I’ve just been replying to a comment about my game on Gameprojects.com, but I got thinking I should really blog this one.

Synthcat suggested I do some Additive blending for the bullets (trails?).

I’ve tinkered with Additive blending but haven’t had much success with it yet. I had a go at making my clouds, smoke and explosions use Additive blending but I just couldn’t get them to look acceptable.

I followed Eli Tayrien’s (XNA team) great article about Additive blending.

As Eli mentions, the art assets themselves (textures) need special skill to look right with additive. I haven’t figured out quite how I should be producing them. Even my colorful explosions ended up looking like a white glare. Likewise for my smoke, which should darken rather than lighten as it gets thicker.

So far, I haven’t had much luck in finding a good explanation on how to produce good art for Additive blending.

Can anyone point me in the right direction?

I stumbled on another XNA related blog that caught my eye.

360 Prophecy has put up some downloadable XBOX 360 graphics files, that are sure to come in handy when I really get serious about my game dev.

Good stuff, and yet another blog to keep an eye on.

I just love it when an opportunity comes up to go mad with Photoshop.

That opportunity comes up at least…er..well…twice a year when I have great fun doing invitations for my kids birthday parties.

It’s my son’s 4th birthday real soon, so here’s the imagery I bastardised for his invitations this year…

Click for the entire image…