In my last post in this series, I talked about the GameStateManagement sample. I got a few comments asking that I upgrade it to include the newly threaded Loading.cs that was introduced in the Networking version of the same sample. So, I did that and bundled the whole thing in a template so you can always have it to start new projects with.
The new version of the Game State Management sample now includes a threaded Loading screen that allows you to animate something on the loading portion while your content is loading. I also followed Stephen’s blog post about creating a project template for XNA GS 2.0 to convert it into a usable template (very good read by the way!).
Here’s the template for your downloading pleasure: GameStateManagementWindows.zip
To install it, you need to place it in your ProjectTemplates folder. To find out where that folder is, ask Visual Studio:
- Click on Tools -> Options
- Click on Projects and Solutions->General from the tree
- See where it is? It’s the “project templates location” (second textbox):
- Copy that path and open it in Explorer or whatever.
- Create a folder under “Visual C#” called “XNA Game Studio 2.0″ and place the zip file you downloaded there:
- That’s it! Now whenever you create a new project, you’ll have this template to start with:
Enjoy! Now I’ll start working on my next post ;)
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Was editing the LoadingScreen.cs file the only changes you made to the template? I saw the new threading code there, but I wanted to make sure I didn’t miss anything else. Thanks.
Yep… the only difference in this template from the sample you download from the creators site is that I took the Loading.cs from the NetworkGameStateSample and put it in the old one. I edited it slightly to remove network specific parts it had, but other than that, nothing else changed.
Heh! I take it you wouldn’t mind if I posted a follow-up on how to make a .vsi to automatically install your custom templates… I’ll put that on my to-do list! ;-)
Yeah man! That would be awesome :)
I put together an article for Coding4Fun a long while ago (Managed DirectX Days), and have updated an Version to XNA 1.0r.
http://www.virtualrealm.com.au/blogs/mykre/archive/2006/12/23/tutorial-02-turning-your-xna-app-into-a-starter-kit.aspx
The above post should give you the steps to create a VSI File for your templates.
This is incredibly useful, thank you.
It’s just what I needed to convert my mini games into something “complete”.
The only problem I have had is in the implementation of HandleInput. In my game, the input can not be processed with out access to the GameTime, so I added this in to the function. I think this might be a good addition to your library.
Hey Nazeeh,
You’re tutorials are awesome! It’s really hard to find beginner game tutorials on the web and your’s are clear and to the point. Love it, thanks!
I was trying to use your template here to make a zune game with xna 3.0 but unfortunately ran into some problems. I get this message when trying to load the template
“this template attempted to load an untrusted compontent ‘Microsoft.XNA.GameStudio, Version=2.0.0.0, Current neutral, PublicKeyToken…… bla bla bla
Is the problem simply that the template was made to work with version 2 and Zune development is in version 3? Can I simply change the value of version to 3.0.0.0? Where is this line?
Thanks!
Easy :) I should probably provide an updated version :/
Anyway… load up the project in Visual Studio, remove all the references to XNA framework stuff (in the solution tree->References) and re-add them again to have the new ones. This should do it :)
and thank you for your feedback!!
Thanks for the template! I was thinking I was going to run into problems but it works like a dream.
Geln I liked your coding for fun article.