Visual Studio?

Is it possible to use some other app instead of Visual Studio?
Which series of tutorial should I go with first?

I have used notepad. -You can do a search and find multiple tutorials… Its easier than you think, not a terrible processs.
notepad++ helps with built in formatting/structure for code… so its easy to read.

There are many 3rd party tools to code in, so you would probably have to do a search for IDEs and see what you like.

Of coarse its hard to match the community support, documentation, and depth of the >free< VS package. I dont know what more you could ask for. The 2015 version is pretty neat!

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You can also use MonoDevelop/Xamarin Studio, or you can even use Visual Studio Code (tho no way to generate templates from it).

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Also, forgot to mention you can find the MonoDevelop/Xamarin Studio addin at: http://addins.monodevelop.com/Project/Index/47 you can also install it from addins manager online section.

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Thanks.
Could you tell me do I have to write particle system inside VS or does MG provide it?

MonoGame doesn’t provide a particle system in general…, what are you talking about?

particle system isnt so bad…
Once I finally tried it, it was very simple.

load a tiny particle texture.
Use a for loop to populate a list of particles. (vector2 pos, float alpha_value, Vec2 dir)

then use a for or foreach loop to update each particle. ( pos += dir, alpha_value -= 0.001f)

then use a for or foreach to draw the tiny particle texture on each particle.

Like other sprites, only tiny, and without conditions, or few conditions…

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Than, how are particle system effects and lighting handled?

You can use any text editor, even a pen and paper. However, an IDE like Visual Studio will color your code and you’ll be able to compile it, so, you can run the app/game. You want something that uses C# and XNA/MonoGame.

You can also open more than one text editor. Two copies of Visual Studio or something like NotePad++ can be useful.

XNA.com has a few particle systems to examine and use.

You write your own or use an existing library for it.

I have a feeling that you never tried Xamarin Studio / Rider / Visual Studio Code, because all 3 of them can offer almost everything Visual Studio can, what’s more all 3 of them are cross platform.

If you are pressed for HD space/internet and use windows, i would recommend SharpDevelop over Visual Studio Code, though neither can produce the templates… at least SharpDevelop is a pretty nice VERY lightweight/portable IDE.

you could create a class called ‘Particle_Effect’ that holds a list of other objects of a ‘Particle’ class…

…And just update and draw the particles like anything else. -You already have position, color, opacity, scale, and rotation in Draw, so you just need to Update these to match whatever behavior you want, and draw whatever texture you want your particles to have…

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