I need to develop a XBox One game having Kinect capabilities. Could anyone please suggest me from where should i start it?
Moreover, i gone through with some forums they suggest go with XBox One XDK but Unity is the first choice for game developers.
So which is better : XBox One XDK or Unity (both supporting kinect)
Also, can i write code in Visual studio for both or not?
Thanks!
So which is better : XBox One XDK or Unity
Apples and Oranges. Unity actually requires the XDK anyway. See below.
Unity3D Multiplatform and more importantly Microsoft's ID#XBox for XBox One, allow you to target XBox One for free and get access to two developer kits at no cost.
Joining the programme gets you access to a wealth of documentation, recorded talks, development samples and the official forums, so if you ever run into any problems during development, there are many avenues you can take to get a helping hand. You will also receive a free Unity license for Xbox One, as well as two free development kits to kickstart the development process. Tell me more
The XDK is obtained from Microsoft regardless of whether you use Unity. However, Unity requires that you have the XDK in the first place if your intention is to target XBO.
Also, can i write code in Visual studio for both or not?
Yes you can. In fact, Unity can be used with Visual Studio even prior to XBO development with UnityVS, once an indie tool, now taken over by Microsoft and is available from the VS Extensions Gallery.
Related
KaiOS is "a web-based mobile operating system that is based on Linux kernel forked from B2G (Boot to Gecko), an open source community-driven successor of Firefox OS which was discontinued by Mozilla in 2016. (As written on its Wikipedia Article)
I wanted to use Unity Game Engine to make a game for it but I have not seen KaiOS as one of the available platforms to build for.
Is it possible that one of the platforms that Unity builds for (such as HTML5) can be made somehow compatible for KaiOS? Are there any other available tools I can use? Or will I have to work on the raw game from scratch?
The answer is no:
https://docs.unity3d.com/Manual/UnityCloudBuildSupportedPlatforms.html
Sorry to be a let down. It does support iOS though.
EDIT
If you put a little more work into it using HTML5, then yes.
I've got a WebGL application built with JavaScript and ThreeJS. I was able to enable WebVR somewhat easily to create a immersive environment. I think my app is a better use case for mixed-reality/AR. Hololens seems to be the big player in that hardware space.
As I look at the development tools around Hololens its pretty much Unity and C#. Both great tools but as I start developing in this closed environment I kinda feel like I'm building a Silverlight application.
I've been trying to figure out if there is a trick I can accomplish to create a immersive experience with my WebGL app. I know that I can use Edge browser, however, thats a flat experience which is not any value to this use case.
I've found a few links:
is-it-possible-to-use-webgl-with-hololens-repost
can-i-make-a-universal-app-using-html-that-runs-on-hololens
augmented reality with awe.js
All these seem to either be 2d experiences or 'fake' AR using cameras and WebVR. Furthermore, I also looked into porting my WebGL app to Unity using Unity's JavaScript language features to find out that it is really a subset fork of actual JavaScript ( known as UnityScript ) making it way more effort than its worth.
Given all this, I'm wondering if its even possible to accomplish the feat and if anyone knows if this is something on the roadmap for microsoft?
There's this new tool from Microsoft called HoloJS. It's a framework for creating holographic apps using JavaScript and WebGL.
holographicjs is a C++ Windows Runtime Component for hosting Windows Holographic apps built with Javascript and WebGL.
Its interesting and a huge hack but might be a good first start for the community!
Note: Answer based on:
I do not know what Microsoft roadmap plans are or will be
The actual easy-way to develop for hololens is using VS and Unity3D (so, maybe there is a way of developing using WebGl but as you can see, is not the easy-direct and supported way).
My answer: Taking into account that is a new product with no direct competence, they will not move forward offering other platforms unless they are forced to. Meanwhile they are happy that you use C#, Visual Studio, .Net, Edge and Windows and Unity3d under Windows (hard to believe to me you can do this using Unity3d at MacOS or Linux). It's also normal that they offer a limited ecosystem at the moment, with the same excuse: it is new, so limited support due to stability and optimal concerns is available just in their more familiar context: Microsoft products.
But as soon as new device come in and start offering new things (support for programing languages, OS or web) you should be completely sure that they will evolve or die.
I want to develop a game using Unity + Kinect, as I understand Unity does not support the official Kinect SDK so I have to find another way. I saw that some guys use ZigFu which seems to not have a good Documentation and has a $200 licence. Is there any other easy way to make things work between Kinect and Unity? If I choose to not use Unity, what other tools exist that support the official C# Kinect SDK to develop a game?
The Official Microsoft Kinect SDK should be easy to plug into the XNA Game Studio.
There should articles on the web and samples shipping with the SDK.
Unfortunately I haven't used the MS Kinect SDK since version 1.5. I'm hoping there are updated guides/tutorials available for the latest SDK.
UPDATE
One workaround would using multiple applications talking to each via a TCP/UDP socket (OSC is pretty easy to use for example). The idea is you use what you prefer for the kinect tracking, but send a list of coordinates for the joint's positions and orientations to unity.
You should see this unity thread. It states that you cannot use the Kinect SDK with Unity, as the frameworks are not correct. However that was a different version.
Actually, it says you can use it as this sample shows.
Note that there are many errors people seem to be having with it. I don't know how much of that is people having poor code and how much is with the SDK.
I want to start creating games for Android/IOS. I have already created 2D games using XNA and I want to publish them on other platforms even PCs but my highest priority is Mobile platforms. As I said I am familiar with XNA so I need a similar Engine for 2D. It would be great if I could write once and publish on many platforms. Please dont suggest Unity or Unreal. They are not that easy when it comes to 2D.
By similar I mean, for example, how easy to draw a sprite on the screen.
Note: I am working on Windows so no Mac suggestions please.
Regards,
You may also want to consider MonoGame ( https://github.com/mono/MonoGame/ ) as that is also an Open Source, OpenGL implementation of XNA that currently has support for iOS, Android, MacOS X, Windows and recently Linux. It is now all ES 2.0 on the mobile platforms. Our biggest change is that we now support Windows 8, and have a DirectX 11 backend thanks to SharpDX. We now also have initial PlayStation mobile support.
Actually ExEn, is a fork of MonoGame( originally called XNATouch ).
For a list of games on the AppStore or Android Market place and even NaLC, currently using MonoGame look here -
http://monogame.codeplex.com/
I hope this helps.
D.
You might want to keep up on the project called ExEn, which has already successfully ported some XNA samples and smaller games to iPhone and Android. It requires relatively little work to port and refactor to these platforms.
I suggest you check out AndEngine, its an open-source 2d open-gl based game engine that has a strong community. If you want something that you can make cross platform games with check out LibGDX It too is free, open source and based on openGl but it also allows for 3d games. It is also cross platform so a game you write for android can be compiled for, Windows, MacOS (see below), Linux. It also has a really strong community.
Regarding iOS and OSX games you really can't make them unless you buy a Mac. Apple doesn't distribute their SDK for use on any other platform but their own. That said you could maybe get something working under VMWare
Check out MOAI SDK. It's completely free and open-source. It is in beta right now but it is still pretty good. Crimson Pirates for iOS was developed with it.
Right now it supports iOS, Android, Mac, Windows, and Linux. Really good. I thought I liked Cocos2D-x, which is a C++ variant of Cocos2d-iphone supporting windows, iOS (not Mac), and Android but not truely supporting desktop kinda made me like MOAI more.
You can use C++ with MOAI or you can use Lua (they highly encourage using Lua). Being built in C++ is really great because you get access to a vast amount of libraries and you can easily bind them to Lua.
You should try games development with cocos2d.
Cocos2d is one of the best 2d engines for ios/Android I have come across.
http://www.cocos2d-iphone.org/
It is openGL based free engine.
Regards,
Sam
These might be useful to you. However, the first two aren't free, but they have editions for both iOS and Android.
iOS:
http://ios.xamarin.com/
Android:
http://android.xamarin.com/
I've never used either of them, but it's something I've been looking into a bit.
Apparently it lets you run C# and .NET code on both iOS and Android which is pretty cool considering how much easier drawing and things like that are in XNA compared to Open GL ES 2.0. Not to mention the fact that you'd be using C# instead of objective C.
There's also a free open source version sponsored by the same people who make the two I listed above. This one lets you run C# and .NET code on Windows, Linux, and Mac OS X.
http://www.mono-project.com/Main_Page
I have been researching this topic intensively over the last few weeks.
I think the best solution for you is Marmalade, formerly known as Airplay SDK. It is actually more Windows-oriented than Mac (work in Visual Studio), although you still need a Mac for the final step of getting a signed app onto the store. It sounds like a very capable pure C++ product with iOS and Android as well as a bunch of other platforms, Personal license with splash screen $150 pa, single seat Professional $500 pa for all platforms. They have a 45 day trial license which I'm currently using.
I was tempted by MonoGame, could live with the $400 price tag for each platform (for the needed MonoTouch) but it is just way too buggy. The final straw was a combination of a bug causing it to crash all the samples on iOS5 and that keyboard input is broken on iOS.
Too be fair, I'm pretty sure that is all on the MonoGame side and was very impressed with how well MonoTouch worked and was looking forward to programming in c# with LINQ et al.
Since it is not obvious from the other answers, it should be noted to those who are unaware that the ExEn project and the MonoGame projects both build on the Monotouch platform from Xamarin (formerly from Novell) - which is a prerequisite for both for iOS games.
The Xamarin projects was mentioned in another answer as an alternative to Xna, but is really not. Monotouch and Mono for Android are a way to run C# and .NET on iPhone/iPad and Android.
Game development at least on the iPhone side, is typically done using OpenGL and OpenGL is also wrapped in Monotouch. The Xna implementations in Exen and MonoGame also uses OpenGL as the foundation as far as I know.
It should also be noted that Monotouch and Mono for Android are commercial products.
BTW: Exen also compiles to other platforms e.g. silverlight.
Looking for games/physics engines to use for mobile game development.
iPhone there is
Cocos2D
Android I've found
RokonAndroid
Just wondering if there are any others (better ones) that anyone knows of? Or any that are more cross-compatible?
Thanks
Tom
AndEngine by the anddev.org team..its alpha with no binary release..you will have to build from source..
AndEngine.org I believe
I used cocos2D-android and andengine. Andengine is much better. Best perfomance and almost without errors.
I haven't actually coded with either of these yet, but I did get the Bullet engine to compile with the NDK a few months ago. I forget what was involved off the top of my head (I can edit this post if needed), but I remember it was a bit involved and took me a couple days to solve.
Box2D port for Android
Bullet port for Android
Tom - not sure if it's better or not, but Gideros Studio may answer your needs. It's a cross-platform mobile development environment with physics, in-app purchase, Gamecenter, Storekit, hardware, as well as tweening, particle engine, and many 3rd party IDEs like physics editor, sprite helper and level editors.
It also supports native code (plugins), meaning if you have a library in C, C++, Objective C or Java, you ca integrate it next to Lua, the programming language Gideros Studio is based on. Moroever Gideros Studio IDE uses over-the-air (Wi-Fi) testing, so it's possible to test the application instantly on a real hardware.
It uses Box2D as a backend for physics.
I think nowadays your best choice is LibGDX. It is a cross-platform game engine, for Android, iOS, desktop and others, has a really active community, is still actively developed and has Box2D and Bullet physics engines integrated.
The framework is really great and there have been really successful games using this engine, even on Steam.