Audio chapter up now
Covers sound effects, music and Xact. Video coming soon.
EDIT: Video is up.
I seem to be having an issue. As far as I’m aware (source), I can use the Starter edition of Xamarin Studio for OSX apps; I only need a paid edition for iOS and Android apps, which I’m not interested in. However, when I try creating a new project (MonoGame Mac Application (Xamarin.Mac), just like in the tutorial), it tells me that I need at least the Indie edition:
Any ideas on how to debug this? Thanks!
I’m not completely understanding the licensing on Xamarin.Mac, for me I didnt have to pay and it just works, but others report that it’s another subscription fee platform. MonoMac however requires no subscription if you want to go that route.
Sorry I cant confirm whats up with Xamarin.Mac.
@Serapth The Pipeline Tool not beeing able to open .mgcb file from VS / Explorer should be fixed with https://github.com/mono/MonoGame/pull/4043 , if you have time try it out, the download link for the installer for that PR is: http://teamcity.monogame.net/repository/download/MonoGame_DevelopWin/9327:id/Windows/MonoGameSetup.exe?guest=1
Thanks for the heads up, will do. Im personally waiting on VS2k15 support.
MonoGame already supports VS2015, tho people do seem to have problem with wrong VS folder thats been kept from vs preview: https://github.com/mono/MonoGame/issues/4063
Thanks, got it working.
After a delay, a new text tutorial is now available Beginning 3D Programming. Covers setting up 3D camera, creating a triangle from scratch then orbit/pan/zooming around it with camera. Then shows code to load a 3D model, as well as linking a video showing how to create a Monogame compatible 3D model in Blender…(enter link description hereDirect video link).
Video version coming soon.
In the last video you added texture to pipeline tool, which actually is not needed, as long as texture is in the same folder as the model(or whichever directory you set the texture to be in in the model), the pipeline tool will find it and build it automatically.
By adding the texture to the tool you actually built the texture 2 times, easily seen in pipeline tool output: https://youtu.be/rDMWXpKUYSo?t=10m41s
Interesting. This is how I expected it to work, but in an earlier test the texture only showed if I manually included it in the pipeline, so I took a better safe than sorry approach.
I will see if I can recreate the use case and I’ll send a test zip if so.
The 3D video is live now. I sorta forgot to publish it Friday… oops.
Here is the series compiled as a completely free PDF ebook. It should prove useful and comprehensive enough to get anyone started with development in MonoGame or XNA, hope you enjoy it.
This is also the end of the series on GameFromScratch.com. It was my intention to go into more depth, covering topics such as Xamarin Android/iOS deployment, shaders, etc… but in all honesty, the level of traffic doesn’t really justify the additional time investment. That said, what’s here covers startup, input, audio 2D and 3D, so is complete enough to help most beginners.
This tutorial series is just amazing. MonoGame could use a couple of well made not-old-xna-tutorial tutorials =)
Since i just started trying to learn c#, monogame you know =D
Glad to hearyou enjoyed it. Hopefully there is enough there to get you up and running.
What is your opinion on when to use song/soundeffects? Do the processed xnb file compression differ if I import a mp3 file as a song versus as a soundeffect? And if not, why use songs at all? (I know they used the built in media player on the Xbox 360, but are there any other reasons?)
@Serapth Loved the tutorials, many thanks for taking the time to do them, one tutorial I would love to see is how to deploy the “game” to the different platforms, I use VS2015 and made a windows game project, but no idea how to distribute it or what the end user needs installed. Keep up the good work, looking forward to more tutorials!
Thanks for the nice words. Sadly the series wasnt popular enough to justify much more time invested.
Sound effects are fully loaded into memory. Songs are streamed from file when played. Loading songs into memory would quickly eat up a lot of memory, and is not really feasible on mobile devices. You would only use sound effect for a short musical sting, such as a short trill when an special object is collected, or the short musical fanfare when a player wins a race. Background music should always be loaded and played as a song, not sound effect.
The compression selected for a SoundEffect in the content pipeline is not affected by the imported file format as the imported file is decompressed to WAV internally before being processed as a SoundEffect. The same decompression happens for songs as well if the input format does not match the output format, which is why it is ideal to have your source data for songs in WAV format in your content pipeline project to avoid the quality issues with decompressing one lossy format and compressing into another lossy format. The content pipeline does not output songs in MP3 format for any platform due to MP3 licensing issues (if you distribute a game that contains files in MP3 format, you may have to pay a licensing fee).
@Serapth That is a real shame, was looking forward to more of the “unusual” stuff as well. I found your vids very well explained even the basics.
I can create a basic working “something” that will run in windows desk top, but I have no idea how to port / test the game on different plat forms - e.g. I’ve done a “flappy bird” clone but no idea how to put it on mobile/tablet.
Thank you, your post cleared up a lot of things for me. I had not heard that songs are streamed from file and soundeffects are loaded into memory before.
Where can I set the output format for songs? And if, for example, the output format is set to .ogg, then I guess having my songs as .ogg files are OK?
@Serapth of GameFromScrath O.O Very cool vids for MG… Your tutorial teach me how to use Wave and Xenko also ^ _ ^ y