Custom WP7 Silverlight control with dynamic 3D content

Question

Ideally I need to implement a WP7 control that can be added to any XAML and which displays a dynamic, interactive 3D scene.

Currently I have this implemented via XNA in shared mode, and the UI is rendered on top of the scene using UIElementRenderer. However this solution is sub-optimal because

1. The application must render the whole screen because in shared mode, Silverlight does not draw anything by itself.

2. I couldn't find any way of detecting that a Silverlight control needs to change its presentation, be it due to user interaction or animation. Controls are rendered only when the 3D scene changes because of this, and so they lack the slick look and feel of the native WP7 applications.

So, is there a way of rendering a 3D scene inside one control, and letting Silverlight manage the rest of the UI?

Answer 1

I couldn't find any way of detecting that a Silverlight control needs to change its presentation, be it due to user interaction or animation. Controls are rendered only when the 3D scene changes because of this, and so they lack the slick look and feel of the native WP7 applications.

Make something that always changes in the scene, not necessarily something visible or noticeable, this way you keep rendering the scene all the time without problems.