XNA Game Dev blog #2

2011
05.12
XNA Game Dev blog #2
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Not much coding done recently, all I have changed is the scale of the planets/satellites to a random value that’s no bigger than their native texture size and 16×16. I think later I’ll have to add some form of dust/mist effect that scales with the planets. So that when a planet is very small, a slight mist/desaturation is applied to give a better illusion it is further away. I did however add another layer of stars, which made a big difference visually.
I started working on the player ship graphics, fixing some small errors while also creating some upgrades for the ship. I did this by opening the original spaceship in photoshop, then by creating a new layer I’m able to draw on top, keeping the original safe, while also making sure everything is in proportion and same colour/style. Saving the images will just be as easy as hiding layers and save as a PNG file type.
Here’s an animated gif file I created to show how it works:

For the automatic laser, I plan on having the top most layer rotate around, aiming towards enemy ships ahead while shooting. This will require some more code for the aiming process which is simple math. Here’s an article I found a while back that’s aiding me.
I’m going to start working on the enemy ships now. After a recent talk with Ben Krueger, I’ve decided that the player, alien ships and even lasers fired are very similar (they both have a texture and position) with the slight difference that the user can move the player ship, while the computer controls the aliens, and lasers move in a set direction at a set speed. Weapons, are appended onto these objects, such as the laser cannons, this will also make it easier later on to create new aliens with better weapons, as all that will need changing is the base texture, and lasers attributes it fires.
Here’s a screenshot of current progress however: