Our upcoming Silverlight book for beginners (includes a great chapter on game development in Silverlight!) Hello! Silverlight 2 with Dave Campbell, available online now!

Navigation

Tampa Divorce Lawyer

North of Tampa in Lutz, Florida. A Tampa Divorce Lawyer focusing on family, divorce, and real estate law.

Disclaimer

The opinions expressed herein are my own personal opinions and do not represent my employer's view in anyway.

<< Write a Silverlight Game and win $5000 cash! | Dr. Dobbs Challenge Silverlight Game Contest >>

Compile your XNA 2D games to run in Silverlight with SilverSprite

In December, I released my Dr. Popper game on Xbox Live Community Games (XLCG) which allows you to sell your XNA based games on the Xbox 360. We also started work on Silver Arcade, a hosted game platform for Silverlight games.

So I started thinking more about how to make a game for both XNA and Silverlight. At first I thought about creating an abstraction layer on top of the two to provide a consistent way of writing games for both. The problem with this is that anyone else who wanted to use this framework would have to learn something new.

So instead I started to work on something ambitious, and really had no expectations up front that it would actually work. The idea was to create a way to compile your XNA 2D code and content into a Silverlight application. Even better would be if you didn't really have to change much or any code. This actually worked out better than I thought and gave rise to SilverSprite. SilverSprite is available as an open source project on CodePlex and the licensing should allow you to use it in any way you wish.

CodePlex Project: http://www.codeplex.com/SilverSprite
Watch the Channel 9 video on SilverSprite here: http://channel9.msdn.com/shows/Continuum/SilverSprite/
See SilverSprite in action here (running the Farseer Physics XNA demos): http://www.bluerosegames.com/silverspritefarseerdemo

I released a new version this weekend that adds some new features. Here is a partial current list:

Implements much of SpriteBatch, so many SpriteBatch games should be easy to get working
Bitmap fonts are supported
Compressed DXT textures are supported to reduce XAP size.
Gamepad controls are mapped to keyboard
Keyboard and mouse are supported

One thing I do ask is that if you port your XNA game to Silverlight, that you consider hosting it on Silver Arcade.

Posted: Mar 23 2009, 03:29 by Bill Reiss | Comments (24)

Currently 0/5 Stars.
1
2
3
4
5

Filed under:

Developing games that work with both XNA and SilverlightYesterday I co-presented a session at GameFest 2008 on Silverlight game development, and one of the ...I’m actively looking for more Silverlight games for Blue Rose GamesI’m looking to add to the games available on Blue Rose Games. The ultimate goal is to make it into t...Games on Blue Rose Games now on Silverlight 2 RTWI've updated Dr. Popper and Stack Attack to Silverlight 2 RTW, you can play them here: http://www.bl...

Comments

SKOROZSI.NET said:

Trackback from SKOROZSI.NET

links for 2009-03-25

# March 25 2009, 14:05

MMMas said:

And which way is better: Learning XNA and using SilverSprite or learning game programming in Silverlight? Which is quicker? And what about performance?

# March 31 2009, 03:24

Bill Reiss said:

MMMas good questions. You have some more capabilities with Siverlight directly, since you can use vector graphics, Storyboard animations, etc.

There are a couple of things you can do more easily in SilverSprite like drawing part of an image to do things like a sprite sheet for frame based animation, and drawing an image with a different color.

Since XNA is designed to be a game framework, it may be a more productive environment for developing games. You get the added benefit of releasing your games for Xbox 360 as well if you want.

The performance will be slightly worse for SilverSprite games over doing the same in straight Silverlight, I was seeing about a 2-3 percent CPU overhead when using SilverSprite, so in general I don't think it's significant enough to make a big difference.

# March 31 2009, 03:33

MMMas said:

Thank you for reply, but I have another question: Can I use external XNA engines, libraries, frameworks etc. with SilverSprite? Only if they are Open Source, I suppose?

# April 01 2009, 10:21

Bill Reiss said:

MMMas,

Unfortunately they would need to create a SilverSprite version of them, or they would need to provide the source code so that the library could be recompiled for Silverlight and SilverSprite.

Bill

# April 01 2009, 13:06

r4 firmware said:

Thanks that one was quite helpful.

# June 10 2009, 08:54

tukang nggame said:

thanks for your tutorial

# June 22 2009, 21:14

Technology Blog said:

I started to work on something ambitious, and really had no expectations up front that it would actually work.

# July 07 2009, 05:53

online poker said:

Hi,

I need some game scripts , Where can I find scripts for different video games online?

# July 12 2009, 21:04

p_l said:

nice, i like

# July 15 2009, 12:39

property said:

It's awesome, I love play games but never really have a chance visiting a game builder's site. You're pretty cool with your game.
"One thing I do ask is that if you port your XNA game to Silverlight, that you consider hosting it on Silver Arcade." I will consider it.

# July 16 2009, 02:36

Saç Ekimi Resimleri said:

Thank you for writing that constitutes the source of

# July 21 2009, 04:35

Wixred said:

Silverlight needs to become more cross-platform if its going to be any comparison to Adobe Flash as a gaming platform.

# July 22 2009, 09:56

Funny jokes said:

Hi,

Excellent post.........

# July 29 2009, 16:05

SEO said:

Hi,

Nice post...Thank you very much for sharing.....

# July 29 2009, 21:12

mrcp said:

great post thank you

# August 09 2009, 15:48

free bets said:

Hi,

A game is a structured activity, usually undertaken for enjoyment and sometimes used as an educational tool. Games are distinct from work, which is usually carried out for remuneration, and from art, which is more concerned with the expression of ideas.

# August 12 2009, 16:26

poker said:

I been into this debugging work and then using it with silverlight. But this info sounds much better...Thanks

# August 24 2009, 01:57

Allan said:

Great work Bill. The more games built in Silverlight will help drive the usage of the plugin. Also fits perfectly with Silverarcade.com.

Link from my Silverlight blog: silverlightblog.com/post.aspx