As I’ve discussed on this site before, I am a huge fan of XNA. If you aren’t familiar with XNA, let me begin by getting you up to speed with it. XNA is a set of tools, including a complete runtime environment, provided by Microsoft that facilitates video game development. XNA allows developers to quickly and easily design video games to be ran on the Windows operating systems and the Xbox 360. The XNA framework is built on the .NET framework and DirectX allowing developers to design games in any .NET compliant language. However, C# in XNA Game Studio Express and all versions of Visual Studio 2008 and 2010 are officially supported.
Although XNA provides you with an extensive library for creating video games, one of the things missing from the native package is a way to handle physics and collision detection. Even though XNA doesn’t come with a physics engine and collision detection out of the box, there are plenty of 3rd party frameworks out there that can get the job done. One of my favorite XNA physics & collision detection engines is JigLibX (http://jiglibx.codeplex.com/). JigLibX is an amazing framework designed entirely in C#. It is a direct port of the physics engine “JigLib” (http://www.rowlhouse.co.uk/jiglib/index.html).
The JigLibX download comes with an example game called “Jiggle”. Jiggle is a simple example that has a textured terrain map, several physics objects such as boxes, planes, spheres, pills, pins, etc… and even includes a fully functional model car. You can use your arrow keys to drive the car around and crash into the other physics objects to see how they react. Jiggle can easily be extended for creating a fully functional game. The newest download even includes a character object which allows you to quickly ramp up a first person shooter game if you wanted. The character object allows you to move around in the 3D environment using your arrow keys and mouse. You can even click your mouse to spawn new physics objects.
Head over to my XNA developers’ site EverydayXNA at http://www.everydayxna.com/ to see some of the games I’ve created using the JigLibX framework. I have several more games that use this library, but I haven’t added to the site because I haven’t had time to maintain that site in a long while. If any of you are interested in any of my XNA games, feel free to come back here and let me know. I’ll be glad to share the source code with you.
Before I go, I do need to mention a few things about the JigLibX framework. The first thing I should mention is that there have been no updates to JigLibX since April 8, 2009. However, you can download the JigLibX source code and improve on the framework as needed. But, I would have to say that the JigLibX framework is already pretty rock solid and the forum discussions appear to still be ongoing.
The second thing I need to mention about JigLibX is that it makes extensive use of the “float” object. I only mention this because the Xbox 360 has some issues processing floating points. So, if you decide to use JigLibX for games designed to be ran on the Xbox 360, you will need to change out all floats or you will see major performance issues.
Anyways, if you’re interested in designing video games for Windows or Xbox 360, I would strongly recommend checking out Microsoft’s XNA framework. And, for your physics & collision needs, I would recommend giving JigLibX a chance. I know you’ll be happy with both. Here are a couple of sample screenshots of JigLibX in action.
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[...] XNA Game Studio Express: Developing Games for Windows and the Xbox 360 is the ultimate resource for…;" src="http://www.newreleaseforxbox360.info/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/c67fc_Xbox_book_guide_51VSHJJJJ4L._SL160_.jpg" /> XNA Game Studio Express: Developing Games for Windows and the Xbox 360 is the ultimate resource for hobbyists and students who want to write games for Windows and the Xbox 360 game console. Learn how you can create your own games using the amazing tools of XNA and Game Studio Express, the free game development tools and APIs from Microsoft, based on the incredibly popular Visual Studio IDE. You'll begin with an introduction to the XNA platform and the Game Studio Express development environment. [...]