Partager via

GDC? Books? A web site? A blog post?

  • Article

I never seem to find time to write posts here anymore.  Well, to be more accurate, I get frustrated with the number of things I get as direct responses to posts (or even just random mails from people from this blog).  Honestly the top two questions I get are people wanting me to send them copies of my books and people asking me for help with their homework.  These are normally followed up shortly by those same people letting me know how much of a jerk I am for not relenting to their request.  It doesn't seem to matter if I ignore it or respond politely, the same result occurs either way.  It's almost enough to make me wonder why I even write anything (and I'm fully convinced it will be worse at least for a short time after this post).

 Anyway, enough random complaints from me, and onto what I originally was going to write about..

After the two topics above, the next most asked about topic is about books.  When is my next book coming out, when am I updating one of my older books, etc.  So let me ask you what you'd like.  If I were to write a third book, what would you like to see?  I'm guessing not many people will suggest science fiction or an in depth discussion of the civil war.

If you haven't heard recently (sometimes I am a little slow on the announcements) we have launched a new creators club web site.  It has a new starter kit for you to download and enjoy, a number of samples to look at, and even new forums.  Naturally, there is more there as well, so go check it out!

We also have our Dream. Build. Play. contest going on, and we announced some of the prizes which are simply amazing in my opinion ($10,000 cash, a new computer, a chance to have your game published on Xbox Live Arcade and more?).  There was also a 'warm up' contest using the Spacewars starter kit that had some amazing entries.  I'm excited to see the things that will come out of the real contest now.  Like I've mentioned before, I've always wanted to run a contest for something like this.

As part of the GDC list of announcements, we also have a lot of great information.  Such as Creators Club members getting a license to the Torque X engine.  None of this even hints at some of the things we are hoping to have done in the not too distant future.  For anyone who thought we were going to be resting on our laurels as they say, rest assured we are doing nothing of the sort.

Now if I could just get myself to be more like Shawn and actually write some technical posts here once in a while...

Comments

  • Anonymous
    March 07, 2007
    Dude, don't let the complainer get you down.  Just thinnk - for every 1 of them there are at least 10-20 of us perfectly happy people.  Don't let them ruin it for the rest of us! We like to hear what you have to say so keep up the good work!!!

  • Anonymous
    March 08, 2007
    I'm always browsing the web looking for technical articles on XNA.  I really enjoyed "Beginning 3D Game Programming".  I have many game development books over the years since DirectX 2 came out.  I am happy that besides merely learning how to use Managed DirectX with your book, you demonstrated some specific game programming techniques.  I was very happy with the book and refer to it often, even in this XNA age.

  • Anonymous
    March 15, 2007
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    March 17, 2007
    I have found out the useful information for me, thanks a lot.

  • Anonymous
    March 22, 2007
    I have your book(had it for a month or so). I have found it a great help (I just wanted to get to the shader parts of things; as I already have done plenty of DX). Your book along with Wolfgang Engel's shader book are all I needed to get up and running in managed DX (vb.net 2005) with pixel/vertex shaders (bump mapping, specular highlights), etc in a very short period of time;  Previously, I killed myself trying to use a DX 8.0 wrapper for VB(6.0) and another for OpenGL some years ago because I prefer to use the same programming language I use at work (for database, asp, crystal) as I do in my spare time doing DirectX and physics sims. .Net allows this finally without my having to work in C++ at home and vb.net or c#.net at work. Great book. I'm having a blast. thanks. Don't worry about the naggers/haters/whiners.

  • Anonymous
    April 01, 2007
    Keep up the good work Tom! I have followed this blog since the days of MDX, and don't let the homework questions get to you! Keep blogging so the rest of us can keep reading!

  • John Sedlak
  • Anonymous
    April 18, 2007
    The comment has been removed