Hey everyone :). I wanted to ask a few newbie questions here here, in the hopes that you guys could answer them. I am a c++ developer who has been developing games for a while now (Speedy Solitaire) but I have become interested in XNA for its ease and development speed. I have been playing with XNA and I created a pong game in it, however I am a bit confused as to how to go about developing a 3d engine. I am aware of the concept of the scene graph, but can anyone provide some pointers as to how everything comes together? Some things I am confused on: A) Is a scene graph used to handle "states" or do I need to use my own system for this? For my pong game I coded a frame manager that had transitions but I was wondering if I needed it. I think they are two different things, but I just want to make sure. B) How would you guys go about structuring a 3d engine. I can load models and I have drawn a quad to the screen using TriangleLists and shaders, however I am unsure as to the best way to combine all of these. How would you guys go about logically structuring a 3d engine? Thanks!

Thanks for taking the time to reply. I have read the Enginuity articles before and while there is some good stuff in there, it seems to fall a bit short of covering all of the design patterns.

I appreciate your advice to learn the correct engine structure through trial and error, however as many 3d games have been created and as a person who has experienced first hand the costs associated with a flawed design when it comes to a project, I simply do not have that kind of time as this is a time critical project.

If I have to reinvent the wheel then I will, but I hope that someone here will be kind enough to save me some trouble ;).

I highly appreciate any advice that is given on this matter.

Thank you.

Ah thanks :). That is pretty much the idea that I had implemented with my pong game, I guess I should get around to publishing that code...