XNA greatly simplifies the development of your own games, lowering the barrier for programmers to get into game development. In XNA, you can start coding your games from the beginning, the true revelation compared to other game programming environments. XNA does not sacrifice power for ease of use - it is built entirely on DirectX technology. XNA expert Riemer Grootjans brings together the hottest choice of recipes in XNA programming for Windows PC and Xbox360 console. Advanced XNA programmers, experienced programmers new to game development, and even beginners will find the XNA 2.0 Game Programming Recipes an invaluable companion when making games for fun or as commercial products. What you will learn? XNA 2.0 Game Programming Recipes covers virtually every feature XNA 2.0 framework. These are some of the topics being discussed in depth: How to create 2D graphics 3D rendering techniques at various levels of difficulty loading, rendering and animating 3D Models To read input devices: Keyboard, Mouse, Xbox360 Controller Use Audio to spice up your game Add Networking to your game to challenge your friends Learn about the architectural XNA features, like GameComponents The pipe Contents: one of 3 major components in XNA Game Development A whole list of HLSL techniques! Each chapter is gradually builds in difficulty so you will be able to progress through as your XNA coding improve and you want to move into more sophisticated techniques. A brief look at the table of contents Chapter 1: Getting Started with XNA 2.0 (24 pages) Installing XNA Game Studio 2.0 and XNA 2.0 new project started. Smooth camera fly-bys, octree and quadtree culling, setting up post-processing framework HLSL. Chapter 3: Working with 2D Images / Textures in XNA 2.0 (102 pages) How to use SpriteBatch to create 2D drawings. 3D ocean and racing generation. Chapter 6: Adding Light to Your Scene in XNA 2.0 (60 pages) Lighting basics, shadowing and deferred rendering for multiple lights. Chapter 7: Adding Sounds to Your XNA 2.0 Project (12 pages) Adding voice to your XNA 2.0 game, for both 2D and 3D games. Chapter 8: Networking in XNA 2.0 (28 pages) network to 2.0 Adding your XNA games. Costs related to environmental The software you need to develop their own games in XNA 2.0 is completely free. You will need either Visual Studio C # Express Edition and XNA Game Studio 2.0, which you can download for free from Microsoft's website. Costs will only happen if you want to upload your finished game to your Xbox360 console, when the annual subscription paid to Microsoft.