FlatRedBall

I mentioned in my previous post we would be bringing tutorials to cover the new features of the December 2007 release of FlatRedBall. Well, here they are. Thanks to Kyle for his excellent work. As always, let us know what you think of the new features and if you encounter any problems in the forums:

http://www.flatredball.com/frb/docs/index.php?title=Custom_PostProcessing_Effects

http://www.flatredball.com/frb/docs/index.php?title=FlatRedBall.Camera#Rendering_Modes

http://www.flatredball.com/frb/docs/index.php?title=FlatRedBall.Graphics.Model.PositionedModel#Custom_Effects

http://www.flatredball.com/frb/docs/index.php?title=Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Graphics.Effect

–Vic–

Today brings the December 2007 release of FlatRedBall XNA. We’ve fixed a few problems that have been reported on the forums. We’ve also added a few convenience members and properties to assist users with common tasks. The biggest changes regarding this release are regarding graphics rendering. We’ve added support for different rendering modes to the camera including:

* Default – Renders scene as normal
* Color – Renders just colors – no lighting
* Depth – Renders z depth
* Normals – Renders normals

We’ve also added support for custom effects to PositionModel rendering.

Thanks to everyone for reporting any problems and making suggestions. If we didn’t get to your suggestions, don’t give up – January 2007 is just around the corner.

EDIT: Looks like I forgot some things that Kyle brought to my attention:

* Users can make their own post processing effects
* Another rendering mode is Position

Tutorials will be coming on these new features in the near future.

–Vic–

The XNA Beta 2 came out yesterday. Some of you may be wondering when FRB will adopt this new API and what it means for everyone using the engine.

First, we will not be using the Beta on FlatRedBall. We will definitely wait for the full version to come out before moving over to it. Even when the full version comes out we may not adopt it immediately. The main reason for this is that there are still a LOT of new features that we are currently adding using XNA 1.0. Sure, 2.0 adds some new things, but we are still swamped getting in things like 3D animation, custom effect support, and new effects like depth of field, as well as the continued translation of the FRBDK.

However, once we feel that we have stabilized with all of our new features we will definitely move to 2.0 – at least to support those who want to use the new version for its new features outside of FRB. Stay tuned as FRB will be adding many new features in the coming months.

–Vic–

The latest monthly release of FlatRedBall XNA is online. Improvements include:

* Improved performance and reduced memory allocation in many areas of code.
* New read-only lists available through the managers for improved debugging. This will cause syntax errors if mixing the new .dll with the old template. Get the new template for the ScreenManager class update.
* Numerous bug fixes including removal events for Emitters, Mouse position, and Polygon drawing.
* Many more!

Check the Version History from the Downloads page for more details and thanks to all who have reported bugs and made suggestions.

–Vic–

We’ve released a really quick fix version of the engine today. The version released earlier this month had a few problems with the Text object and the Camera when in Orthogonal mode. This version addresses these problems and adds a few other small fixes and improvements. Thanks to all members who have reported problems and offered suggestions. Keep them coming and help make FlatRedBall better for everyone!

–Vic–

It’s been a while since we had our last engine release. Well, what happened you ask? I started the unification and it got out of hand. Not to mention that Kyle has been tearing it up doing some excellent improvements to the engine.

I finally got to a good point for releasing the engine this last weekend, cleaned it up, and now it’s here. To give you an idea of how much we’ve worked on it, the late July release was Subversion revision # 113. This version is #204. That means we’ve almost done as many revisions to this version since FlatRedBall XNA was first created in winter of 2007. Wow!

Biggest things include performance improvements, multiple viewports, and post processing.

–Vic–

Hah, so I did mention the unification before my last post – two posts before that. So, now that I’ve made a fool of myself, might as well post a 3rd time about it:

FlatRedBall MDX and FlatRedBall XNA are unifying!

As I was about to write this article I searched the forums to see if I’d announced the “unification project” yet, but it looks like I haven’t – or at least I couldn’t find the post, so here goes: The next version of FlatRedBall MDX will provide an interface nearly syntactically identical to FlatRedBall XNA. This may upset some users. The MDX guys might be upset that their syntax is going to be completely different. The XNA guys might be upset that I’m spending my time updating old technology instead of improving the new engine. Well, before someone mails me a ticking box let me explain why I feel this will be good for everyone.
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I mentioned on the forums that the next FRB XNA release would be coming this weekend. Because of the unification efforts the release is going to be delayed for a few days. However, I have a very exciting announcement to make. Last week a new team member joined FlatRedBall. His name is Kyle Schouviller. Some of you may have seen is XNA Arcade project located here:

http://www.kyleschouviller.com/

I’m very excited to have him on the team as he’s already started making some great contributions to the engine. Look for him on the forums. Welcome, Kyle!

–Vic–

FlatRedBall XNA has been out for a few months and my intention was to encourage users to transition to the new engine. While many users are using the new engine the old engine is still being used heavily by users who do not have access to newer hardware – specifically hardware which supports shader model 2.0.
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