Game Asset Properties

This topic describes property settings that indicate which actions the project system should perform on a game asset file of a supported type. For example, you can set file properties to indicate the importer and processor to be used for the game asset file.

When adding a game asset of a type not recognized by XNA Game Studio Express, you need to modify the Build Action and XNA Framework Content properties before it will be built by the Content Pipeline. After adding the custom game asset to the solution, select Content from the drop-down list of the Build Action property and True from the drop-down list of the XNA Framework Content property. You can now specify the proper importer and processor to be used by the Content Pipeline.

To examine the properties of a game asset, right-click on the file in Solution Explorer and choose Properties on the context menu; the Properties window then appears.

In addition to the standard properties, XNA Game Studio Express content files have additional custom properties: Asset Name, Content Importer, Content Processor, and XNA Framework Content.

Asset Name

The name of the managed object, generated by the Content Pipeline from the game asset. This name is used at run time to load the managed asset, using the ContentManager.Load method. The default name is the original file name without the file extension.

Content Importer

The name of the importer for the related game asset. The list contains both local importers and standard importers provided by XNA Game Studio Express.

Content Processor

The name of the processor for the related game asset. The list contains both local processors and standard processors provided by XNA Game Studio Express.

XNA Framework Content

Specifies whether the game asset is built by the XNA Framework Content Pipeline. If this is set to false, the XNA Framework Content Pipeline does not process the file. This means that any XNA Game Studio Express–specific settings (for example, Asset Name, Content Importer, and Content Processor) have no effect.

See Also

Overview of the Content Pipeline
Installing a Custom Importer or Content Processor
Using XNA Game Studio Express