QuickStart Engine

Hello,
It's been a while since I've used the Quickstart Engine (or XNA for that matter). As you would guess, I'm returning to the engine. I've downloaded the 0.196 version and its a little different than what I remember. So, for questions: what would be the correct format for adding an entity (I know that there's an example in the walkthrough that's included, but how would I handle an entity in a class)? Overall, is there a comprehensive walkthrough/wiki of the engine that would help someone in my situation?

Thanks in advance

Perhaps I should elaborate further. I'm aiming to make a simple FPS game and I'm not how to get there with this version of the engine. For example, I tried to give an entity the FreeCameraInput Component, but there wasn't any visible results; also, if I were to do that, I'm not sure how one would go about preventing the entity from moving through the air. I'm also sure that the engine doesn't incorporate AI, so I'm not sure where to go in that perspective either. So, once again, any help would be appreciated in the matter.

I figured since its been like 4 days that it was probably too late to respond.. since you probably would've found your answers..

Anyways, the very first document you should closely look at is the " QuickStart Tutorial Guide (Word 2007 format) " found here:
http://quickstartengine.codeplex.com/Release/ProjectReleases.aspx?ReleaseId=21358
That doc is meant for .195 and later, so if your using an earlier version of the engine, take a look here:
http://quickstartengine.codeplex.com/Wiki/View.aspx?title=Getting%20Started%20Tutorial

It gives a good basic overview of the engine... and at the end of the doc it lists what the engine currently lacks.

The engine is far from being complete. It's limited to what it can do and missing a lot of features that you'd normally want within a game. However, it looks like its built well and made in a way to easily add new components to it. Its unforuniate that the engine has been in sort of a frozen state since Jan. and only LordIkon is really working on it whenever he gets around to working on it.

So can you make an FPS with this engine? Yes! But you're going to have to add a lot to the engine to make it work. Some things I'm looking into for my game is Animated models, AI, and other graphical goodies (i.e. water, skydomes, etc).

I've looked around and there's not really any other free (and GOOD) engines out there for XNA developement. The best engine is the one you make - since you understand what its doing at its core.

Here's a list of "release" milestones.. but as you can see from the list and when it was posted, its been about a year since.
http://quickstartengine.codeplex.com/Release/ProjectReleases.aspx?ReleaseId=8733
Click on the right side to view other "release" milestones for different versions of the engine. As you read through those lists, you can get a sense of what the engine is missing...

Don't expect those "releases" to come anytime soon. :*(

.ilarion

Hi ilarion
Thanks for your reply. I have read through the walkthrough and have an idea of the basics of the engine and how to create entities. However, I'm not sure how to 'properly' make an entity. I followed the tutorial, so I can load up a model with physics and such, but I'm not sure where to go from there. In the tutorial, you setup the entity in the samplescene file, but then you can't attach the camera to that entity since the scenemanager file is in another project (I think). I haven't had much time in the past few days, but I've tried making an entity and attaching a camera to it, but to no avail. And by giving an entity a freecamerainput component (which I haven't been able to do yet) how would one going about restricting the entity from moving in the y-axis? I guess I'm asking some simple questions, but I'm not sure how to accomplish these first goals. Perhaps an example might help?
Besides that, I looked around at some other engines and you're right. The Quickstart engine is probably the best free open-source engine for XNA. Hopefully, the engine will get a bigger community (somehow) and give lordikon some company .

Thanks again[/align]

If you look in the scenemanager I believe that is where the camera is being created and initialized. The camera is simply and entity with a camera component on it.