Introduction

When we introduced the SpriteBatch, we mentioned that the SpriteBatch.Begin() had some additional arguments we could take advantage of. One of these is for a transformation matrix. This is a matrix that represents the transformation applied to convert the 3D world representation into two dimensions (remember, in MonoGame we’re using 3D hardware to render a 2D game). For many games, the default setting for this transformation matrix is fine - but if we override this, we can create many powerful effects, including:

• Adding scrolling to our game world with minimal disruption to our current code
• Adding parallax scrolling to our game world (where different layers scroll at different speeds, simulating depth)
• Creating interesting visual effects like zooming, spinning, or shaking our game scene
• Automatically scaling our game for full-screen presentation