GameDev360 website updated

I've updated the GameDev360 website for the class. I have it on local disk so not much to show. I'm planning on mostly using the open source project on source forge for the class, but I still needed some place for the syllabus and class overview.

I also had to pick a book for the class. This is the book I'm going to use. I doesn't have anything to do on engine development, so I'll be teaching that part without a book.

I also like these books a lot and will be using them as a resource. The second one doesn't have anything to do with XNA, but it has a lot of good ideas about game engines.

  

CPSC340 Game Development

I've been working on both Project2015 and a class I am teaching this fall. The Project2015 stuff is going very slow and has seemingly lost a ton of momentum. Work has had a tough deadline and this looming class I'm teaching is starting to consume my extra time as I prepare.

The class is on Game Engine Development. My plan so far is to use XNA and C#. I had wanted to use Torque/C++, but the XNA/C# stuff has made some sense and we have been going in that direction. I still want to get in some C++ work and I'm trying to figure out how to do that at this point.

The open source engine is going to be called Panther Game Engine. I've already setup a source forge project for it and have been slowly configuring the group. I still have about 6 weeks, but that doesn't feel like much time.

I've completed all the SVN setup and have my lecture for that planned. I still want to create a screen cast of the process so it will be even clearer.

The term "Game Engine" is heavlily loaded and not well defined. For me, it's all about tools to make building games easier. So, I've been creating the shell of a level editor for xna. The toughest part was integrating XNA and Windows Forms. I have that working and ended up using a piece of Microsoft sample code and have tried to segment it from the open source project as best I could. This really should be part of the XNA release and not some separate set of code, but at least there is a sample of how to do this.

Next up is working on a terrain system, then I want to get the animation work flow down. Lots to do.