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View Full Version : XNA 3.1 predicition - free art resource



Fengol
12-05-2009, 11:18 AM
I want to make a predicition that the new avatar functionality in XNA 3.1 will rapidly grow beyond its intended usage.

From a look at the code on insider blogs it's INCREDIBLY easy to get an animated human model working without artistic skills or advanced programming knowledge; and IMHO this is equivalent to a free art resource for making and animating characters.

Sure, the animation list might be limited to friendly/safe actions and modern attire, but compared to having to do the modelling, importing and rending yourself it's a HUGE leap forward for a beginning or hobbyist developer.

I also want to say I called it first when someone makes a sims-like game using avatars.

Azimuth
12-05-2009, 12:12 PM
Like A Kingdom for Keflings (http://www.xbox.com/en-US/games/a/akfkxboxlivearcade/)? :P

Fengol
12-05-2009, 12:20 PM
well, that's more a Age of Empires city building, I mean a sims-like game where you build a house for your sim to live in and manage the relationships with your friends and commit woohoo (or whatever it's called)

dislekcia
12-05-2009, 12:32 PM
Woohoo sounds like a crime.

Fengol
12-05-2009, 12:40 PM
crime of passion?

edg3
12-05-2009, 01:35 PM
You should follow "the "Nerd Herder" blog from a guy on the XNA team.
What to do while the avatar loads. (http://blogs.msdn.com/dejohn/archive/2009/05/11/what-to-do-while-an-avatar-loads.aspx)
Avatar API preview. (http://blogs.msdn.com/dejohn/archive/2009/05/08/avatar-api-preview-for-xna-game-studio-3-1.aspx)

There was a lot of information in a thread on the XNA forums about the avatars, but slowly but surely this blog is addressing them.

And, ignoring the sims aspect, what about Ultimate Quest? *looks around carefully* wouldnt that be pretty insane?

DukeOFprunes
12-05-2009, 02:04 PM
You're deffo onto something. I'd like if they sexed it up using XBLA Arcade. Instead of releasing new free clothing packs (or perhaps in addition to it), have a couple of reasonably simple avatar-based games where the clothing & equipment you buy your avatar ingame actually gets unlocked for your avatar in the Xbx dashboard, outside the game.

That way, they can sell the games for a modest fee as usual and if you work for it, your avatar can have some pretty unique clothing sets.

Fengol
12-05-2009, 03:06 PM
the problem with unlocking special clothing is eveyone else who uses avatars would have to support it. The clothing packs are awesome though and I'd like them to bring out a sport themed one (diving suit, american football, racing driver, cyclist, etc)

What I'm really getting at is that you have a "free" human model to animate and use in your games, no artist or special skill required. I've been trying for a while to get animated models imported from blender into my XNA projects (static models are easy thank goodness) and with my crappy modelling skills I'm reduced to boxes and simple shapes. Even if the animation set is limited to waving, walking and looks of stunned stupidity it's infinitely more than beginning or hobbyist developer could do by themselves.

edg3
12-05-2009, 05:01 PM
the problem with unlocking special clothing is eveyone else who uses avatars would have to support it. The clothing packs are awesome though and I'd like them to bring out a sport themed one (diving suit, american football, racing driver, cyclist, etc)

What I'm really getting at is that you have a "free" human model to animate and use in your games, no artist or special skill required. I've been trying for a while to get animated models imported from blender into my XNA projects (static models are easy thank goodness) and with my crappy modelling skills I'm reduced to boxes and simple shapes. Even if the animation set is limited to waving, walking and looks of stunned stupidity it's infinitely more than beginning or hobbyist developer could do by themselves.
If it has walking built in it will be usable as is to make a variety of games.

Nandrew
13-05-2009, 01:56 PM
I'd like if they sexed it up using XBLA Arcade.

Xbox Live Arcade Arcade? ^^,

DukeOFprunes
13-05-2009, 02:44 PM
Xbox Live Arcade Arcade? ^^,

You're right. You're correct. You're accurate, even exact: what I said is is redundant. It is repetitous. I mentioned it more than once. I repeated myself. I said the same thing over again.

Nandrew
13-05-2009, 04:07 PM
I see what you did thar!

tvdbon
15-05-2009, 01:02 PM
Anybody know when XNA 3.1 will be released ?

dislekcia
17-05-2009, 12:04 PM
Anybody know when XNA 3.1 will be released ?

All we know is that it's likely to come out during the DBP crunch, so that means mid June/early July. Apart from that, there's no concrete date.

Fengol
21-05-2009, 09:20 AM
Based on this blog post (com/dejohn/archive/2009/05/18/lights-camera-avatar.aspx) from Nerd Herder, it looks like the avatar library is going to have a fixed processing pipeline so you can't use your own shader to render them :( Nice to notice the rim lighting though, Catalin's XNA Experiments has an example (http://www.catalinzima.com/?page_id=396) if you want to implement it for your own models

Fengol
26-05-2009, 12:05 PM
"On Windows the profile and random avatar descriptions will return as invalid descriptions because Windows does not support avatars." - Nerd Herder (http://blogs.msdn.com/dejohn/archive/2009/05/20/avatardescription-isvalid-when-why-the-description-returned-is-invalid.aspx)

This sucks :(

edg3
26-05-2009, 02:43 PM
"On Windows the profile and random avatar descriptions will return as invalid descriptions because Windows does not support avatars." - Nerd Herder (http://blogs.msdn.com/dejohn/archive/2009/05/20/avatardescription-isvalid-when-why-the-description-returned-is-invalid.aspx)

This sucks :(
With a free 12 month creators club membership when you enter dream build play it isnt.

Fengol
26-05-2009, 03:15 PM
so you can have avatar on Windows? I thought it was because Windows logins don't create avatars