   Loading art at runtime
  i teach an AI course. i write a game, my students modify it. Right now they drop their AI script in a directory and then select the AI they want from a dropdown inside the game. The students don't need a compiler, just my game (and a text editor)This summer i'm writing a new game. They'll be able to add their own artwork. Which means the game needs to be able to load art (either models and/or textures) at runtime. We were going to make the game in Unity but were just told Unity can't do that - the students would all have to go buy Unity and i'd have to give them the source. That won't workThe current game is in TGB (2D) but loading art at runtime in TGB isn't easy i'm looking into XNA right now, although i don't know enough yet to know if i can do this in itSo i'm trying to figure out what my options are - what game engines allow e to build a game where the player can make simple mods like this to it?   
  I havn't used XNA extensively, but I'm willing to bet that it can be done. I usually use an XML configuration file to load assets at runtime.You can probably do something as simple as define an XML hierarchy, loop through it using the appropriate C# XML libs, and call the appropriate Load function on whatever paths are specified in the XML.If you don't want to get into the nitty gritty of XML, parsing a text file would be just as adequate for so simple a usage scenario.   ;  XNA can load textures directly at runtime. However, to load their own models at runtime without the students having the full XNA GSE installed, you would have to write your own model loading code.;Quote:Original post by Dave HuntXNA can load textures directly at runtime. However, to load their own models at runtime without the students having the full XNA GSE installed, you would have to write your own model loading code.Really? So i'll need to write something to load models. OK, good to know, i'll schedule some time for thatSounds like XNA is a possible option. Anyone have thoughts on alternatives? Since i haven't started coding the actual game (the AI is prototyped in C# but can be easily ported to another language), i'm open to alternatives;  I'm actually trying to do something similar to this, and have been looking for a way to allow my users to load their own models at run time but I'm running into issues with XNA and it's content pipeline. I thought that this example would help but I'm not really sure how to implement it. http://creators.xna.com/en-us/sample/winforms_series2. Also it would impose a restraint on the usability because it requires the user to install the XNA SDK in order to run.Loading textures on the other hand is very easy.Let me know if you find a solution to this problem.   