Content Pipeline Tutorials

The content pipeline is an important and powerful part of the XNA framework. This set of tutorials starts out with a brief explanation on how to manage content in an XNA game (which you likely went through in the set of tutorials on Getting Started). Next, we will discuss how the content pipeline works in more detail, and then show you how to make a custom extension to the content pipeline.

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1 - Managing Content in an XNA Game

You have probably already gone through this tutorial in the Getting Started tutorials, so you can jump ahead if you want, or feel free to review this tutorial. This tutorial covers the basics of working with content in an XNA game.
Managing Content in an XNA Game
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2 - The Content Pipeline

This tutorial explains how the content pipeline works. It is important to understand how the content pipeline works so that we can make extensions to it, which we will do in the next tutorial.
The Content Pipeline
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3 - A Simple Content Pipeline Extension

With an understanding of how the content pipeline works, we are ready to move on and create a simple extension to the content pipeline. In this tutorial we will make an extension that reads in simple level files. Ultimately, we will be able to use a command like Content.Load<Level>("level4"); and read in our level. Of course, the level information in this tutorial is fairly simple, but it is designed to show you the process of making a content pipeline extension.
A Simple Content Pipeline Extension