Introduction Even if you’ve used FlatRedBall for a while you may not be familiar with exactly what a “manually updated” object is. The reason for this is because the option to make things manually updated exists almost exclusively for performance reasons. Technically one might want to manually update objects to achieve custom behavior as well,[…]

Introduction This method converts all contained Sprites and PositionedModels to be manually-updated. This can be used to greatly improve performance of your game if your Scene does not have any kind of every-frame activity such as velocity, color rates, or attachments. This method can be called after the Scene is added to managers using AddToManagers.

Introduction The PolygonEditor can load .scnx files. These files are the standard way of representing collections of FlatRedBall objects including Sprites, SpriteFrames, and PositionedModels. The SpriteEditor is one of the many applications that can create .scnx files. Loading a .scnx File To load a .scnx file: Select File->Load Scene Select the file to load The[…]

Introduction A Texture2D is a 2D array of pixel information which can be used by Sprites, Text objects, and PositionedModels when drawn. All FlatRedBall platforms support textures up to a max size of 2048×2048. FlatRedBall PC uses the Reach profile by default, but if switched to HiDef, textures up to 4096×4096 can be used. Displaying[…]

Introduction The term “collision” in game development refers to both detecting whether objects are touching as well as changing the state of these objects when this touching occurs. Virtually any game ever made requires some type of collision. For example, Pong used ball vs. paddle collision and Super Mario Bros. performs collision between Mario and[…]

Introduction Many games require Sprites to overlap to create realistic scenes. FlatRedBall offers a number of ways to control sorting. This article will discuss and link to various methods of controlling how Sprites (and other objects) overlap. What are the methods? There are a number of methods of controlling overlapping Sprites. Keep in mind that[…]

Introduction Culling is the process of determining that an object or a part of an object does not need to be drawn, then skipping the drawing logic because of this determination. This is an effective way to improve performance if the process of detecting whether an object should be drawn is significantly faster than just[…]

Introduction The ShapeDrawingOrder controls whether all Shapes are drawn under or over other FlatRedBall-drawn objects (for example Sprites, Models, and Texts). Currently shape drawing order cannot be controlled by the shape’s Z value; however, as of the June 2009 release of FlatRedBall, most shapes can be placed on layers which provides some control over ordering.[…]

Introduction A Scene is simply a collection of different types of objects which can be added as a group. Usually scene creation begins in a tool like the SpriteEditor or TileEditor. The default file type of a scene is .scnx. These are XML files which describe a scene. These scene files can be loaded by[…]

Introduction Many games require Sprites to overlap to create realistic scenes. FlatRedBall offers a number of ways to control sorting. This article will discuss and link to various methods of controlling how Sprites (and other objects) overlap. What are the methods? There are a number of methods of controlling overlapping Sprites. Keep in mind that[…]