Windstorm 360

As of Wednesday, February 20th, I had a successful port of my team's Foundations of 3D project running on an XBOX 360.  As you can see by these comparative screenshots, there were a number of improvements made, as well as a number of cutbacks:

Windstorm (C++, DirectX 9, Wiimote control)


Windstorm (C#, XNA, XBOX control)


The original Windstorm supported up to four players, ran at 800x600 resolution, and had an spotty framerate. Windstorm 360 supports four players in full 720p at 60fps (on 360 hardware). Some of the concessions made in the interest of time included abandoning the particle system, reducing landscape detail to one texture (removing blend map), and abandoning our sound system. However, the porting process had other benefits, including decreased load times and improved visuals.

The main focus of this project for me was not a perfect port of my application, but an excuse to teach myself the ins and outs of the XNA environment, and do so in a realistic manner. Few developers have the luxury of creating new games from scratch on a familiar toolset, and through this project, I learned a great deal about XNA, console development, and effective porting techniques. Even with some concessions, I would label it a complete success.

Assignment 7: Tone Reproduction

Ward, 1 nit illumination



Ward, 1000 nits illumination



Ward, 10000 nits illumination



Reinhard, 1 nit illumination



Reinhard, 1000 nits illumination



Reinhard, 10000 nits illumination

Assignment 6: Refraction

Assignment 5: Reflection

Assignment 4: Procedural Shading

Assignment 3: Basic Shading (bonus: multiple light sources)

Assignment 3: Basic Shading

Assignment 2: Camera (bonus: multisampling)

Assignment 2: Camera

Project Proposal: Windstorm 360

Kevin Tarchenski
Computer Graphics II, 571
Joe Geigel

I will be porting my 3D project from Foundations of 3D Graphics Programming, a flight combat game called Windstorm, to C# and XNA, as well as completely reworking the particle system, lighting, and visual effects.

The key steps include:
• Get a working version of the previous project running under managed code with XNA functions replacing the DirectX calls
• Rewrite particle system to take advantage of XNA
• Implement new lighting effects to replace simple Phong shading
• Rewrite visual effects (including motion blur) to take advantage of XNA

I will be implementing the new solution using C# instead of C++, and with XNA replacing DirectX. Development will be primarily PC-based, with intent to run on an Xbox 360 upon delivery.

I would like to have the mostly-unaltered game code running in XNA by the quarter midpoint. Additional features may be cut if the schedule slips. Additional effects will be added at the rate of one per week with intermittent testing for Xbox compatibility. The final week will be reserved for testing, polish and deployment to the game console.

The final presentation will be a gameplay demonstration running on a retail Xbox 360.