Customer Reviews

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

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

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.

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).

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.

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.

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.

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.

It's a good book but the table of contents crashes on my kindle for Android (running on a Motorola Xoom). As it is a recipe book, it's pretty useless without it.

Would give 4 stars if the table of contents worked, as the book delives what it promises.

If you need to develop in 3D with XNA 3.0 by all means get this book. It can be either a step by step treatment of XNA game rendering for the beginner, or a problem solving solution approach for the advanced user. For my Role Playing Game, I needed an introduction to animation and terrain effects and was treated two large sections on the subjects(chapters 4 &5). His web tutorial is good too.

[...]


So try both at the same time. Many of the free tutorials on the web, including creators club, are still for XNA 2.0 and are out of date and in some cases are incompatible with 3.0 development. Not so here.

The code download has one drawback, chapter 4 is not available on [...].

-John

The book XNA 3.0 Game Programming Recipes: A Problem-Solution Approach (Expert's Voice in XNA) suggests to us to discover the Microsoft's framework XNA under a new approch. Stop to beginner tips, Rieme Grootjans offers to us a more profesional vision of the game developement with XNA. Under the form of 95 questions and answers, it will present through its 650 pages a detailled approch of many concepts of the game programming. Dispatch on 8 chapters, it will touch the visual aspect like the 2D programming or the 3D environment simulation. But we will be able to improve in many other domains like sound or network on the XNA API.

The first we can see in reading this book is which present itself under a programmaing referency for the XNA programmaing. Each point is detailed under the form a detailed Q&A and argued through examples. Which are independent from one to other and can be read in your best order. This could be confused for a linear reading because there is often referency to other Q&A of the book from the first pages.

A the background level, the subjects are of all difficulty. We will be able to find articles for beginners but also many articles for more advanced programmers. Some systems like Octrees and Defered Shading are presented to be developped under XNA. These points are often very well presented and detailed "step by step". Unfortunatly, we can find always in the problem to explain more the questions theory than the real usage of the Microsoft's framework.

XNA 3.0 Game Programming Recipes: A Problem-Solution Approach (Expert's Voice in XNA) is a very good book for the developer who have some knowledgeof XNA and who want to get some answers on advanced questions. If we pass through minor problems of the chapters which refer from one to others, Riemer Grootjans suggest here a very good book with a higher level of difficulty. The approached subjects are very interresting and allows to throw ourself deeply in the game programming.

I have tinkered with game programming of and on for years. It always started the same. I'd want to learn to make a game.
I'd buy a book. after a couple weeks I'd quit in disgust. "Why do they make it so freakin hard?" I'd ask every time. I'm sorry but C++ programming and DirectX SDK programming just plain sucks (sadly c++ is better than the alternatives though...) I absolutely hate it. After I started with C# and .NET I just plain won't go back. Id rather not program at all If I had to do that. with C# it's actually FUN! whatta concept?

So anyway, I'd go through this cycle. I'd bounce back and forth between books each proposing their way of learning to be the best and each espousing various game engines and I'd always end up stymied at some point because of some technical hurdle I just couldnt get past. Oh I could do the projects in these books just fine (assuming the code actually worked. Which is rare I have found) but inevitably when I'd try to do something outside the framework of the book I was using I'd always fail and be totally frustrated.

So I bought this book and I have to admit I was pretty skeptical. A cookbook for programming? thats probably just marketing bull or so I thought...

Fast forward to few weeks later after doing the recipe's in the book I find that I am actually making real progress for the first time ever!! Im actually making real components to my own game engine and figuring out how to solve my own problems instead of relying on someone else's game engine. Some one else's crappy code. No more! I'm on my way baby!!!

The writing is very clear. All of the code I've used has worked flawlessly which in my experience with these books is simply a miracle.

If you want to learn XNA 3.0+ I HIGHLY recommend this book to you. It is head and shoulders above the rest.