FlatRedBall
  • 🖥️Downloading FlatRedBall
  • 🏗️Building FlatRedBall From Source
    • Linking Games to FlatRedBall Engine Source
    • Linking FNA
  • ❓Need Help?
  • ✨FlatRedBall Features
  • 🎓Tutorials
    • Introduction To FlatRedBall
    • Quick Start Guide
    • Beefball - A Full FlatRedBall Tutorial Project
      • Creating a FlatRedBall Project
      • Creating an Entity
      • Creating a Screen
      • Controlling an Entity
      • Creating the Screen Collision
      • Advanced PlayerBall Controls
      • Creating the Puck Entity
      • Adding Multiple Players
      • Scoring and Restarting Rounds
      • Scoring Hud
      • Scoring Hud Logic
      • Adding Dashing
    • Platformer Tutorials
      • Platformer Basics
        • Creating an Entity
        • Controlling a Platformer Entity
        • Movement Values
        • Double Jump
      • Checkpoint and Level End
      • Climbing Ladders
      • Doors
      • GroundCollidedAgainst and Movement Values
      • Moving Platforms
      • Multiple Players
      • NPC Dialog
      • Breaking Blocks
        • New Project Setup
        • Creating Level1 Map
        • Creating the Block Entity
        • Block Removal
      • Dealing Damage
        • New Project Setup
        • Enemy Entity
        • Shooting Bullets
        • Damaging the Enemy
      • Enemy Movement
        • New Project Setup
        • Enemy Entity
        • Enemy Input Logic
        • Detecting Platform Edges
      • Ground Type and Water Movement
        • New Project Setup
        • Creating Level1 Map
        • Adding Ice and Water
        • Platformer Movement Values
      • Animation and Platformer Values
        • New Project Setup
        • Creating AnimationLayers
        • Modifying Platformer Values
      • Wall Sliding and Jumping
    • Damage Dealing
      • Setup
      • Team Index
      • Damage Events
      • IDamageArea Removal
      • Melee Damage
    • Entity Variants Using Inheritance
    • FlatRedBall.Forms
      • Getting Started with FlatRedBall.Forms
        • Setup
        • Working with Common Controls
        • Forms vs Gum in Code
      • Forms and Xbox360GamePad
      • Data Binding (BindingContext)
        • BindingContext Property
        • Binding FlatRedBall.Forms
        • Parent and Children Binding using BindingContext
        • ListBox Templates
      • Styling Forms
      • Defining New Forms Types
        • Adding New Types to FlatRedBall.Forms Library
      • Accessing Forms Events in Gum Runtimes
    • Top Down Games
      • Top Down Basics
        • Setup
        • Input Device
        • CurrentMovement
      • Enemy Movement
        • Enemy Pathfinding
        • Direct Enemy Control
      • GroundVelocity
      • Animation
      • Sorting
    • Post Processing
    • Rock Blaster - A Full FlatRedBall Tutorial Project
      • Introduction
      • Setup
      • Game Skeleton
      • Player Entity
      • Player Behavior
      • Rock Entity
      • Collision
      • Rock States
      • HUD
      • Multiple Players
      • Health
      • Health Part 2
      • Destroying Entities
      • Cleaning Up
    • Code-Only Projects (No Editor)
      • Creating a FlatRedBall Project
      • Adding a Circle
      • Loading Textures and Using Sprites
    • Code Tutorials
      • 3D Camera Setup
      • Adding FlatRedBall to a MonoGame/FNA Project
      • Adding WPF to an Existing Game
      • async and await
      • CLR Profiler
      • Collision Jitter
      • Culling
      • Customizing Cursor Visuals
        • Windows Desktop
        • windows-rt
      • Depth Buffer Z Fighting
      • Dictionaries and Enum Keys
      • FlatRedBall XNA in Windows Form
      • Improving Performance
        • CustomActivity Performance
        • Identifying Screen Creation Performance Issues
        • Rendering Performance
        • Manually Updated Objects
          • Introduction
          • Measuring Automatic Updates
          • Measuring Sprite Automatic Updates
          • Manual Particle Systems
      • Object Sorting
      • Pix
      • Rendering Sprites with Shaders
      • Tile-Based Movement
      • Velocity
    • Distribution
      • App Icon
      • Emptying bin Folder Using Probing Path
      • itch.io
      • Release Build
      • Steam
    • FlatRedBall and Velcro Physics
      • Using Velcro Physics with the FlatRedBall Editor
      • Code-Only Velcro Projects
    • FlatRedBall Editor Plugins
      • Introduction to FlatRedBall Plugins
      • Creating a Plugin Project
      • Creating a Plugin Class
      • Adding UI to FlatRedBall
      • Using MVVM
      • Creating a NamedObjectSave-Editing Plugin
      • Adding File Format Support
      • Adding Code Files to a Game Project
      • Errors
      • Exporting a Plugin
    • Additional FlatRedBall Editor Tutorials
      • How to Create a First Person Camera
      • How to Play Sounds
      • How to Share Reference Data Between Screens and Entities
    • Math Tutorials
      • Circle Collision
      • Determining required magnitude for trajectory
      • Introduction to Collision
      • Power of Two
      • Rectangle Collision
      • rotation
      • statistics
      • trigonometry
      • vector
      • matrix
      • interpolation
    • Overworld Tutorials
      • Spinning Mode 7
        • New Project Setup
        • Adding Camera Code
        • Fading In and Out
  • 🎞️Videos
  • 📐FlatRedBall Editor
    • Display Settings
    • Entities
      • BaseEntity
      • Constructor
      • ConvertToManuallyUpdated
      • CreatedByOtherEntities
      • CustomActivity
      • CustomDestroy
      • CustomInitialize
      • Destroying Entities
      • Entity Performance
      • Export Entity
      • Implements IClickable
      • Implements ICollidable
      • Implements IDamageArea
      • Implements IDrawableBatch
      • Implements IGumCollidable
      • Implements IVisible
      • Implements IWindow
        • SlideOnClick
      • Import Entity
      • Inheriting from FlatRedBall Types
      • LayerProvidedByContainer
      • MoveToLayer
      • PooledByFactory
      • Top Down Movement
        • TopDownSpeedMultiplier
      • Use Global Content
    • Events
      • ResolutionRrOrientationChanged
    • Factories
      • CreateNew
      • EntitySpawned
      • Initialize
      • SortAxis
    • Files
      • File Types
        • Animation Chain List (.achx)
        • Comma Separated Values (.csv)
          • Combining .csvs With Entities
          • CreatesDictionary
          • Cross Referencing CSVs
          • Instantiating Custom Types
          • OrderedList
          • SetCreatedClass
            • generate-data-class
          • uniformrowtype
        • Effect (.fx, .fxb)
        • Font (.fnt)
        • JSON (.json)
        • Model (.fbx)
        • MP3
        • Node Network (.nntx)
        • OpenDocument Spreadsheet (.ods)
        • ShapeCollections (.shcx)
        • SplineList (.splx)
        • Texture2D (.png)
        • Wave (.wav)
      • Accessing Files in Code
      • Adding File Objects to Managers
      • Destroy on Unload
      • File Build Tool
      • Folders
      • Global Content Files
      • IsDatabaseForLocalizing
      • IsManuallyUpdated
      • IncludeDirectoryRelativeToContainer
      • LoadedAtRuntime
      • LoadedOnlyWhenReferenced
      • Name
      • Platform Inclusions
      • Project Specific Files
      • RuntimeType
      • SourceFile
      • UseContentPipeline
      • Wildcard Files
    • FileVersion (.gluj)
    • Generated Code
    • Global Content Files
      • LoadAsynchronously
      • Reload
      • Setting Files At Runtime
    • Live Edit
      • Render Targets
    • Menu
      • Content
        • Additional Content
          • Using Runtime Types as Objects
          • creating-runtime-objects
          • runtime-object-charateristics
          • simple-line-of-text-tutorial
        • Introduction
        • pipeline-settings
      • File
        • New Project
      • Edit
        • Find File References
      • Plugins
        • Install Plugin
        • Manage Plugins
      • Project
        • View Projects
      • Settings
        • Camera Settings
        • File Associations
        • File Build Tools
        • Performance Settings
      • Update
        • Introduction
        • glue-reference-menu-frbdk
        • glue-reference-menu-libraries
    • Multi-Platform
      • Synced Projects
      • Changing Main Project Type
      • Android
        • Distribution
        • Setup
      • iOS
        • Certificates and Profiles
        • Copying Projects to Mac
        • Using Xamarin Build Host
      • Switch (Nintendo)
      • Web
    • Objects
      • Object Types
        • AxisAlignedRectangle
        • Camera
        • CameraControllingEntity
        • Circle
        • CollisionRelationship
        • Layer
          • DestinationRectangle
          • Is2D
        • Polygon
        • PositionedObjectList
        • RenderTarget2D
        • ShapeCollection
        • SoundEffectInstance
        • Sprite
        • Text
        • TileNodeNetwork
      • AddToManagers
      • AttachToCamera
      • AttachToContainer
      • CallActivity
      • Collidable Objects
      • EntireFile
      • ExposedInDerived
      • HasPublicProperty
      • IgnoresPausing
      • IncludeInIClickable
      • IncludeInICollidable
      • IsContainer
      • LayerOn
      • Map
      • SetByDerived
      • SourceFile
      • SourceType
    • Plugins
      • glue-gluevault-component-pages-rendertargetrenderer
      • glue-gluevault-component-pages-simple-command-console
      • glue-gluevault-component-pages-squid-gui-integration
      • kalldrexx-interactive-debugging-console
    • Profiling
    • Screens
      • AsyncLoadingState
      • BaseScreen
      • Constructor
      • Creating a New Screen
      • CustomDestroy
      • CustomInitialize
      • DefaultLayer
      • GameScreen
      • IsActivityFinished
      • IsLoadingScreen
      • LoadStaticContent
      • MoveToScreen
      • PauseAdjustedCurrentTime
      • Set as StartUp Screen
      • UnloadsContentManagerWhenDestroyed
    • States
      • InterpolateToState
      • InterpolateToState vs InterpolateBetween
      • State Categories
      • State Classes
      • States and Inheritance
      • Tunneling Category Variables
    • Variables
      • CreatesEvent
      • HasAccompanyingVelocityProperty
      • IsShared
      • Proper Variable Naming
      • SetByDerived
      • Type
      • Variable Order
    • Visual Studio Project (.csproj)
  • 🏃Animation Editor
    • Frame Time
    • Animation Shapes and Collision
  • Tiled
    • Tiled Basics
      • Introduction
      • Creating a GameScreen
      • Adding Collision
      • Colliding Entities Against TileShapeCollections
      • Working with Multiple Levels
      • Creating Entities from Tiles
      • Creating Entities from Object Layers
      • Accessing Tiled Properties
      • Working with Tiled Shapes
    • Tiled Files in Entities
    • TileEntityInstantiator
    • Using TiledObjects.Generated.xml
    • LayeredTileMap
      • Collisions
      • Destroy
      • FromTiledMapSave
      • Z
    • MapDrawableBatch
      • AddTile
      • CoordinateAdjustment
      • GetBottomLeftWorldCoordinateForOrderedTile
      • MergeOntoThis
      • NamedTileOrderedIndexes
      • PaintTile
      • PaintTileTextureCoordinates
      • ParallaxX
      • Paste
      • Properties
      • RemoveQuads
      • RenderingScale
      • SortAxis
    • TiledMapSave
    • TileShapeCollection
      • AddCollisionAtWorld
      • AddCollisionFrom
      • AddCollisionFromTilesWithProperty
      • AddMergedCollisionFromLayer
      • AddMergedCollisionFromTilesWithProperty
      • AdjustRepositionDirectionsOnAddAndRemove
      • CollideAgainst
      • CollideAgainstClosest
      • GetRectangleAtPosition
      • InsertCollidables
      • LastCollisionAxisAlignedRectangles
      • Rectangles
      • RemoveFromManagers
      • RemoveSurroundedCollision
  • 🟩Gum
    • Tutorials
      • Introduction and Setup
      • Screens in Gum
      • Gum Objects in Code
      • Events on Gum Objects
      • Events on Gum Objects Part 2
      • Exposed Variables
      • States
      • Adding Code to Gum Objects
    • Accessing Gum Screens in Code
    • Adding Components to Layers
    • Adding Gum Screens to FlatRedBall
    • Animations in Code
    • Components in FlatRedBall Entities
    • Converting Gum Coordinates
    • Creating Components in Code
    • GraphicalUiElement as IWindow
    • Gum Resolution
    • Gum Properties Tab
    • Gum Animations
      • How to Play Gum Screen Animations
      • Named Events
      • Setting Gum Animationchain Achx in Code
  • 🦴Spine
    • Setup
    • Atlas
    • Changing Spine Textures at Runtime
    • SpineDrawableBatch
      • Event
      • PlayAnimation
      • SetCollision
      • Skeleton
  • ⏸️Aseprite
    • AnimationChainList
  • 🏫API Documentation
    • FlatRedBall Engine
      • AI
        • LineOfSight
          • VisibilityGrid
        • Pathfinding
          • PositionedNode
          • Link
            • Cost
            • NodeLinkingTo
          • NodeNetwork
            • GetPath
            • UpdateShapes
            • Visible
          • TileNodeNetwork
            • AddAndLinkTiledNode
            • AddAndLinkTiledNodeWorld
            • OccupyTileWorld
            • SetCosts
      • Audio
        • AudioManager
          • AreSoundEffectsEnabled
          • CurrentlyPlayingSong
          • MasterSongVolume
          • MasterSoundVolume
          • Play
          • PlaySong
          • PlaySongs
          • StopSong
        • PositionedSound
        • Sound
      • Camera
        • AbsoluteRightXEdge
        • AbsoluteRightXEdgeAt
        • AddLayer
        • AddSpriteToBillboard
        • AspectRatio
        • AttachTo
        • BackgroundColor
        • CameraCullMode
        • ClearMinimumsAndMaximums
        • ClearsDepthBuffer
        • DestinationRectangle
        • DrawsShapes
        • DrawsToScreen
        • DrawsWorld
        • FarClipPlane
        • FieldOfView
        • FixAspectRatioYConstant
        • ForceUpdateDependencies
        • GetViewport
        • IsSpriteInView
        • KeepSpriteInScreen
        • Layer
        • Layers
        • Main
        • MaximumX
        • Orthogonal
        • OrthogonalHeight
        • OrthogonalWidth
        • PixelsPerUnitAt
        • Position
        • PositionRandomlyInView
        • RelativeXEdgeAt
        • RemoveLayer
        • RotationMatrix
        • SetBordersAtZ
        • SetLookAtRotationMatrix
        • SetSplitScreenViewport
        • UpdateViewProjectionMatrix
        • UpVector
        • UsePixelCoordinates
        • UsePixelCoordinates3D
        • View
      • Content
        • ContentLoadBatch
        • AnimationChain
          • AnimationChainListSave
        • ContentManager
          • AddUnloadMethod
          • FileAliases
          • IsAssetLoadedByName
          • Load
          • LoadFromGlobalIfExists
          • Multiple Content Managers
        • Math
          • Geometry
            • ShapeCollectionSave
        • Polygon
          • PolygonSave
        • Scene
          • CameraSave
          • SceneSave
        • SpriteEditorScene
          • Camera
      • Debugging
        • Debugger
          • CommandLineWrite
          • GetFullPerformanceInformation
          • TextBlue
          • WriteAutomaticallyUpdatedObjectInformation
      • Entities
        • CameraControllingEntity
        • IDamageable
        • IDamageArea
      • FlatRedBallServices
        • AddDisposable
        • AddManager
        • CornerGrabbingResize
        • Draw
        • ForceClientSizeUpdates
        • Game
        • GetManagerInformation
        • GlobalContentManager
        • GraphicsOptions
        • Initialize
        • IsLoaded
        • Load
        • Owner
        • Random
        • RenderAll
        • Unload
        • Update
        • WindowHandle
      • Graphics
        • Animation
          • AnimationChain
            • Clone
            • FrameToFrame
            • TotalLength
          • AnimationChainList
          • AnimationController
          • AnimationFrame
            • RelativeX
            • ShapeCollectionSave
            • Texture
          • IAnimationChainAnimatable
            • Animate
            • Animation and Timing
            • AnimationChains
            • AnimationSpeed
            • CurrentChainName
            • CurrentFrameIndex
            • JustChangedFrame
            • JustCycled
            • UseAnimationRelativePosition
        • BitmapFont
          • BMFC File
          • BitmapCharacterInfo
          • FNT File
          • Glyphs
          • LineHeightInPixels
          • RenderToTexture2D
        • BlendOperation
        • ColorOperation
          • Add
          • Color
          • ColorTextureAlpha
          • InterpolateColor
          • Modulate
          • Texture
        • GraphicsOptions
          • Filtering
          • IsFullScreen
          • ResolutionHeight
          • SetFullScreen
          • SetResolution
          • SizeOrOrientationChanged
          • TextureFilter
          • TextureLoadingColorKey
          • UseMultisampling
        • IColorable
          • Alpha
          • BlendOperation
          • Blue
          • ColorOperation
        • IDrawableBatch
          • Z
          • RenderState
        • IVisible
          • IgnoresParentVisibility
        • Layer
          • Layer Membership Details
          • LayerCameraSettings
          • Remove
          • RenderTarget
          • SortType
          • Sprites
          • UsePixelCoordinates
        • LayerCameraSettings
          • OrthogonalWidth
          • TopDestination
        • Particle
          • EmissionSettings
            • Drag
            • PixelSize
            • ScaleX
          • Emitter
        • PostProcessing
          • SwapChain
        • RenderBreak
        • Renderer
          • Draw
          • LastFrameRenderBreakList
          • RenderBreaksAllocatedThisFrame
        • Text
          • AdjustPositionForPixelPerfectDrawing
          • ColorOperation
          • DisplayText
          • GetWidth
          • Font
          • HorizontalAlignment
          • InsertNewLines
          • MaxWidth
          • MaxWidthBehavior
          • NewLineDistance
          • NumberOfLines
          • ScaleX
          • SetColor
          • SetPixelPerfectScale
          • VerticalAlignment
          • Width
        • TextManager
          • AddManuallyUpdated
          • AddText
          • AddToLayer
          • FilterTexts
          • RemoveText
        • Texture
          • RenderTargetSprite
          • ImageData
            • ApplyColorOperation
            • Fill
            • FromTexture2D
      • Gui
        • Cursor
          • Camera
          • ClickNoSlideThreshold
          • CustomUpdate
          • GetRay
          • IngnoreInputThisFrame
          • IsInWindow
          • IsOn
          • IsOn3d
          • PrimaryClick
          • PrimaryClickNoSlide
          • PrimaryPushTime
          • ScreenX
          • SecondaryClick
          • SetControllingGamepad
          • SetJoystickControl
          • TransformationMatrix
          • WindowOver
          • WidowPushed
          • WorldPosition
          • WorldX
          • WorldXAt
          • WorldYAt
          • XForUi
        • GuiManager
          • AddDominantWindow
          • BringsClickedWindowsToFront
          • BringToFront
          • GamepadsForUiControl
          • MakeRegularWindow
          • RemoveWindow
          • SortZAndLayerBased
          • Windows
        • IClickable
        • IInputReceiver
          • IWindow
            • CallClick
            • Enabled
          • ReceiveInput
      • Input
        • AnalogButton
        • AnalogStick
          • IsMaxPositionNormalized
        • DelegateBased1DInput
        • DelegateBased2DInput
        • DelegateBasedPressableInput
        • I1DInput
        • I2DInput
        • IMouseOver
        • InputDeviceBase
        • InputManager
          • ClearAllInput
          • InputReceiver
        • IPressableInput
        • Keyboard
          • Clear
          • ControlPositionedObject
          • Get2DInput
          • GetKey
          • GetStringTyped
          • IgnoreKeyForOneFrame
          • KeyDown
          • KeyPushed
        • Mouse
          • GrabbedPositionedObject
          • IsOn3D
          • ModifyMouseState
          • Restricting Mouse to Screen Bounds
          • SetScreenPosition
        • TouchScreen
          • LastFrameGestures
          • ReadsGestures
        • Windows
          • WindowsInputEventManager
        • Xbox360GamePad
          • ButtonDown
          • ButtonMap
          • ButtonPosition vs Button
          • ButtonPushed
          • ControlPositionedObject
          • CreateDefaultButtonMap
          • Deadzone
          • DeadzoneType
          • FakeIsConnected
          • GamepadLayout
          • IgnoreButtonForOneFrame
      • Instructions
        • DelegateInstruction
        • IInstructable
          • Call
          • Cnstructions
          • Set
        • Instruction
        • InstructionList
          • ExecuteAndRemoveOrCyclePassedInstructions
        • InstructionManager
          • Add
          • AddSafe
          • Instructions
          • MoveThrough
          • MoveTo
          • MoveToAccurate
          • ObjectsIgnoringPausing
          • PauseEngine
          • Pulse
          • RotateToAccurate
        • Reflection
          • LateBinder
          • PropertyCollection
        • MethodInstruction
        • StaticMethodInstruction
      • IO
        • Csv
          • CsvHeader
          • CsvFilemanager
            • Cells with Multiple Lines
            • Color
            • CsvDeserializelist
            • Rows with Lists
          • RuntimeCsvRepresentation
            • FromList
            • GenerateCsvString
        • FileManager
          • BinarySerialize
          • CloneObject
          • FromFileText
          • GetAllFilesInDirectory
          • GetUserFolder
          • InitializeUserFolder
          • RelativeDirectory
          • SaveEmbeddedResource
          • SaveText
          • Standardize
          • UserApplicationDataForThisApplication
          • XmlDeserialize
          • XmlSerialize
      • Localization
        • LocalizationManager
      • Managers
        • IManager
      • Math
        • IAttachableRemovable
        • AttachableList
          • FindByName
          • MakeOneWay
        • Collision
          • CollisionManager
            • Relationships
            • Update
        • Geometry
          • AxisAlignedCube
            • CollideAgainstBounce
          • AxisAlignedRectangle
            • Axis Alignment And Rotation
            • CollideAgainstMoveSoft
            • Color
            • GetRandomPositionInThis
            • KeepThisInsideOf
            • LastMoveCollisionReposition
            • Left
            • RepositionDirections
          • Capsule2D
          • Circle
            • CollideAgainst
            • CollideAgainstBounce
            • CollideAgainstMove
            • IsPointInside
            • LastCollisionTangent
            • LastMoveCollisionReposition
            • ProjectParentVelocityOnLastMoveCollisionTangent
            • Visible
            • Z
          • Colliding a List of Shapes Against Itself
          • FloatRectangle
          • ICollidable
          • IScalable
            • Scale
          • Line
            • Color
            • LastCollisionPoint
            • RelativePoint1
            • SetFromAbsoluteEndpoints
          • Point
          • Polygon
            • AbsolutePointPosition
            • Clone
            • CollideAgainstBounce
            • CollideAgainstMove and Attachments
            • CollideAgainstMove
            • Color
            • CreateEquilateral
            • CreateRectangle
            • ForceUpdateDependencies
            • IsPointInside
            • LastMoveCollisionReposition
            • OptimizeRadius
            • Points
            • Position
            • ProjectParentVelocityOnLastMoveCollisionTangent
            • ScaleBy
            • Thin Polygon Problem
            • VectorFrom
            • Visible
            • Z
          • Segment
            • ClosestPointTo
          • Shape
          • ShapeCollection
            • AttachTo
            • AxisAlignedRectangles
            • CollideAgainst
            • CollideAgainstBounceWithoutSnag
            • CollideAgainstMove
            • CollideAgainstMoveWithoutSnag
            • LastCollisionAxisAlignedRectangles
            • SortAscending
            • Visible
          • ShapeManager
            • AddToLayer
            • Remove
            • ShapeDrawingOrder
          • ShapeMerger
          • Shapes and 2D Collision
          • Sphere
        • IAttachable
          • Attachment Updates in the Engine
          • Detach
          • ParentRotationChangesPosition
          • ParentRotationChangesRotation
          • TopParent
        • IRotatable
          • RotationMatrix
        • MathFunctions
          • AbsoluteToWindow
          • AngleToAngle
          • AngleToVector
          • GetPointInCircle
          • GetPositionAfterTime
          • RegulatAngle
          • RotatePointAroundPoint
          • RoundFloat
          • RoundToInt
          • WidowToAbsolute
        • Paths
          • Path
        • PositionedObjectList
          • Add
          • AttachTo
          • Clear
          • GetFirstAfter
          • GetFirstAfterPosition
          • SortXInsertionAscending
        • Splines
          • Spline
            • GetPositionAtLengthAlongSpline
      • Performance
        • Measurement
          • Section
            • GetAndStartContextAndTime
            • Save
            • ToStringVerbose
      • PositionedObject
        • Acceleration
        • AttachTo
        • Children
        • Clone
        • Drag
        • ForceUpdatedependencies
        • ForceUpdatedependenciesDeep
        • Initialize
        • KeepTrackOfReal
        • LastPosition
        • Mirrored properties
        • ParentRotationChangesPosition
        • ParentRotationChangesRotation
        • Position
        • RelativePosition
        • RelativeRotationZ
        • RelativeVelocity
        • RemoveSelfFromListsBelongingTo
        • RotationZ
        • SetRelativeFromAbsolute
        • TimedActivity
        • TopParent
        • UpdateDependencies
        • Velocity
        • Z
      • Screens
        • Screen
          • ContentManagerName
          • CustomDestroy
          • IsActivityFinished
          • MoveToScreen
          • PauseThisScreen
        • ScreenManager
          • Activity
          • CurrentScreen
          • Start
      • Sprite
        • Alpha
        • AnimateSelf
        • AnimationChains
        • AnimationSpeed
        • Bottom
        • BottomTextureCoordinate
        • Changing a Sprite's Origin
        • ColorOperation
        • CurrentChainName
        • CurrentFrameIndex
        • IgnoreAnimationChainTextureFlip
        • Inheriting from the Sprite Class
        • JustCycled
        • LeftTextureCoordinate
        • PixelSize
        • Position
        • RightTextureCoordinate
        • SetAnimationChain
        • SetScaleXRatioToY
        • Sorting and Overlapping
        • Sprite vs Texture2d
        • Texture Coordinates
        • Texture
        • TextureAddressMode
        • TextureCoordinate
        • TextureFilter
        • TextureScale
        • TimeIntoAnimation
        • TopTextureCoordinate
        • UseAnimationRelativePosition
        • Vertices
        • VerticesForDrawing
        • Visible
      • SpriteList
      • SpriteManager
        • AddDrawableBatch
        • AddManagedInvisibleSprite
        • AddManualSprite
        • AddParticleSprite
        • AddPositionedObject
        • AddSprite
        • AddToLayer
        • AddZBufferedDrawableBatch
        • AddZBufferedSprite
        • AutomaticallyUpdatedSprites
        • Camera
        • ConvertToAutomaticallyUpdated
        • ConvertToManagedInvisible
        • ConvertToManuallyUpdated
        • ConvertToZBufferedSprite
        • DrawableBatches
        • ManagedPositionedObjects
        • ManualUpdate
        • MaxParticleCount
        • MoveToBack
        • OrderedSortType
          • Z
        • OrderedSprites
        • RemoveDrawableBatch
        • RemoveLayer
        • RemovePositionedObject
        • RemoveSprite
        • RemoveSpriteOneWay
        • SortTexturesSecondary
        • SortYSpritesSecondary
        • UnderAllDrawnLayer
      • TimeManager
        • Accumulating Time
        • CurrentScreenSecondsSince
        • CurrentTime
        • Profiling
        • SecondDifference
        • SecondsSince
        • SumTimeSection
        • SystemCurrentTime
        • TimeFactor
        • Working with TimeSpan
      • Utilities
        • StringFunctions
    • FlatRedBall.Forms
      • Controls
        • Button
        • CheckBox
        • ComboBox
        • FrameworkElement
          • DefaultFormsComponents
          • HandleTab
          • Show
          • Visual
        • Games
          • DialogBox
          • OnScreenKeyboard
          • SettingsView
        • ListBox
        • ListBoxItem
        • RadioButton
        • ScrollBar
        • ScrollViewer
        • Slider
        • StackPanel
        • TextBox
        • TreeView
        • TreeViewItem
      • MVVM
        • DependsOnAttribute
    • FlatRedBall Editor Plugin
      • customvariable
      • Introduction
      • flatredball-glue-elements-objectfinder
      • flatredball-glue-guidisplay-propertygriddisplayer
      • Introduction
      • flatredball-glue-projectmanager
      • Introduction
      • flatredball-glue-saveclasses-namedobjectsave
      • flatredball-glue-saveclasses-referencedfilesave
      • flatredball-glue
        • plugins
          • flatredball-glue-exportedinterfaces-igluestate
          • flatredball-glue-exportedinterfaces-igluxcommands-addreferencedfiletoglobalcontent
          • flatredball-glue-exportedinterfaces-igluxcommands
          • Introduction
          • flatredball-glue-exportedinterfaces-iprojectcommands-makeabsolute
          • flatredball-glue-exportedinterfaces-iprojectcommands
          • flatredball-glue-interfaces-icodegeneratorplugin
          • flatredball-glue-interfaces-imenustripplugin
          • Introduction
          • flatredball-glue-pluginbase-getfilesreferencedby
          • flatredball-glue-pluginbase
          • Introduction
        • vshelpers
          • codebuilditemadder
    • FlatRedBall Editor (Glue)
      • AssetTypeInfo
      • Cleaning Up Screens
      • CodeGeneration
        • ICodeBlock
      • CustomActivity
      • CustomLoadStaticContent
      • Entity
        • Introduction
        • glue-reference-entities-destroy
      • Game1CodeGenerator
      • GetFile
      • PauseThisScreen
      • SaveClasses
        • GlueSettingsSave
      • Screen
        • glue-reference-screens-pauseadjustedsecondssince
    • Live Edit
      • EditorVisuals
        • Circle
        • Text
      • Instance Creation
    • Gum Runtime
      • GraphicalUiElement
        • GetAbsoluteLeft
        • GetGraphicalUiElementByName
        • HasCursorover
        • InterpolateBetween
        • InterpolateTo
        • MoveToFrbLayer
        • RaiseChildrenEventsOutsideOfBounds
        • SetProperty
        • ShowLineRectangles
        • TestCollision
      • RenderingLibrary
        • camera
        • ipositionedsizedobject
        • graphics
          • Layer
          • text
            • textrenderingmode
    • iOS
      • uikit-uiviewcontroller
    • Microsoft.Xna.Framework
      • Audio
        • SoundEffect
        • SoundEffectInstance
      • Color
      • Introduction
      • Game
        • IsActive
        • IsFixedTimeStep
        • IsMouseVisible
        • TargetElapsedTime
      • GameWindow
        • Introduction
        • Introduction
        • handle
      • Graphics
        • Shared Parameters
        • model
        • spritebatch
        • GraphicsDevice
          • renderstate
          • SetRenderTarget
        • renderstate
          • referencealpha
        • Texture2D
          • Creating New Textures Programatically
      • GraphicsDeviceManager
        • supportedorientations
      • Media
        • MediaPlayer
        • Song
          • FromUri
      • Vector3
    • NAudio
      • NAudio_Song
    • SkiaGum
      • SkiaSpriteCanvas
      • Renderables
        • RenderableSkiaObject
    • State Interpolation
      • Tween
      • Tweener
      • TweenerManager
  • 🏘️Contributing
    • How to Contribute
    • Builds (Releases)
      • Gum
    • Writing Documentation
    • Contributing Code (Pull Requests)
    • Automated Test Project
    • Programming Style Guide
  • 🎮FlatRedBall Games
    • angry-boy
    • avatar-skate
    • avatar-word-wave
    • bobble-biker
    • box-the-gopher
    • cargo-crush
    • combo-red-moon-rising
    • cubism
    • eat-my-shuriken-and-die
    • elemento
    • food-battler
    • free-towels
    • gravi-dot
    • hyperdodge
    • juice-factory
    • operation-sd-space-defense
    • picture-puzzle-revolution
    • prismatic
    • quarantine
    • quest-for-freshness
    • star-stepper
    • steambirds
    • sticky-bump
    • tile-trip
    • trashman
    • tumble-heads
    • udder-chaos
    • without-escape
    • games-oniro
  • 🔴FlatRedBall Logo
  • Installing XNA in Visual Studio 2017
Powered by GitBook
On this page

Was this helpful?

Edit on GitHub
Export as PDF

Last updated 1 year ago

Was this helpful?

Introduction

This walkthrough looks at the FlatRedBall DialogBoxDemo project and explains important details of implementing a dialog box in response to talking to NPCs. Platformers may include dialog boxes to display conversations between characters either as part of a cutscene (such as in Mega Man X) or in response to player input (such as in Castlevania 2).

This walkthrough will refer to the DialogBoxDemo as this demo and the demo.

Main Concepts

This demo includes a number of important concepts which combine to create NPCs which the player can talk to using a talk button (X on the Xbox360 GamePad) to display unique dialog.

  • Dialog is dialog as defined in a CSV file. This file could also be used to support multiple languages, but this demo only includes English.

  • NPCs are placed in the Level1Map file through Tiled. NPCs can be moved and their dialog can change by making changes in Level1Map.

  • The DialogBox object from FlatRedBall Forms is used to display dialog. It is displayed in response to collision (player talk collision vs NPC) and button presses.

CSV Dialog

A typical game which supports NPC dialog may have hundreds or even thousands of pages of dialog. While it is possible to write the dialog directly into the C# code, maintaining this dialog can be very difficult. This is especially true if the game is being developed with a dedicated writing team, or if the game supports multiple languages. To address both of these considerations, FlatRedBall provides a standard way to store and access dialog. The demo includes a CSV file called LocalizationDatabase.csv which contains all dialog. This is added to Global Content Files so that the dialog can be accessed throughout the entire project, and it is marked as IsDatabaseForLocalizing.

Additional columns can be added for games which support multiple languages. Similarly, additional rows can be added to support more NPCs. We separate each page of text with a newline. The English text for T_Npc2 and T_Npc3 both have two pages. Even if the game includes a single language, it must be told whether to display this language or whether it should display the string IDs. This is done in the initialization for GameScreen. A game with more screens may set the CurrentLanguage property in the first screen which is shown (such as a splash screen) or even in Game1. Also, if the game supports multiple languages, this property would change if the user changes the current language in a settings page.

Notice that the first column (Id) is index 0, so English is index 1. The text contained in this file is accessed through the LocalizationManager.Translate method whenever we display dialog boxes. We will return to this code later in the walkthrough to examine how the DialogBox works, but for now we'll highlight the call to Translate in GameScreen.Event.cs ShowDialogBox.

The call to Translate passes in stringId which will be one of the IDs (T_Npc1, T_Npc2, or T_Npc3) depending on which NPC the player has talked to. For example, calling Translate with the string "T_Npc1" results in the string "Hi, I'm just hanging out over here." being returned. The returned string is then split according to the newline character ('\n') to create an IEnumerable<string> where each string is a separate page. The pages are passed to the currentDialogBox.ShowDialog call.

Npc in Glue

The demo includes an entity called Npc which represents a character in the game which the player can talk to. These NPCs are entities similar to the Player entity. Specifically, they are marked as platformer entities and collide with the level's solid collision.

It's worth noting that the Npc instances do not move in this game, so they could have been implemented as static entities with no collision. A full game may include NPCs which walk around a level, follow the player, or move in response to cinematic sequences. Therefore, they have been created as platformer entities so that they can be fully functional if a larger game calls for it. NPCs should not respond to input, so we mark the input device as None in Glue.

We must assign an input device to avoid NullReferenceExceptions from being thrown, so we do so in the Npc's CustomInitialize code by calling InitializePlatformerInput.

As shown in the code above, the demo also creates an AnimationController so that the Npc faces left or right in response to its DirectionFacing property. As we'll see later, we use this so the Npc faces the Player when dialog is shown. As mentioned earlier, each Npc includes its own dialog. This dialog is assigned in Tiled, but to support this we must create a variable in Glue so the Npc entity includes a DialogId variable.

This variable is defined in Glue, but set in Tiled.

Npc in Tiled

Npc instances can be added to levels through Tiled. To do this, a Tile must have its Type set to Npc. We use one of the tiles in the standard tileset.

Any instance of this tile in Level1Map will result in an Npc instance at runtime.

Notice that the instances are on an object layer rather than a tile layer. This allows the setting of properties on each instance. For example, the selected tile in the screenshot above has a DialogId of T_Npc1. This must match one of the entries in the localization CSV file mentioned earlier. When the Level1Map is loaded, Npc instances are created automatically and added to their respective list (in this case NpcList) in GameScreen. The DialogId variable is also assigned automatically and it can be used to display dialog, as is done in GameScreen.Event.cs where the ShowDialogBox method is called.

Player vs Npc Collision

For dialog to appear, two things must occur:

  1. The Player must push the Talk button.

  2. The Player must be close to the NPC. The Player entity includes an AxisAlignedRectangleInstance named TalkCollision specifically to test proximity.

If both occur, then dialog should be displayed.

TalkInput

The TalkInput is defined in the Player.cs file. The platformer generated code does not automatically add an input object for talking, so the demo adds it in custom code and assigns it in CustomInitializePlatformerInput.

The demo uses the same input for running and talking, but this could be any button. The TalkInput property must also be public so that we can inspect whether it has been pressed when colliding with the Npc.

PlayerListTalkCollisionVsNpcList Collision Relationship

As mentioned earlier, the Player includes an AxisAlignedRectangle named TalkCollision. This is excluded from the iCollidable collision so that it does not bump into walls or keep the player on a ledge.

A collision relationship specifically checking the TalkCollision vs the NpcList is included in the GameScreen.

This is handled in an event in GameScreen.Event.cs.

Notice that this collision relationship event may trigger every frame, but we only want to perform the dialog box logic if there isn't already a dialog box active, and if the user has just pressed the TalkInput. We could have also manually performed the CollisionRelationship logic in CustomActivity to reduce the number of collision checks, but games like this will typically have a small number of NPCs so the overhead of checking collision every frame is negligible. As mentioned earlier, we manually set the DirectionFacing on the Npc to turn the Npc towards the player. We also temporarily disable Player input so that players cannot move while the dialog is displayed. Notice that the event is an async method, and that we await the DialogBox. Code using the async/await pattern is not very common in FlatRedBall, but it can be very useful when displaying UI using FlatRedBall.Forms. Awaiting the ShowDialogBox method allows us to turn input off and on in a single method without continually checking if the DialogBox is displayed and without callbacks. The ShowDialogBox method displays the dialog box by calling ShowDialog. The ShowDialog method is responsible for the following whether dealing with the DialogBox type or any other FlatRedBall.Forms type:

  1. Displaying new instances of the DialogBox - specifically adding the visuals to FlatRedBall and allowing the Cursor and Xbox360GamePad logic to be performed on the control

  2. Displaying the pages of text as passed in to this method

  3. Removing the DialogBox completely from the engine - both display and logic

If awaited, the ShowDialog call will not return until all pages have been shown. Since the game uses gamepads, we provide a custom AdvancePageInputPredicate which specifies how text is advanced. In this case, we progress a page of text whenever the A, X, B, or Y buttons are pressed, and only for the InputDevice for the player that talked to the NPC. This would matter if the game were to be expanded to support multiple players.

Conclusion

This walkthrough has covered how to add a dialog box to NPCs. Each NPC defines its own set of dialog using a CSV file which can also be used to support multiple languages.

The sample project can be downloaded from Github:

For detailed information about how to create a localization database, see the . The LocalizationDatabase.csv file includes two columns. The leftmost column is the string ID - this is how code accesses the text in the CSV. The second column is the text for the string ID in English (as the column name indicates).

void CustomInitialize()
{
    LocalizationManager.CurrentLanguage = 1;
    Map.Z = -3; 
}
private async Task ShowDialogBox(IInputDevice inputDevice, string stringId)
{
    currentDialogBox = new DialogBox();
    currentDialogBox.IsFocused = true;
    var pages = LocalizationManager.Translate(stringId).Split('\n');

    var asGamepad = inputDevice as Xbox360GamePad;

    // Prevents the push that brought this up from advancing the first dialog
    asGamepad?.Clear();

    currentDialogBox.AdvancePageInputPredicate = () =>
    {
        return inputDevice.DefaultPrimaryActionInput.WasJustPressed ||
            asGamepad?.ButtonPushed(Xbox360GamePad.Button.X) == true ||
            asGamepad?.ButtonPushed(Xbox360GamePad.Button.A) == true ||
            asGamepad?.ButtonPushed(Xbox360GamePad.Button.B) == true ||
            asGamepad?.ButtonPushed(Xbox360GamePad.Button.Y) == true;
    };

    await currentDialogBox.ShowDialog(pages);

    currentDialogBox = null;
}
private void CustomInitialize()
{
    InitializePlatformerInput(new InputDeviceBase());

    animationController = new AnimationController(SpriteInstance);
    var idleLayer = new AnimationLayer();
    idleLayer.EveryFrameAction = () =>
    {
        return "CharacterIdle" + DirectionFacing;
    };
    animationController.Layers.Add(idleLayer);
}
async void OnPlayerListTalkCollisionVsNpcListCollisionOccurred (Entities.Player first, Entities.Npc second)
{
    if(first.TalkInput.WasJustPressed && currentDialogBox == null)
    {
        if(first.X < second.X)
        {
            second.DirectionFacing = HorizontalDirection.Left;
        }
        else
        {
            second.DirectionFacing = HorizontalDirection.Right;
        }
        foreach(var player in PlayerList)
        {
            player.InputEnabled = false;
        }

        var playerGamepad = first.InputDevice as Xbox360GamePad;

        if(playerGamepad != null)
        {
            GuiManager.GamePadsForUiControl.Clear();
            GuiManager.GamePadsForUiControl.Add(playerGamepad);
        }

        await ShowDialogBox(first.InputDevice, second.DialogId);

        foreach (var player in PlayerList)
        {
            player.InputEnabled = true;
        }
    }
}
public IPressableInput TalkInput { get; private set; }
...
partial void CustomInitializePlatformerInput()
{
    if(InputDevice is Keyboard asKeyboard)
    {
        RunInput = asKeyboard.GetKey(Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Input.Keys.R);
        TalkInput = asKeyboard.GetKey(Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Input.Keys.R);
    }
    else if(InputDevice is Xbox360GamePad asGamepad)
    {
        RunInput = asGamepad.GetButton(Xbox360GamePad.Button.X);
        TalkInput = asGamepad.GetButton(Xbox360GamePad.Button.X);
    }
}
async void OnPlayerListTalkCollisionVsNpcListCollisionOccurred (Entities.Player first, Entities.Npc second)
{
    if(first.TalkInput.WasJustPressed && currentDialogBox == null)
    {
        if(first.X < second.X)
        {
            second.DirectionFacing = HorizontalDirection.Left;
        }
        else
        {
            second.DirectionFacing = HorizontalDirection.Right;
        }
        foreach(var player in PlayerList)
        {
            player.InputEnabled = false;
        }

        var playerGamepad = first.InputDevice as Xbox360GamePad;

        if(playerGamepad != null)
        {
            GuiManager.GamePadsForUiControl.Clear();
            GuiManager.GamePadsForUiControl.Add(playerGamepad);
        }

        await ShowDialogBox(first.InputDevice, second.DialogId);

        foreach (var player in PlayerList)
        {
            player.InputEnabled = true;
        }
    }
}
private async Task ShowDialogBox(IInputDevice inputDevice, string stringId)
{
    currentDialogBox = new DialogBox();
    currentDialogBox.IsFocused = true;
    var pages = LocalizationManager.Translate(stringId).Split('\n');

    var asGamepad = inputDevice as Xbox360GamePad;

    // Prevents the push that brought this up from advancing the first dialog
    asGamepad?.Clear();

    currentDialogBox.AdvancePageInputPredicate = () =>
    {
        return inputDevice.DefaultPrimaryActionInput.WasJustPressed ||
            asGamepad?.ButtonPushed(Xbox360GamePad.Button.X) == true ||
            asGamepad?.ButtonPushed(Xbox360GamePad.Button.A) == true ||
            asGamepad?.ButtonPushed(Xbox360GamePad.Button.B) == true ||
            asGamepad?.ButtonPushed(Xbox360GamePad.Button.Y) == true;
    };

    await currentDialogBox.ShowDialog(pages);

    currentDialogBox = null;
}
  1. 🎓Tutorials
  2. Platformer Tutorials

NPC Dialog

PreviousMultiple PlayersNextBreaking Blocks
  • Introduction
  • Main Concepts
  • CSV Dialog
  • Npc in Glue
  • Npc in Tiled
  • Player vs Npc Collision
  • Conclusion
https://github.com/vchelaru/FlatRedBall/tree/NetStandard/Samples/Platformer/DialogBoxDemo
IsDatabaseForLocalizing page