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Geek Culture / XNA or DBPro

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Bozzy
18
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Joined: 10th Sep 2006
Location: Birmingham, UK
Posted: 22nd Sep 2007 20:48
Hi,

I've bought DBPro and loads of addons, but I've seen this XNA and it looks nice. What's the difference between them, and which dya think is better?

Cheers,
Bozzy
CattleRustler
Retired Moderator
21
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Location: case modding at overclock.net
Posted: 22nd Sep 2007 21:13
I prefer oranges, no wait... apples!!

My DBP plugins page is now hosted [href]here[/href]
Kohaku
20
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Location: The not very United Kingdom
Posted: 22nd Sep 2007 21:22
Personally, I find apples to be a bit too acidic.

XNA does sound pretty awesome with the big plus of Xbox 360 development, but that's all I really know about it. Having a browse through what I think is the site for it, the licenses don't seem too different in cost from a copy of DBP, but I don't know how to finish that sentence.

I guess what I'm really trying to say is that I don't like apples. Unless they're chopped up with cheese. Then they're nice.

http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/xna/aa937793.aspx


You are not alone.
BatVink
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Location: Gods own County, UK
Posted: 22nd Sep 2007 21:29 Edited at: 22nd Sep 2007 21:36
If you've seen any of the write-ups in the press about XNA, you'll notice that none of them get any further than a spinning cube.

DB Pro



XNA



Bozzy
18
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Location: Birmingham, UK
Posted: 22nd Sep 2007 21:32
lol DBPro it is then
Jonny_S
22
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Location: United Kingdom
Posted: 22nd Sep 2007 21:33
Quote: "with the big plus of Xbox 360 development"

Yep, if you wish to spend £99 every x amount of months membership in the XNA creators club account.
If you have DBP and alot of plugins, why waste your money moving on to C# & XNA, I see little real benefit if your just interested in making games for fun.

Your signature has been erased by a mod
Chris K
21
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Location: Lake Hylia
Posted: 22nd Sep 2007 21:37
CattleRustler nailed it - they aren't really competing products.

-= Out here in the fields, I fight for my meals =-
Bozzy
18
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Location: Birmingham, UK
Posted: 22nd Sep 2007 21:53
Oh, that's what he meant by the fruit thing
Grandma
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Location: Norway, Guiding the New World Order
Posted: 22nd Sep 2007 22:15
Yup, they say you can't compare apples to oranges. I beg to differ though, i compare them all the time.

It gives me that daily adrenaline rush.

I'd choose DBP anyday.

This message was brought to you by Grandma industries.

Making yesterdays games, today!
David R
21
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Location: 3.14
Posted: 22nd Sep 2007 22:20
BatVink, that's a Silverlight demo with C#, not XNA


09-f9-11-02-9d-74-e3-5b-d8-41-56-c5-63-56-88-c0
Jeku
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Location: Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
Posted: 22nd Sep 2007 22:43 Edited at: 22nd Sep 2007 22:43
And it's a bit exaggerated, but I guess proves a point

XNA is free for Windows dev, as somebody has pointed out previously. You can download Visual Studio C# Express and have fun with it.

Jonny_S
22
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Location: United Kingdom
Posted: 22nd Sep 2007 23:05
Yes I've just realised there are two threads asking the same thing on the same page...

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CattleRustler
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Location: case modding at overclock.net
Posted: 23rd Sep 2007 00:31 Edited at: 23rd Sep 2007 00:33
then theres the middle ground to what BatVink said:

DGDK.NET (VB.NET)



Its exactly like DBP but in an OOP environment, with all other .NET namespaces and such at your fingertips - couple it with kBessa's LightEngine (for true OOP) and you have something easy and damned powerful

My DBP plugins page is now hosted [href]here[/href]
APEXnow
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21
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Location: On a park bench
Posted: 23rd Sep 2007 02:47
Yep, kBessa's LightEngine is a true wrapper that encloses the procedural aspect of DGDK.NET. Put both together and you have a very poweful product, which is ivolving

My rednose asteroids game (for RedNose day CD) was done using VB.NET and DGDK.NET

Paul.

Zombie 20
17
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Joined: 26th Nov 2006
Location: Etters, PA
Posted: 23rd Sep 2007 09:29
When I get really good with db and dbp, I want to get dgdk, it looks like a great product.

GatorHex
19
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Location: Gunchester, UK
Posted: 23rd Sep 2007 13:33 Edited at: 23rd Sep 2007 13:35
LOL, DBP.

I was hoping when Microsoft announced XNA it would be like Dark GDK, but no it's just as cruddy as programming DirectX SDK directly.

Not being able to sell you work sus too so forget XNA for now. If you want to use C# get DGDK if you want to complete your project in this lifetime.

DinoHunter (still no nVidia compo voucher!), CPU/GPU Benchmark, DarkFish Encryption DLL, War MMOG (WIP), 3D Model Viewer
Jeff032
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Posted: 23rd Sep 2007 15:54 Edited at: 24th Sep 2007 22:45
BatVink's code snippet doesn't show the easiest way of doing stuff in XNA...that code involves you transforming all the vertices the hard way.
[EDIT] Oh, wait, thats because it's not actually XNA

To load a model:
Model myModel = content.Load<Model>("MyModel");

Clear the screen:
device.Clear(Color.DarkSlateBlue);

Use matrixes to calculate transformations:
Matrix position = Matrix.CreateTranslation(posX, posY, posZ);

Apply the matrices, change the order if you want
effectA.World = scale * rotateY * rotateX * rotateZ * position;

While I'm at it, XNA can do complicated matrix math without much work from you at all. You can reflect points across a plane, project points to a plane, etc.

I've already build a basic system in XNA, I started 2 days ago and haven't even put much time into it...

Make me a camera:
mainCamera = new Camera();
mainCamera.setAutomatic(false);
mainCamera.setPosition(new Vector3(0, 0, 10));
mainCamera.update();

Load me a sphere:
sphere = new XNAObject(content, device, mainCamera, "Sphere");

Scale my sphere:
sphere.setScale(3, 3, 3);

Spin my sphere:
angle += 1f;
sphere.setAngleY(angle);

Make it wireframe or points
sphere.setWireFrame();
sphere.setPoint();

Lastly:
Quote: "Not being able to sell you work sus too so forget XNA for now"

"These games are limited to non-commercial scenarios for 360 titles created with XNA Game Studio Express. However, XNA Game Studio Express may be used to create commercial games which target Windows." -Microsoft

XNA really is worth it if you are willing to put a bit of effort into getting started, for the reward of a lot more functionality and customizability than DBPro has.

-Jeff

Space Game WIP
Chris K
21
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Location: Lake Hylia
Posted: 23rd Sep 2007 16:13
Is there any decent support for animation yet?

-= Out here in the fields, I fight for my meals =-
Jeff032
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Posted: 23rd Sep 2007 16:32
I'm not sure....there is:
Simple Animation Sample

I'm just getting started, so there is a lot that I haven't covered.

A few tutorials here, though I dislike some of the ways the tutorials do things:
http://www.riemers.net/index.php
However, the 4th tutorial does get a pretty impressive terrain going: multiple textures and some nice water



A bunch of samples of how to do things here:
http://creators.xna.com/Education/Samples.aspx

Starter Kits

Obviously it takes time to learn, but so does any programming language

-Jeff

Space Game WIP
David R
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Location: 3.14
Posted: 24th Sep 2007 18:32
Quote: "BatVink's code snippet doesn't show the easiest way of doing stuff in XNA...that code involves you transforming all the vertices the hard way."


Yeah, not to mention it's from a Silverlight demo (i.e not XNA)


09-f9-11-02-9d-74-e3-5b-d8-41-56-c5-63-56-88-c0
Insert Name Here
17
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Joined: 20th Mar 2007
Location: Worcester, England
Posted: 24th Sep 2007 19:25
You know, it strikes me as a silly place to ask this question. I'm sure most of the people here would say DBpro, being a darkbasic community. However go to the XNA forums and they'd probably advise you to get XNA.
It's like, there's no point in going to a rock concert and doing a survey on favorite music types, becasue they'd probably all say 'ROCK!'.

Our home is our world, our life, home is our world...
Homeworld: The ladder
Jeff032
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Posted: 24th Sep 2007 22:44
Quote: "Yeah, not to mention it's from a Silverlight demo (i.e not XNA)"


Ah, sorry, I must have missed you post above...

Space Game WIP
Seppuku Arts
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Joined: 18th Aug 2004
Location: Cambridgeshire, England
Posted: 24th Sep 2007 22:48
Actually, I think people will give their advice towards finding what's right for him rather than the DBP fan community...

DBP is great stuff, but you know, it is if that's your best interest, it's easy, it's fairly simple and once you know the process of making a game, you can create some kick arse stuff with less effort. But that doesn't make it the best for you. XNA has its vantage points, like working on PC and Xbox 360, it's free and your work can be found on XBox live. The coding is a bit more 'professional' and I mean in the tense that it's probably closer to what libraries companies may use in C++ and C#, so it's a bit more of a preparation for the industry than you can say with DBP. I picked up Torque myself for certain reasons, as I wanted to try something beyond Dark Basic Pro, but of course I won't do that until I have finished at least one project in DBP, you know, so that I have some integrity.

I have been offered to do some 3D work on an XNA project at my university and the fact if it succeeds it'll probably end up on XBox live, so then all I need to do is add that to my CV and employers will see that as something...however...that doesn't stop a completed project in DBP from doing it. What it comes down to is, what do you want out of game programming? Come out with the answer to that question, look at the features of game engines/development kits and see which ones match up most to what you need.

The same advice applies with almost anything.

I shot the sheriff

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