I love the xbox and more…

Wohoo!! The first online meeting for developing a fun game using XNA is scheduled for this sunday 4/11 at 4:00 p.m. This is an online meeting. Instructions will be posted on the Linked In group Lets XNA!!

Anyone who wants to use XNA to develop games or apps on windows mobile, windows live or xbox 360 will love this group effort. We are going to have fun, solve issues together and produce a game in the process.

Come and join the linked in group and lets build a game together!!

There is a new project being created on CodePlex for members of the linked in group Lets XNA!! to contribute to and create a fun game in the process!!

The goal is to build a nice cool game and have fun in the process.

When i started to get serious about XNA i started looking for a good book to begin learning. Like most people (IMHO) i learn better through books and then self training than reading everything online.

The Microsoft XNA Unleashed by Chad Carter is a great book as it is not merely a skim through from the top for XNA but is very detailed. I have just started and i dont think i will be done with the book very soon.

I like his presentation style as well as the detail. It looks like I am going to take some time to learn XNA (not a bad idea). I hope to release my first XNA game sometime in December 2008 to the live community.

But like all other things if you need to understand something in its entirety (See Grok on wiki)you need to give it the time it needs.

I will post an update on the book as i near completion. Stay tuned!!

We had a wonderful presentation on XNA and Robotics studio by William Steele from Microsoft at our CINNUG user group. As always he presented all the concepts nicely and we had a lot of fun. Its amazing to see where robotics studio is today and even more amazing to realize that Robotics studio depends on XNA.

Bill recommended a good tool to create 3D models for games: Anim8or (http://www.anim8or.com). Its free, its been developed by an employee of NVidia and is widely used. I also looked at Maya. I like Maya for the feature set but not for the price.

I have a decision to make regarding the tool of choice to create models. Blender was recommended also. RenderMan is another.

I believe the approach i am going to take is
a) Use Anim8or to see if it meets my needs. If it does, no further action required.
b) Look at RenderMan next
c) Look at Maya last.

By the time i get to C i need to have 5-6K ready.

Robotics studio looks cool but if u XNA like me then one can only do so much. I gotta XNA.

The best way to get started (IMHO) is to go through the tutorial at http://creators.xna.com/beginnersguide/index.html . While many folks who have gone through the tutorial have pointed out that it is outdated and not applicable to XNA 2.0 it is an excellent starting point for people who are just entering game development.

I will post more findings as i go through the tutorial. I wish that Microsoft update this tutorial to work with game studio 2.0 and 3.0 which is due soon.

Hiya All
I am going to be blogging a lot about XNA. XNA is just the best thing that has happened to game developers since it brings the world of game development to those game developers who felt game development was too complex to venture into.

I am awaiting the release of XNA studio 3.0 and to experience game development on Zune!!
Stay tuned to this blog for more and more exciting XNA blogs as i begin my first game development on XBOX