How to use an .xnb file in MonoGame on Windows 8?

Question

I've got an .xnb file from a Windows Phone project made on Windows 7. I'd like to use the same asset in a Windows 8 Metro app. I've got MSVS 2012 RC on Windows 8 with a project from the MonoGameWindowsMetroApplication template. I put the .xnb file in the project Assets folder and tried to load it, but I get an exception telling me that the asset can't be loaded. What properties or configuration do I need to be able to use the .xnb file?

Answer 1

While MonoGame is working on the Content Pipeline piece of the framework, you can simply use the same Content Pipeline engine that you used for the Windows Phone 7 game to create a Content Pipeline and use the associated .xnb files in your Windows 8 XNA MonoGame project.

I have a blog tutorial series on building XNA games with MonoGame for Windows 8, and if you look at Part 3, I provide a step-by-stepy walkthrough of accomplishing this. My hands-on lab and information on my blog was reviewed and approved by the MonoGame team.

See info here: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/tarawalker/archive/2013/01/04/windows-8-game-development-using-c-xna-and-monogame-3-0-building-a-shooter-game-walkthrough-part-3-updating-graphics-using-content-pipeline-with-monogame.aspx

Answer 2

In MonoGame content pipeline is not present, at least as off now.

Its very easy. 1)Create a xna project in VS2010 2)add all your assets over there. 3)Rebuild your project. Go to bin/x86/debug/content and copy all contents from there

Now go to your VS2012 Mono Project bin/x86/debug look for content folder, if its there copy all content there else create a content folder and copy all content there.

Now without changing even single line of code just run your project and you will find everything working great!!!

Let me know if you find any difficulty doing that.

Answer 3

Are you on the develop3D branch? I think you need to add a dummy Content project and add it to that project, not your assets, build that project first, then you need to reference that project in your MonoGame project.

I didn't succeed on that yesterday as I'm using the current stable but one of the MonoGame guys told me to do just that yesterday. Here are some instructions:

https://github.com/mono/MonoGame/wiki/MonoGame-Content-Processing

Answer 4

The runtime Xna framework has many type reader objects that read the various xnb files. Some of the type readers are for xnb files that were processed from fbx models, others are xnb files processed from 2d image files, etc.

When you call content.Load<T>(xnb file name), The content manager uses the appropriate reader to read the byte information of the xnb file into the appropriate Xna class. The byte information in an xnb file is designed to be used in a specific Xna class, no other. There are no Xna classes in metro.

All this to say there are no type readers in the metro environment that read these xnb files. You would have to write your own. It's not that hard though, that's similar to what I did. I now process an fbx file into xnb by building an Xna project, then my xna project writes the runtime model's data to my own binary file, which I read from my metro app. But I could've simply read the xnb also. I just would have had to study the contentManager's & Model class' type readers to see how the byte info was distributed.

After all is said and done, it just means I don't have to learn the FBXSDK which would be the standard way (and arguably preferred way) of bringing in model info.

EDIT - sorry, didn't clue into the use of the mono framework. I don't know anything about that... Maybe they do have a way of importing xnb files.