XNA game so far: showing cel shading, mesh instancing, reflection mapping using cubemaps

Freelance games and applications developer available for hire: www.garethmurfin.co.uk

My 2D game engine (J2ME) taken into a 3D world (C# XNA), tiles become cubes, the ball becomes a sphere. Then I have added a camera to rotate though 3D, it doesnt actually affect the gameplay at all but it looks nice. This video also demonstrates some cool effects of XNA, namely:

"Mesh Instancing" (efficiently render many copies of the same model, using GPU instancing techniques to reduce the cost of repeated draw calls) that is how all cubes can be in the world at all times. Im impressed by this technique, as before the fps was low and now its well above 60 holding fine.

"Cel Shading" (that sort of cartoon look) I dont think my shadows are working properly for it but its look still suitably cartoony! Other styles I show in the video are variations on the effect which are also cool, for powerups etc maybe.

"Reflection mapping using cubemaps" (ie the ball reflection) Its supposedly too costly to do true real time reflections so the best way is to fake it somehow, Ive tried doing this using a cubemap image which is a hacked version of a screenshot I took. I think it works quite well actually, this might get changed a lot but for now its fine.

All of the code for these techniques was taken from the free examples from MS from here http://creators.xna.com/en-US/education/catalog/
It takes a bit of effort to get them into your project and working but its rewarding being able to achieve all of this in just a few days of effort. MS have really hit the nail on the head with XNA and it helps you stand on the shoulders of geniuses very quickly indeed. If you're looking for a decent XNA IRC channel try out #xna on efnet.

Another usefull resource on reflection mapping is here, and the guy speaks in real english :-)
http://blogs.msdn.com/shawnhar/archive/2008/03/04/cubemaps-the-salt-of-comput...

Category:

Gaming

Tags:

• XNA
• cel
• shading
• mesh
• instancing
• reflection

[68040E]

This is my other account, I think the cell shader adds something here still? hows it not working right?

[68040E]

yes i agree, changed it :-)

[68040E]

hi, yes my own physics, cel shader is ripped from xna examples, song is morrisey irish blod english heart.. new video is up now too click on my name to see it :-)

[ZdenekProductions]

Spinning = headache. Don't do it.

[Krazykaveman]

thx for making dizzy :P

[matieman77]

in this case, why don't you just make all of the edges black lines, and then shade the rest of the cube normally?

cell shaders don't work properly here...

[connorafc]

what is the name of this song ?

[TheBouncingCzech]

This is looking very cool, is it your own Cell Shader and physics?