Game Programming Class12

BillBoards

Billboards are basically textured squares (two triagles) that point towards the camera and appear to be a 3b model. They are cheaper and easier to work with than models many early 3D games consisted mainly of billboards. Billboards are still used to fake #D objects.

The XNA 3DAudio example from

http://creators.xna.com/en-US/sample/3daudio has a good example of using billboards. Quad Drawer Class SpriteEntity/Quad Sprite I changed the name

I've added these two classes to our IntroGameLibrary Project here's and example. I did change the projection view size and some of the scales of the billboards. IntroQuad.zip IntoGameLibrary.zip Meshes

A mesh is a collection of vertices, faces and edges that define a 3d shape. XNA can import .X or .Fbx files. .X files are Files create for DirectX FBX is an platform independant 3D mesh file type Mesh Example IntroMesh.zip http://brookfield.rice.iit.edu/jmeyers/gbrowser.php?file=/ITM496-595/ClassSource/Projects/IntroMesh/IntroMesh/Game1.cs You can get some free models from TurboSquid http://www.turbosquid.com/xna Or you can make your own models with blender Blender

Blender is a free 3D program.

1. It can export fbx models for xna. Blender Installing Blender
2. Getting Started with Blender 3D and XNA
3. Blender Manual
4. Blender_3D:_Noob_to_Pro
5. Beginner_Tutorials/Print_version

Homework

Try out blender. Make a model and load it into XNA