TXna Game Engine / News: Recent posts

A new Tutorial 09 demonstrating sprites and sprite camera (2D camera) is added. It is currently available only through svn checkout - until we release version 0.7.2

After the TXna Game Engine release 0.7.1 we revisited our tutorial projects and noticed that most where pretty outdated and all had old (now broken) code for background scene loading and activation.
All tutorials are now updated. Please use svn checkout to fetch latest source until we release 0.7.2. which will include the latest tutorials!

TXna GE has a new 'Sprites' namespace.
All sprite related classes are moved to this namespace as a preparation to separate UI scene nodes from sprite scene nodes. Currently all sprites are still UI elements updated and rendered by the UI manager but this will change in near future.

'The Turrets Game' a new title in development (currently closed beta), is based on TXna Game Engine.
You can see more about the game here: http://gambitricky.beep.com/

The next TXna GE release will be scheduled not before mid December. This is an unusually long period but there are other projects partially related to TXna which have much higher priority like the BORG Server (http://borgserver.sourceforge.net/index.html).
However finishing those other projects will just boost the rate of new features that will be implemented in TXna.
So be patient and stay tuned!

Today we have released a patch for TXna GE version 0.5.3 !
This is a source code only release so you need the full 0.5.3 version prior getting this patch. The patch contains some very important fixes in Model loading, shader code and the SceneEditor.
As usual you can visit us at: https://sourceforge.net/projects/txnagameengine/

Happy downloading
Riki

We uploaded a small Demo Scene which can be loaded into the TXna Scene editor to demonstrate some editor features: https://sourceforge.net/projects/txnagameengine/files/

In order to load the scene in a game project it is enough to create a new class inheriting from scene and inside the OnInitialize() override add:
//-------------------------------
// Load scene from Xml project
//-------------------------------
string testPath = @"C:\Path_to_saved_scene\";
XmlParser.LoadScene(engine, this, testPath + "DemoScene.xml");... read more

Today we released the 0.5.3 TXna Game Engine version.
url: https://sourceforge.net/projects/txnagameengine/

After we released the 0.5.2 version we thought we will bring in a week or two a small patch with a Beta release of the Scene Editor.
Unfortunately due to many setbacks this wasn't possible.

This release contains the Scene Editor Beta. Although you can build a full blown Scene and do many things the Editor is still missing a lot of features. All projects created with the scene editor have a predefined folder structure which cannot be changed. Folders are organized in a similar way as the TXna Media folder with its subfolders per asset type.
You can not just drag files into the project subfolders since they will not be picked up by the editor, instead use the editors asset manager.
The asset manager comes with an build in asset compiler. So every file you import into the project will be compiled to Xnb and ready to be used by either a game or the editor itself.
It is expected that many things will change till we have the release ready, keep in mind that we might even change the Editors output Xml format although there are no plans in doing that.
Some toolbars buttons or menu options have no functionality - we are aware there simply wasn't enough time to implement that so please don't submit bug reports.

The new TXna Game Engine release is finally ready!

There are again some breaking changes but as always most users will not even notice them and for those few who do its a matter of seconds to fix their existing code base.

Although we announced it will be released during last week we decided to postpone it as long as possible and releasing it with our new Scene Editor. Unfortunately we didn't manage to squeeze in all the Editor features in such short time frame. The main problem with the editor is the fact that it simply wannt work if not all the features are implemented so we couldn't take an incremental approach. We hope that we will release it during this week but no promises on my side. Along with the editor a minor TXna GE patch 0.5.2.1 will be released. ... read more

We added a video clip showing the Scene Editor in action:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0l2-5r-fm2E

Note that this is a developer version therefore not even in alpha stage. We will probably include a preview version of the editor in the next 0.5.2 TXna GE release.

Dear community,

The TXna GE team has started working on a Scene Editor.
In fact the team has been working almost exclusively on the editor since the last 5.1.1 release.

A rather early stage of the scene editor is captured and uploaded to youtube, you can check it out here: http://www.youtube.com/user/GambitRicky#play/all/0/TbNUYZFOlzU

Although the engine has been updated mostly to support the editor with serializing and deserializing infrastructure a couple of fixes together with new features are introduced. Let me just say that we have a brand new User Primitives manager handling 2D and 2D lines, points and triangles.
Unfortunately there are some breaking changes but hey that is the reason we are still in Alpha. ... read more

A new tutorial named TXnaGE 07Tutorial has been added to the TXna SVN repository. This tutorial shows how to run TXna inside Windows Forms. Windows Forms support is build in the TXna framework so the user only has to implement one interface with two simple properties!

As usual you can check it out at: https://txnagameengine.svn.sourceforge.net/svnroot/txnagameengine , username: txnagameengine with no password.

A patch for the TXna GE v 0.5.1. is released.
Unfortunately right after we released tha last TXnaGE version we become aware that we messed up the Project structure and didn't reference all needed files. This patch fixes that problem and brings a bug fix for the SkyDomeSceneNode where the sphere calculation was under certain circumstances producing visible artifacts.

The patch is source only and just updates the project file references and has some source modification in TXnaGE. You must have the full version downloaded before for this patch to work but as usual the easiest would be to just make an SVE checkout or export from https://txnagameengine.svn.sourceforge.net/svnroot/txnagameengine user name is:txnagameengine, no password... read more

The new 0.5.1. TXna GE version is released and ready for downloading.

TXna GE is XNA 3.1 based game engine written in c#. It is user friendly and components from which a developer can build scenes but also allows mixing with standard Xna techniques.

We have again cool new features like hardware instancing which is as easy as adding your SceneNodes to a InstanceSceneNode<T> generic class.
We also added support for running inside Windows.Forms, which was needed for the Scene Editor. The scene editor is not even close to an Alpha release but for the next release we might have something to show.
We started heavy profiling and optimizations which the user will notice the very first moment he starts an application compiled with the new release.
To see all the features added, breaking changes and bug fixes please take a look at the Changes.txt... read more

Dear community the TXna Game Engine v0.5.1 will be released this week. TXnaGE is XNA 3.1 based framework for game development written completely in c#.

The upcomming release has many exciting new features, like the Hardware instancing component just to mention my favorite, some bug fixes and lot of refactoring and optimizations.
A new Tutorial06 project demonstrating some new features is is already finished and added to the repository.... read more

A new release of our TXna Game Engine is uploaded to SF.
The big surprise is that we jumped over a whole bunch of intermediate releases and produced the 0.5.0!

After the 0.4.3 we planned to release 0.4.4 and slowly add features one at a time. Implementing an UI system and a 2D primitives renderer was our milestone for the 0.5 release. Due to many circumstances but mostly working overtime, we managed to add even more features than we thought its possible in such a short time frame ...... read more

Dear community,
The new TXna release is almost ready and we will release it either during the weekend or first half next week.
We worked hard to bring a bunch of new and exciting features, unfortunately such a huge amount of features couldn't come for free so we had to introduce some breaking changes which are listed in the Changes.txt. Giving the number of changes, new features and a couple of milestones reached this release will have the 0.5.0 version number which is a big jump compared to the last 0.4.3 release!
We are still Alpha and will stay alpha as long as we feel that new features and changes will inevitably break the existing interfaces.... read more

Since the commits in the branches\standard_dev are numerous and the upcoming 0.4.4 release is regarding the changes and new features more a major release than a minor we decided to merge all changes in the branches\standard_dev with the trunc.
All the new folks checking out the source from the trunc please do an SVN Update.

The next release is planned for end of this or mid next week so stay tuned..
Riki

A small video clip showing TXna GE release 0.4.3 in action:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BXSJqZj8tf0

After a couple of long coding months we finally released the 0.4.3 version of the TXna Game Engine. There are major changes some of them breaking like switching to the new XNA 3.1 framework. Most of the changes are fixes and new features, there is even a PhysX integration demonstration in the Tutorial05.

BREAKING CHANGES:
- NEW XNA 3.1 version !!! You must download & install the Xna 3.1 framework before loading the solution
- removed Effect property from the RenderableSceneNode, added new Material property which contains the Effect property... read more

The TXna team has released a new engine update. The version 0.4.2 Alpha is a source only update for the 0.4.0 or 0.4.1 full installations. This package contains no media files thus without a previous full install the tutorials would not run.

Checkout our gallery at: http://apps.sourceforge.net/gallery/txnagameengine/

Please visit us at:https://sourceforge.net/projects/txnagameengine/

and join our forum at: http://txna.freeforums.org/... read more

We released the 0.4.1 of our game engine. This is a bug fix/update release. We had to fix the materials which was could not updated once assigned to a scene node. The light culling method was changed as well and the point lights work as expected now. We also updated the 04Tutorial.

There are two packages one with full source and media and one with source code only and a missing media file. Users already downloaded the release 0.4.0 should just grab the small source only package.

We are proud to announce that a major milestone is reached. This release version bring more new features and updates than ever before!
TXna has a new unified Material-Lightning-Shader system. Scenes can have up to 255 lights. Lightning supports directional, point and spot lights with ambient color. Materials support diffuse and specular color, diffuse texturing, detail/noise mapping, up to 4 additional textures. We have new SceneNodes, aggregated scene statistics, node culling during the update() phase and a lot more exciting features.

Dear TXna GE users, since the TXna complexity reached a critical mass we had to restructure our repository. The repository has now a typical trunk/branches/tags structure. Please use the Tortoise switch feature to redirect your working copies to the new url --> https:\\old_repository_url\trunk\

The TXna Alpha pre-0.4 package is released. This package contains EVERYTHING, thus the size is about 9 MB.
This is a major update bringing new features and bug fixes. Due to major core development which has been started but not finished (like lightning and material system, particle system etc.) we will be unable to release the v0.4 until probably end of the week. Anyone testing or evaluating TXna is recommended to update to this pre 0.4 version!
Please note however that SVN is still the most easiest way to stay in sync with the new changes.... read more