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Fengol
17-06-2008, 07:27 AM
This might be some old news, but Microsoft is giving away free 12-month trials of their XNA Creators Club so you can make games for the Xbox 360 when you register for the Dream Build Play 2008 Challenge (http://www.dreambuildplay.com/main/default.aspx).

After signing up, I immediately got my license on the webpage (be sure to scrap it off the page, I haven't received any email with it yet); and now I'm just downloading the Game Studio so I can set it all up.

When XNA Game Studio first came out you could make Windows games for free but you had to subscribe for about $90 a year to join the Creators Club and download the software that enabled you to build and play on the 360.

Now you still have to do the download part, but at least the key is free for a year.

dislekcia
17-06-2008, 01:36 PM
Don't worry, you can get your key from your profile page on the DPB site whenever you log in :)

-D

Fengol
18-06-2008, 07:56 AM
I got a little demo using my free trial of XNA Connect running on my 360 this morning; below is a crappy screenshot

http://i139.photobucket.com/albums/q312/Fengol/xnaAction.jpg

All in all, it took me 30min to setup, build and take a screenshot.

Although XNA is FAR harder to build with than Game Maker (and you don't realize how awesome GM is until you don't use it) I want to see if I can make a little game using it. Being able to demo my games to my friends on my 360 is just kick-ass somehow.

FuzzYspo0N
18-06-2008, 08:28 AM
thats awesome fengol, would you like to work on a minigame together? i have been messing with XNA a lot lately cos im doing my crash trolley game in it now.

Fengol
18-06-2008, 09:51 AM
I'm sorry but I'm not doing any collaborative project at the moment as I'm busy polishing some existing games. I just played with the XNA stuff because I did a lot of articles and presentations on it when it first came out a bout 2 years ago but I couldn't afford the Creators Club account; and just wanted to see how it works.

FuzzYspo0N
18-06-2008, 10:54 AM
cool, its much fun to play with. i especially am enjoying the simplicity of the shaders and the incredible results.. its so awesome getting things that complex to work with simplicity

Bonezmann
24-06-2008, 10:54 AM
Do you actually NEED a 360 to test your games or can you test it on a PC?

dislekcia
24-06-2008, 01:59 PM
You can build your games on PC just fine, although obviously input issues might be a problem if you don't have a 360 controller that you can use on the PC. A mouse/keyboard isn't going to be available on the console.

In the end you'd need to test it on 360 for the DBP contest, they're only accepting 360 games this time around.

-D

Chippit
24-06-2008, 02:02 PM
You can build your games on PC just fine, although obviously input issues might be a problem if you don't have a 360 controller that you can use on the PC. A mouse/keyboard isn't going to be available on the console.

In the end you'd need to test it on 360 for the DBP contest, they're only accepting 360 games this time around.

-D
If you do this, just make sure you keep an eye on which functions and classes you use. Only elements in the compact framework are available on 360. You can see which is which in the XNA documentation.

dislekcia
24-06-2008, 02:25 PM
If you do this, just make sure you keep an eye on which functions and classes you use. Only elements in the compact framework are available on 360. You can see which is which in the XNA documentation.

A very good point! A rule of thumb is to test compile your code for 360 even if you don't have one, that will let you know if you're making use of something that isn't in the CF.

-D

edg3
24-06-2008, 04:35 PM
Also save often, and make mental note of what you change :P For some reason if someone does something like run media center connect my pc freezes completely when C# is open and trying to deploy...

I was wondering, any Idea of how to get past the problem with wide screen tvs?
I use the following to change my screen size to the xbox's set output but seem to still have stretching....
its in the initialise event.


graphics.PreferredBackBufferHeight = GraphicsAdapter.DefaultAdapter.CurrentDisplayMode. Height;
graphics.PreferredBackBufferWidth = GraphicsAdapter.DefaultAdapter.CurrentDisplayMode. Width;
graphics.IsFullScreen = true;
graphics.ApplyChanges();

dislekcia
25-06-2008, 02:43 PM
What are those default values you're passing? Also, what kind of stretching are you getting? I just used 3:4 and 16:10 ratios accordingly.

-D

edg3
26-06-2008, 08:30 AM
well, the buffers are supposed to be change the max x and y values to suit the resolution, and it looks like its made a difference, but Im not so sure, is there something else I can change rather that will give me the screen size changes? I can post a photo if you want...

dislekcia
26-06-2008, 02:32 PM
I'm sorry, but I don't think I'm understanding your problem here... If you want to set the resolution you're running at, those are the numbers you change. That's pretty much it.

-D

edg3
26-06-2008, 02:52 PM
Ok, well, I set the resolution like that, to whatever the xbox's display settings are set to, but then still find stretching of my sprites occurs...

Sorry for the lack of clarity

dislekcia
26-06-2008, 03:23 PM
Ok, well, I set the resolution like that, to whatever the xbox's display settings are set to, but then still find stretching of my sprites occurs...

Sorry for the lack of clarity

Ah, then that's a mapping issue: Meaning your sprite isn't being drawn in a co-ordinate system that's relative to the pixels on your screen.

How are you drawing your sprite and are you sure that it's definitely going to be the same resolution as the screen pixels it covers? If you're drawing in 3D then chances are it's not going to be the exact size it needs to be. You could also switch off texture filtering to prevent "blurring". And finally, if you're using the built-in SpriteBatch functionality, are you sure that your object's position is at a pixel-boundary on the screen? It might be that you're drawing something at the equivalent of halfway between 2 pixels and that's causing the texture to be filtered excessively.

An image of the problem would help a lot in diagnosing the issue correctly ;)

-D

edg3
26-06-2008, 04:07 PM
My code is drawing it as a perfect square, so thats why Im assuming that something is wrong with my resolution changing code.

spriteBatch.Begin(SpriteBlendMode.AlphaBlend, SpriteSortMode.Deferred, SaveStateMode.SaveState);

spriteBatch.Draw(bg, new Rectangle(0, 0, w, h), _fade);


spriteBatch.Draw(hud, new Rectangle(32, 32, hud.Width, hud.Height), _fade);
if (mode)
{
Color _g = new Color(0, 255, 0);
spriteBatch.Draw(pea, new Rectangle(41, 45, 72, 72), _g);
spriteBatch.Draw(pea_eye, new Rectangle(41, 45, 72, 72), Color.White);
}
else
{
Color _g = new Color(255, 0, 0);
spriteBatch.Draw(pea, new Rectangle(41, 45, 72, 72), _g);
spriteBatch.Draw(pea_eye, new Rectangle(41, 45, 72, 72), Color.White);
}
spriteBatch.End();

_fade just has to do with fading in and out, its rgb values are 255,255,255, I just use it for anything that doesnt change colour so that I can fade in and out.

Images
Full screen, woohoo, look, a Pea on my Xbox 360! (http://realdev.co.za/edg3-images/Camera0001.jpg) 83kb
Close up (http://realdev.co.za/edg3-images/Camera0002.jpg) 171kb

dislekcia
27-06-2008, 06:14 PM
Ok, what resolution are you running? I used 1280x768 on my 360 in widescreen and that worked fine...

-D