CodeCube.NET

you scurvy dogs

So this may or may not be exciting for you faithful readers, but I’ve decided to release my little project out into the world as open source.

The project is called Scurvy Media, and can be found on CodePlex:
http://www.codeplex.com/ScurvyMedia

Why did I call it Scurvy Media when it only contains the Video playing library? Well, I actually have a pretty big interest in both Audio and Video media. I would like eventually for this library to encompass a lot of the ideas I have in that field.

What’s Included

1. Content Pipeline assembly:
   1. AVI importer
      Lets you import AVI videos. the importer architecture is such that you could create importers for additional types of videos.
   2. In-memory processor
      Memory will be loaded fully into memory when you load the video.
   3. Streaming processor
      Video will be streamed from disk at runtime.
2. Runtime assembly
   1. Video class
      very simple runtime class that has a Play method, and properties such as Loop and IsPlaying.
   2. video content manager.
      If you’re using the streaming processor, you have to use this custom content manager because of the way the file stream must be handled.

I’ll be talking about some of the limitations soon, which is what’s driving the current development. Hopefully this project will grow to provide lots of media related functionality to the XNA community

Well done, if Microsoft’s plan of indoctrinating new game developers “when they’re young” (so to speak) works out, these guys are positioned to really take advantage of that. By choosing to ally themselves with XNA, these guys will just naturally choose to license the full XSI tool when they go pro.

Smart. Real Smart.

I plan on taking a look at this when I get a bit more time … hopefully it’s as easy to use as Wings3D. And it apparently has animation support too

In case anyone is reading … stay tuned for an announcement about my XNA Video library in the next day or two

Those of you who know me know that I love skateboarding. Even though I’ve been lame the last few years and let life and everything else get in the way to where I don’t skate … the fire still burns

I remember another game called Thrasher from back when Tony Hawk first came out. At the time, I really liked Thrasher better because it was a bit slower paced … a bit more realistic. And it had this cool feature where the skater would go ragdoll any time you messed up a trick. Very fun game. But I guess Tony Hawk won that battle.

It’s the age old battle between an “Arcadey” game vs. a more proper simulation. Of course, there will be people that can’t stand one or the other. I for one say that there is room in the pantheon of games for both … let’s just hope that dividing the market like that keeps enough customers to continue funding both games

EA Skate. captures the feeling of skating very well … something that bothered me about Tony Hawk was that you could never truly reproduce real-life tricks like doing a trick on a pyramid from one bank to the other. Because the characters would ollie so high, they’d just completely go over the pyramid (a fatty to flatty, as it were ). The physics in EA Skate actually accounts for the surface that you’re going to land on and changes the skater’s direction accordingly. The result is very realistic, and looks awesome.

I’ll definitely be picking this up when it comes out … and hopefully once my workload @ work dies down a bit, I expect to actually start skating again.

Random tidbit: Rob, the guy who runs http://www.skateparkoftampa.com (the best skatepark in the world), is totally a .NET geek

With the Xbox Live APIs being exposed in XNA 2.0, one must start to think about how to use them. One idea I had that would most certainly never be green-lit by a risk averse publisher is for what would best be described as a party game with a focus on team collaboration.

Since the XBox Live APIs are going to let you have a mixture of local and network players in a given game session, the idea is to have multiple XBoxes (at least two) taking part. One team of four would be on one xbox, while the opposing team is on the other.

Team Collaboration

Ever since I played Battlefield 1942, I’ve been enamored with multiplayer collaboration. The fact that it is possible for a well organized team in that game to mount a calculated assault and totally own the enemy is very exciting. Of course, notice I said “it is possible” … I’ve never actually been in an online game where there was any level of organization

This is why I’d like to develop something where the collaboration must occur with people physically on the same box … kinda like when the power rangers form up the megazord and they’re all in the same “room” (does each one control a limb or something? ). Or perhaps how everyone has a role on the bridge of the enterprise.

Obviously, none of this gibberish that I’ve written has much depth … these are all just ideas that I’d love to explore. I don’t expect it to have mass appeal, because you’d have to have a fairly large group to play it (8 at least) physically in the same location. But that’s the great thing about XNA … one can create things that don’t have all of these expectations of ROI.

While it was kind of painful to leave behind my custom developed blog engine, that had served me well and faithfully for 6 or 7 years … it’s nice to be using modern “Technology” like wordpress. It’s nice to download windows live writer and simply point it at my URL and then have this really nice publishing system.

Also nice … no more security holes for George to exploit