Annimation

[ubkra]

I want to create a HDMI animation that loops and has moving objects in all 3 dimensions. I would have used Flash 5-6 years ago but flash is long gone.

What is the best way of doing this these days? I want it to be done in WinFroms however

It would be something like you see on the machines as a Casino

[ubkra]

Something like this; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N7kypiWbfHs

[ubkra]

from research this can be done in WPf but can it also be done in DirectX

[boops boops]

Your research is sound. When you say Windows Forms animation, you presumably mean using GDI+ which is the rendering system of Windows Forms. You can do simple animations using a Timer and the Paint event in GDI+, and it's quite a good way to learn the basics of graphics. That's why you see quite a few questions about animation on this forum. But trying to do anything more than simple 2D animations e.g. with sprites is asking too much of GDI+.

WPF and DirectX are much better for 3D mainly because they make better use of modern Graphics hardware for rendering images, shading etc. XNA is also often recommended for this purpose. It's possible to use these technologies in any window, including a control such as a Panel on a Windows form. But that is as far as the connection with Windows Forms goes: they have completely different coding requirements.

DirectX and XNA are the most efficient, but they have some drawbacks. You may need to download the necessary code assemblies, and there can be problems of compatibility with different OS versions. WPF has the merit of being part of the dot net framework (from VB2008+) and it is much more fully documented in msdn. But WPF is designed in the first instance for creating sophisticated GUIs so it can take a lot of work to learn how to use it. In theory you could reference use an ElementHost to host a WPF animation on a Form, but having gone that far you will probably have picked up enough basic WPF to use a WPF Window instead.

If you are interested in some possibilities for doing 3D animations just using GDI+ and without using DirectX, XNA or WPF, you might find it interesting to look at this seemingly never ending thread -- in particular the code I uploaded in posts #23 and #34.

BB