XAML and XNA

Are there any plans to provide XAML support in XNA I realize some things are probably foreign to XNA's current design (like vector support), but even a subset of its functionality would be useful.

Today, many studios use swf's (with proprietary playback engines or GameSWF) for UI and HUDs, but XAML would be perfect for that. I have some itty bitty XAML support in my own MDX engine, but it feels silly to develop a playback mechanism for it when MS has the original source and could integrate it with XNA (saving me lots of time).

My second best hope is for the Anark Gameface playback engine to be integrated with XNA, that'll be good enough, but I don't think it'll happen very soon...

Although I don't know the specifics of WPF, I can't imagine that it would be so hard to open up a "hole" to WPF so you can tell it to render to the device/context you're using in your DX app.

Some things might break when WPF isn't in total control of the loop, things that many of us would understand and be able to avoid/work around, but if it were to be released as an official feature, MS probably wants it to be fool proof.

I hope one of the programmers has left an undocumented door open to be discovered...

Ultrahead wrote:

Isn't WPF on top of DX I mean, Vista will be DX-prone so and WPF is meant for Vista, so why combining both is "a no no" I'm asking not to start a discussion but for learning purposes.

Yes it is built on top of Direct3D, however there is no official 'hook' to allow you to render your own stuff into the same window as WPF - in fact it is well documented by the guys at MSFT that this is not possible (a distant memory, but I think searching for airspace might get you the articles). I thought it sucked at the time (when WPF was called Avalon!), but the MSFT guys were not at all interested in adding a hook when I mentioned this - I guess they wanted to get the job finished without any more of the Vista feature set getting chopped .

Hi All,

I believe there is a big overlap here, that should be bridged, between the 2 technologies. This could easily be achieved by possibly hosting the portable WPF/E control/content inside your XNA app.

The wpf/e already allows portable games for windows and mac eg: http://channel9.msdn.com/playground/wpfe/Sprawl/default.html

And WPF is enabling game like animation of sprites and 3D objects eg: http://chriscavanagh.wordpress.com/2006/10/23/wpf-2d-physics

The WPF allows the creation of some nice rich UI resources, it would a huge benefit to be able the share and manipulate the design assets created by the expression suite and ocras. Otherwise you risk splintering the game development community between WPF and XNA if left without a way to share these assets.

slyi