Learning XNA 3.0

Adding a Model to Your Project

To draw a model in XNA, you'll need to first add that model to the project the same way that you did with textures, sounds, etc. The content pipeline will compile the model for you at compile time and will verify that it's a valid .X-format model.

Many models have texture files associated with them. Sometimes these files will be referenced in the model's .X file. If that's the case, you'll need to make sure that your texture files are in the directories specified in the .X file.

First, create a subfolder within the Content folder in your solution by right-clicking the Content folder and selecting Add → New Folder. Name the folder Models.

If you haven't already done so, download the source code for this chapter. In the 3D Game\Content\Models folder, you'll find a model of a spaceship named spaceship.x. This model was actually one of the models shipped with Microsoft's DirectX SDK.

Add the spaceship model to the project by right-clicking your Content\Models folder in Solution Explorer, selecting Add → Existing Item..., and browsing to and selecting the spaceship.x model.

Once the model is in your application, compile your project. If compilation succeeds, you'll know that XNA recognized the .X file and was able to compile it. Otherwise, the content pipeline would have thrown an error indicating that it could not recognize the file format.

Tip

If your model requires additional texture files (the spaceship.x model doesn't), you will get a compilation error ...