I'm a professional game developer from Wakefield, England, working as a senior programmer for Rebellion North.

I'm a married father of five and I a also sometimes do Retroburn stuff.

Martin 'Bytrix' Caine

Father. C++ Games Programmer. Cyclist. Guitarist.

Tags

2013 3d alphalabs amazon apple archivirtual asynchronous battlefield bad company 2 ben 10 bepu beta blackmagic design blog blue marble bootcamp borderlands bsp calibration charity charvel childsplay comments competition content tracker counter-strike crash csgo css3 cycling dear esther deferred deus ex develop conference direct x discipline documentation doom 3 bfg dpi dr bott eidos elite force email deliverability eurogamer expo facebook focus fresnel game development game horizon game republic gamedev games gaming geoip girls make games global offensive grid guitar half-life 2 hawken hd7 hobbyist htc humble indie bundle imac indie indie trials indietrials intensity pro ip-countryside iron man 3 jamulus rift jquery kids kinect launch conference left 4 dead live lost mac mac osx manchester manhacks mass effect 2 matrox maya minecraft mirrors edge montreal morrowind movies museum of the microstar music mxo2 mini mysql nausea network networking nokia normal mapping obj oculus rift omnitrix ouya pedal for pounds php physics playstation suite port25 portal portal 2 positron posters powermta project aedra project euler promotion properties proton pulse ps vita ps4 psn racer reddit rendering retroburn game studios reviews rift racer riftracer roadkill roller coaster sdl2 shadow racers sharks shoct skyrifters snds space cadet spam trap star trek steam stencyl storage super stock sd1 fr superhot team fortress 2 tesselating tesselation texture editor thunderbird thunderclap ticktock games tiga track builder track bulder trials tv twitter uk ultimatrix usergroup vequencer video vireio visual assist visual studio vorpx voucher vr vr cinema war thunder warren web willow windows 8 windows 8.1 windows phone 7 workbench wp7 wp7dev xbla xblig xblig network xbox xbox live indie games xna xnaukug xperia play zombies on the holodeck

Using C# properties

Coming from an old-school C background I have to admit that I write my code in a very non-OO way and there are certain aspects of C# especially that I hadn't really got into using. One such aspect was C# Properties.

For those unfamiliar with Properties, they basically replace your Public member variables with a more configurable way of accessing or setting them.

When I first started writing my game engine (over 18 months ago) C# was completely new to me and thus I didn't use any Properties at all, most of my classes had a bunch of Public variables and various functions for updating things after variables had been changed.

I've spent quite a bit of time cleaning up old code and rewriting some horrible hacks and my Camera class stood out as one which could make use of some Properties.

I was creating a function which moved the camera from one point to another, and also changed direction so I could smoothly move from one static camera point to another.

To do this in my old Camera class I would've had to do it this way:

camera.position = newPosition;
camera.direction = newDirection;

So, I did that and the results weren't what I expected. What I'd forgotten is that I then should've rebuilt the camera's view matrix:

camera.UpdateViewmatrix();

So I then decided I might aswell replace my public Vector3 position with a Property:

public Vector3 Position
{
get{ return position; }
set{ position=value; UpdateViewMatrix(); }
}
private Vector3 position;

Now, if I update camera.Position it will automatically generate a brand new view matrix for the camera. Another use for Properties is validating the input, if the value is out of range or invalid then you can choose not to update the variable, for example:

public int OnlyPositive
{
  get{ return onlyPositive; }
  set{ UpdatePositive( value ); }
}
private int onlyPositive;

void UpdatePositive( int value )
{
  if( value >= 0 )
  {
    onlyPositive = value;
  }
}

Here we can selectively choose to use or ignore any values that we try to set the variable to. There are only certain situations where this is handy but every now and then you will find yourself in such a situation.

Now, my advice to those who look at Properties and think, why? Use them! There must've been about thirty public member variables that I've now replaced with Properties because something else can automatically be updated when I change their values. It's incredibly handy and means less code in your actual game or program classes!

If you found this post helpful please leave a comment below:

Comments

Tags: properties xna