After much struggling, I figured out a way to get things moving down the content pipeline. I wanted to see if Carrara was a viable solution. I used the demo as a test. Can Carrara be used to make models for XNA? It seems likely, but I'm not 100% sure. If you've been following the story up to now, I wasn't able to get textures to export. Carrara has an export to .FBX feature. Apparently, it does not export the textures - just the models. I had to contact Daz3D directly to find that out.

No wonder I couldn't get it to work right.

However, all was not lost. I still favored Carrara, as it was cheap and easy to use. OK, I can't export to FBX. That was my only reason for buying the pro version. Can I save $300 by going with the $250 version? It would seem so, as Carrara can export to .3DS or Wavefront .OBJ. From there, I could use Wings3D to do the conversion. I converted the .OBJ to .FBX, then dropped it into .XNA. (To think, I had no idea what any of this meant just a few weeks ago.)

I left out a part. I used Corel Photo-Paint to create a texture. I suppose you can use any program you like, but I've gotten used to Corel. So OK, put it all together and you get this...



The bump texture map seems to be missing. That's what gives the Asteroid a gritty look. Also, for some reason, the asteroid seems to be very brownish in XNA. I don't want my rocks to resemble flying turds. I'm not sure, but maybe bump mapping needs to be turned on in XNA. I know anti-aliasing isn't on, as I can see jaggies.

Anyhoo... I'm almost ready to take the plunge. I mean come on... look how real that rock looks. Isn't that type of creativity worth $250? I have next to no experience with 3D animation. Now, I'm almost ready to make artwork for XBOX 360 games. I haven't made the final decision though. I'm still wondering what happened to my bump map!

__________________
Michael Garofalo
Webmaster - http://photics.com

I didn't want to double post... but since it's my site, I suppose I'm allowed.

Gwen's Rock Paper Scissor Challenge is now available!

This game is SOOOOOO adorable. Challenge Gwen to the classic game of Rock, Paper, Scissors. The game was made by Matthew Resendiz. I already told ArenaNet about the game. Hopefully they'll post up about it. (We'll know on Thursday.) I'm planning on posting up about this game on the Photics.com homepage. That will probably be done by tomorrow.

This wasn't done through collaboration, it wasn't done through competition. It was just done. Matt went off on his own and made the game. In a sense though, that is collaboration. Together, we're populating the Photics Arcade. Things are starting to take shape, as there are three games now available.

Where do we go from here? What should happen to this thread? Which is your game creation tool of choice - XNA or Flash?

...and no, my XNA asteroid is not responsible for that unusual odor in NYC today.
(It looks like I'll have to give up on Carrara, as I can't get it to export right.)

__________________
Michael Garofalo
Webmaster - http://photics.com

Nice game Matt!

Photics:
If Adobe gave away the Flash program for free I might have chosen Flash.. but the official XNA developer software is free, plus it can do 3D! Flash is slow and limited in what you can do with it, so I'll have to go with XNA

Ah, but I'm finding that XNA is MUCH MORE involved. I know that if I dedicate a week to creating a flash game, I'll have a fairly decent game by the end of that week. I'm not so sure about XNA. It's already been 2-3 weeks, and I'm still having trouble getting my "sexy rock" into XNA.

Granted, the quality of XNA games is far superior to Flash games, but I'm not progressing as fast as I'd like with XNA. How about you? How do you feel about Microsoft Game Studio Express?

There's still no word on the Dream-Build-Play competition...
http://www.dreambuildplay.com/index.html

Right now I'm stuck in between the Dream and Build stage of the project. Ha!


Flash Strengths:

• You can create artwork in Flash.
• It's fairly easy to use, once you get used to actionscript.
• Flash has been around longer, more resources available.
  (Tutorials, Downloadable .FLAs, books)

Hey... there's an idea. Why should we bother trying to make a game? Maybe we should just write a book on how to make an XNA game?


XNA Strengths:

• Cutting Edge Technology - XBOX 360 games
• Yah, it's cheaper than Flash
  (not counting 3D animation software or the $100 subscription fee.)
• Better chance to go commercial. (I'd be more likely to buy a good XNA PC game, rather than a Flash game. People expect Flash games to be free and online... but there are exceptions.)

So... big risk, big reward. Going with XNA seems like the better decision, but it also seems like a much bigger headache. XNA is new technology. A lot of features that should be there are not there yet.

What's your progress like Nemi? I've hit a wall. Granted, I didn't expect to create such an awesome looking rock, but I didn't realize how difficult it would be to get that rock into the game. Carrara's out, so I've been looking for new software.

__________________
Michael Garofalo
Webmaster - http://photics.com