HLSL techniques!

Who this book is for

This book is for everyone! Whatever your experience, you will find a recipe to suit your need and skill. Great care has been taken to ensure the easier recipes provide a great deal of detail so they can be followed by readers without much programming experience. Each chapter gradually builds in difficulty so you will be able to progress through it as your XNA coding improves and you move on to more sophisticated techniques.

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: 649 pages
• Publisher: Apress; 1 edition (March 11, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 143021855X
• ISBN-13: 978-1430218555
• Product Dimensions: 7.5 x 1.3 x 9.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.9 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #938,731 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent Resource May 4, 2009

By NeilUnreal

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

When I decided to start working with XNA 3.0, I searched long and hard for just the right book. I needed a book that would zero in on the heart of XNA without dwelling at length on the basics of Visual Studio and C#, or going into too much depth on the matrix math. Something that would get me started specifically on XNA as a graphics programming component of the overall .NET architecture.

I found Riemer's XNA tutorial site and was impressed by the quality of both the code and the writing. I was able to learn a lot in short period of time. I saw that he also had a book in the works covering XNA 3.0 and so I decided to research it. Based on what I found, I saw that the book was an excellent complement to the tutorial site, covering lots of detailed information not found in the tutorials. So I decided to order it.

Wise move. The book is an outstanding resource. And a real bargain in these times of high-priced and bloated programming tomes. I basically like everything about the book, but there are a couple of things I want to mention that I particularly appreciate:

First is the format. The book is organized in a problem/solution recipe format. This works really well because it mimics the way engineers work. It makes it easy to find the solution to a particular problem, but it also makes for fruitful browsing.

Second are the code snippets contained in the book. I find that just the right amount of code and context are included with each example. I have yet to find a sample that is either confusing because of a lack of context or that is unclear because the point of the sample is buried in irrelevant code. (Of course, the full source is available online....)

I can recommend this book without hesitation to beginning and intermediate XNA programmers who have some experience with Visual Studio and C#. (But one doesn't have to be an expert in these technologies; I think a sound hobbyist or student level of familiarity would be enough if one is sufficiently motivated.) Some experience with the general principles of computer graphics and matrix algebra would be helpful too, but I think these things could be learned concurrently.

All in all, max stars, I'd buy it again in a heartbeat. Read more ›

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Great book to use as a reference for cool game dev techniques August 26, 2009

By M. tsouris

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

This book has been very helpful. I was already a little familiar with XNA programming, so this book was a good logical next step. It does not cover game dev from beginning to end, but covers a lot of advanced techniques that you will quickly need to know after you start. I'm building a 3d game and this book has been a very valuable resource for research. Besides examples, i think the explanations are really insightful. Especially when he covers the optimized and non-optimized way of doing things (like billboarding).

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Great book - Intermediate level July 15, 2009

By M. Jones

Format:Paperback

Great book.

Good examples, some more advanced than others.

Make sure you have an intermediate understanding of XNA.

Well written, clear concepts, in-depth detail.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Good Book January 5, 2010

By Andrei Mouravski

Format:Paperback

Given the popularity of "programming cookbooks" on the shelves nowadays, it is
no surprise to find one for the XNA Framework by Microsoft. XNA 3.0 Game
Programming Recipes, by Riemer Grootjans, is probably one of the better
recipe-style computing books that I have read recently. In general, these books
tend to excel at having excellent programming examples with decent explanations,
or vice-versa. Grootjans has managed to get the best of both worlds with this
book and provides very details and easy to read code samples with clear and
understandable explanations alongside them.

This book contains eight chapters filled with a variety of examples ranging from
networking and audio processing in XNA to vertex processing and lighting
techniques. Throughout the book, there are several core themes that are
scattered throughout among several recipes. In the introduction, Grootjans
points out these themes and suggests a path of recipes to follow for each one.
This makes it very easy to follow recipes and build one on top of the other
while developing a game. This is probably one of my favorite aspects of this
book. It allows each individual tutorial to maintain its independence, but
gives the reader a clear path throughout the book to learn several core concepts
to game programming.

I would recommend this book to an intermediate user of XNA as a reference, but
also to a beginner. The first chapter of the book is dedicated to setting up
XNA and getting started with your first game. This allows novices to easily
sit down with this book and get started with XNA.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars The best XNA book for intermediate/advanced. January 24, 2010

By batpox

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

I've been using XNA for awhile now, so I'm in the intermediate/advanced category (I think), and this is by far the best book I've seen on the topic. So good, in fact, that I purchased the 3.0 book even though I already had the 2.0.

The 'Recipes' books are generally good, but this one is great even by those standards. It has high quality examples for a wide range of topics. As I've convert my 3D engine from DirectX to XNA, this has been my 'go to' guide.

A few items I'd like to see: better coverage of deployment, and more coverage of shaders and HLSL.

I bought this for my Kindle, so some thoughts for Amazon: Like all of my reference books, I often read it on Kindle-PC from a separate monitor and this work great. However, you (Amazon) really, really, really, need to make books searchable, particularly reference books like this.

3.0 out of 5 stars Obsolete but Good Practice Nonetheless September 25, 2011

By Davis

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

XNA is now in version 4.0, so a lot of the syntax this book uses doesn't apply anymore. On the other hand, it DOES show some useful ways of structuring the objects and classes in XNA to make a game that flows well. Useful if you already know XNA 4.0 and just need some practice.