Nazeeh’s Little Corner on the Web

Hey everyone! Back again with yet another interview with one of the XNA GS team members. Today I bring Scott Darnell! Scott has worked on some very key areas of the product and has gone down to areas of the code where the sun really never shines :) Check out what he had to say!

Who are you and what do you do at XNA GS team?

I am Scott Darnell the developer in charge of maintaining the source code for XNA Game Studio Connect and the Device Transport code base for XNA Game Studio.

What did you work on before joining XNA GS team?

I worked on Small Business Server 2000/2003 and before that I was on the MSN Passport team.

How did you join the XNA GS team? Tell the story!

I’ve always loved video games (who doesn’t!?), and I worked with someone in SBS that moved to this team.  That woke a spark in me, and I started to teach myself graphics programming techniques.  I didn’t really know what XNA was going to be, and didn’t think it would have anything as cool as what it is today. 

XNA needed somebody to deliver their Setup feature for V1, and I had happened to be the senior setup developer on the SBS team.  I decided to apply for the position, and I got the job!

What features did you work on for XNA GS 1.0 and 2.0?

In XNA GSE 1.0, I wrote Setup for the Windows components.  

In XNA GS 2.0, I started working on the XNA Game Studio Connect component.  Currently I also own the integration with the .NetCF on the Xbox 360, and the networking transport layer that is used to deploy, launch, and debug games on the Xbox 360.

What were some of the problems faced when developing your feature?

Since I own the integration between XNA Game Studio Connect and the .NetCF, I end up doing a lot of debugging into other people’s code.  This usually takes me down to the assembly level, or back and forth between user mode and kernel mode.  This can get really tricky since you don’t always know the assumptions of the code you are debugging.

What’s your favorite part of XNA Game Studio, and why?

My favorite feature of XNA Game Studio is the Content Pipeline.  In the past the one most annoying problem with writing games at home for me was finding ways to create content or to get content into my game.  It seems like all the super nice content creation tools were really expensive, and all of the free or cheap options were hard to get access to from code.  I have a ton of options available to me, and the object model for them is right at my finger tips.  This has made my “uber” programmer art much easier to consume in my games.

What is your favorite Xbox 360 game?

Worms.  This game has always been a favorite at the office with coworkers.  I introduced my family to it, and we spend time daily blowing each other up. :P

Share some tips and tricks for using XNA GS

Learn all about extending the Content Pipeline with content processors.  Doing as much one-time pre-processing at build time as you can will save your players the heartache of real-time calculations!

Hey guys,Just wanted to drop a quick note to apologize for the delay in my posts. For the tutorial series, I’ve been quite busy at work and haven’t gotten around to finishing the next one in the series. I don’t want to rush it out just to have it posted. Not saying it’s going to be awesome or anything though ;) As for the Team Interviews, I have a couple of people lined up and I am waiting for them to get back to me with their answers. Apparently the people around here suddenly have “work” to do… pfft…. Anyway, I promise to get you guys some stuff as soon as I can! Thanks for reading :)