ProjectZ 2.0.0

Project Z

A modern XNA UI framework for .NET 8.0 — WPF-inspired controls, animations, and scene management powered by KNI.

Overview

Project Z is a GPU-accelerated UI framework built on top of KNI (XNA) that brings WPF-style controls, layout panels, declarative XAML markup, and a rich animation system to hardware-rendered applications — all running on modern .NET 8.0.

Whether you're building interactive visualizers, creative tools, or games, Project Z gives you a familiar, composable UI model with the performance of direct GPU rendering.

✨ Features

📦 Installation

NuGet

dotnet add package ProjectZ

Package Manager

Install-Package ProjectZ

Or add directly to your .csproj / .vbproj:

<PackageReference Include="ProjectZ" Version="2.0.0.0" />

🚀 Quick Start

1. Create a Scene

Imports ProjectZ.Shared.Drawing
Imports ProjectZ.Shared.Drawing.UI.Input
Imports ProjectZ.Shared.Drawing.UI.Primitives

Public Class MyScene
    Inherits Scene

    Private WithEvents MyButton As Button

    Public Overrides Sub Initialize(sender As Game)
        MyBase.Initialize(sender)

        MyButton = New Button(Me) With {
            .Text = "Click Me",
            .Position = New Vector2(100, 100),
            .Size = New Vector2(120, 40)
        }
        AddElement(MyButton)
    End Sub

    Private Sub MyButton_Click() Handles MyButton.Click
        ' Handle click
    End Sub
End Class

2. Add a Layout

Dim panel As New StackPanel(Me) With {
    .Orientation = Orientation.Vertical,
    .Position = New Vector2(50, 50),
    .Size = New Vector2(300, 400)
}

panel.Children.Add(New TextElement(Me) With { .Text = "Hello, Project Z!" })
panel.Children.Add(New Button(Me) With { .Text = "Start" })
panel.Children.Add(New Trackbar(Me) With { .MinimumValue = 0, .MaximumValue = 100 })

AddElement(panel)

3. Animate Elements

Dim fadeIn As New DoubleAnimation(
    New SineEase(EaseType.EaseIn),
    0.0, 1.0,
    TimeSpan.FromMilliseconds(500),
    gameTime
)
element.Opacity = fadeIn.Value(t)

4. Use the SceneManager

Dim manager As New SceneManager()
manager.Sender = Me  ' Your Game instance
manager.AddScene("main", New MyScene())
manager.SetActiveScene("main")

🏗️ Solution Structure

Project-Z/
├── Project Z Windows.vbproj          # Core UI framework library (NuGet package)
│   ├── Shared/
│   │   ├── Drawing/
│   │   │   ├── Scene.vb              # Base scene class
│   │   │   ├── SceneManager.vb       # Scene orchestration
│   │   │   ├── UI/
│   │   │   │   ├── SceneElement.vb   # Base element class
│   │   │   │   ├── Primitives/       # Rectangle, Circle, Text, Polygon
│   │   │   │   ├── Input/            # Button, CheckBox, RadioButton, Textbox, Trackbar, ProgressBar
│   │   │   │   ├── Layout/           # Grid, StackPanel
│   │   │   │   └── Advanced/         # SpriteElement, PolygonElement, SceneProjectionHost
│   │   │   └── Designer/             # XAML parser & code generator
│   │   ├── Animations/               # DoubleAnimation, ColorAnimation, Timeline, Easing
│   │   ├── Content/                  # ContentContainer, Fonts, Textures, SpriteCollection
│   │   ├── Serialization/            # MetaSerializer, ObjectConverter
│   │   └── XNA/                      # SpriteBatchWrapper, SpriteBatchPropertySet
│   └── Extensions/                   # Color, Point, String, Dictionary helpers
│
├── Project Z Application/            # Demo app with playable Tetris
├── Project Z Audio/                  # Audio engine (NAudio, FFT, spectrum analysis)
├── Project Z Video FX/               # Visual effects demo
└── Project Z Tower Defense/          # Tower defense game & UI Designer

🧩 UI Controls Reference

Primitives

Input Controls

Layout Panels

🔧 Dependencies

📋 Requirements

• .NET 8.0 or later
• Windows (Windows Forms host)
• Visual Studio 2022+ recommended

🎮 Demo Projects

Tetris (Project Z Application)

A fully playable Tetris game built entirely with Project Z UI elements — ghost pieces, next-piece preview, scoring, hard/soft drop, and pause support.

Video FX (Project Z Video FX)

Real-time audio-reactive visualizer with spectrum analysis, loopback audio capture, and animated polygon effects.

Tower Defense (Project Z Tower Defense)

A multiplayer tower defense game with real-time networking via SocketJack and a built-in WPF-hosted UI designer.

🤝 Contributing

Contributions are welcome! Feel free to open issues or submit pull requests.

1. Fork the repository
2. Create your feature branch (git checkout -b feature/my-feature)
3. Commit your changes (git commit -m 'Add my feature')
4. Push to the branch (git push origin feature/my-feature)
5. Open a Pull Request

📄 License

Copyright © 2014–2025. See the repository for license details.