6 replies to this topic

[TheNut]

Here's a fun one. Porting code. I'm sure we've all done it at some point or time. For me it's almost a full time job :blink:

Anywho, I ported my Fractal Fun application over to Silverlight. I was actually going to take advantage of the shader effects introduced in Silverlight 3, but I was shocked to see they only implemented Shader Model 2.0. Yeah, you can still do some nice effects with it, but it's to damn limiting. I demand power!

So rather than wait a year for MS to do something about it, I ported over the same software shader engine I developed for TexGen over to Silverlight. I figured good old Mandelbrot was an easy enough shader to create so I whipped up this demo.

You can check it out here.. You will need Silverlight 3 if you don't already have it (shame on you if you don't! ;)

[imerso]

That is very nice. And it runs reasonably fast here, I really like it.

By the way, Silverlight is something I'll be playing around with very soon, now that the 3.0 added some real 3D support. =)

Not that I think browser games are going to replace anything, but still for some prototyping / casual games and website interfaces it may be nice.

Hope Moonlight catches up!

[TheNut]

Actually, I just noticed this release build is only running off one thread instead of two. I'm not sure why at this point, so I'll have to investigate. It should be running even faster.

Silverlight has renewed my faith in .NET. Not just being web based (which is more of a bonus for accessibility), but the vector graphics, or WPF in general, is a smart move for creating frontends. Bindings is another smart move, and finally a programmer friendly modular interface format, XAML, was another smart move. All in a nice and portable and open-ended XAP file.

For the casual gaming market, I see Silverlight doing very well, which is why I want to get a piece of the pie before it gets saturated. All the potential is there to make outstanding quality games. And once MS ports Silverlight to mobile devices, it will be an instant win.

I'm not convinced moonlight will ever be a complete solution for Silverlight, which is a shame. Like what Mono did and took shortcuts, Moonlight will have to do the same thing. They're going to be releasing a Silverlight 2 "compatible" version this September, but MS is already lapping them and working on SL 4 right now.

[tyree]

hopefully silverlight will be able to compete with flash, it needs some competition. wasnt a program called anark the template for silverlight

[TheNut]

Although I'm bias towards Silverlight, I have worked with both over the last year. I don't foresee it as much of a battle between the two platforms, more like developers now have a choice and they will follow what they are comfortable with.

[TheNut]

Just sidetracked a bit while working on my Silverlight engine. I added in a zoom animation, thread settings, save to BMP, and anti aliasing. I love the anti-aliased results, it's just a shame it drains CPU power like a sieve.

You are getting sleepy... ;)

[Mihail121]

Woah, a world of endless order!