Rating: 
Summary: A Mamoth Project but more is Needed
Review: WSU Virtual Worlds: Strong Introduction to GDI. The author provides specifications highlighting device context, creating a window, dialogs, pens, solid and hatched brushs, and gdi objects such as circle, line, rectangle, polygon, and arches. I liked the authors ability to provide simple concepts which could be immediately grasped. Good Introduction to COM. I felt the introduction to COM Interfaces were good. However, more helpful information was needed. If each COM query interface was described for Direct Music, Direct Show, and Direct Graphics my overall understanding of how to control these devices would have been enhanced. Adequate introduction to Direct Music but sketchy. In the book, Direct music was explained, but creating an application using Direct Music required study of the DirectX Sample SDK. Its is true that the author provided the high level descriptions for Direct Music, but I was not satisfied that he explained: direct audio, direct sound, loading sements, and character type conversion in great enough detail. However, he did explain the relationship between direct sound and direct audio in the book. I had enough information to implement Direct Music in my application, but not enough information to know all the special effects that could be done with Direct Music. In the Direct X Sample code there must be over ten special effects that can be create with direct sound. Elementary introduction to Direct Show. A very short code snippet was provided for Direct Show. Direct Show filters provide media streams for a variety of data formats: mpg,mp2,wav,avi,wmv,..etc I was excited to implement Direct Show in my application. However, control of Direct Show was lacking, I need information about how to control the media COM interface, getting feedback on the media frame, and positioning to a specific media frame. For more detail on the subject, I returned to reading sample code provided by the DirectX samples. More detail needs to be added for Direct Play. A simple diagram is provided showing the two topologys for network games. This is a deceptively simple diagram. I would have liked to actual have step by step instructions necessary to create direct play. A very helpful sample like two person tic-tac-toe would have been greatly appreciated. It seems like network games would be an area of strong interest, but the author largely ignored direct play. Direct Draw is scattered throughout the book. Most programmer will never become 3D programmers. However, the bulk of developers writing games will be creating 2D games. The book does cover 2D effects in the second half of the book, so make sure to browse the complete book to reduce fustration. Most game developers I know spend the first few years programming 2D games before moving in to 3D. 3D game programming requires a broad range of tool knowledge. The author show how to convert a 3DS file into an XFile and load the xfile into the application; however, he does not show how to implement a skinned mesh. If you want animated xfile development time is required. Good introduction to Matrix and Vector Mathematics. The author provides a good introduction to the basic of 3D math: points, segments, vectors/math, cross product, dot product, and matrice multiplication; along with a simple introduction of transformation matrices: translation, transformation, and rotation. A more rigorous explanation can be found in Computer Graphics Using Open GL (2nd Edition) by Francis S. Hill Jr The author provides step by step instructions on how to create your first direct3D object. Carefully study flexible vertex format, CUSTOM_VERTEX, and vertex buffers. The Flexible vertex format is used to tell Direct3D how to pixel shade: a diffuse colored polygon, a material and normal polygon, and a texture mapped polygon. Its very important that the reader has a perfect understanding of FVF. The author does a good job explaining how custom_vertex structures can be streamed to a vertex buffer. Vertex buffers have been widely accepted in Opengl, but implementation in DirectX was very different for me. Adequate introduction to lighting. I would have liked at least three samples for : directional, positional, and spot light. The ability to alter the materials, light properties, and environment would have been very helpful. The author provides all the directx api specifications and concepts necessary to create light, but needs to add more assembly of the apis so a stronger understand of how to apply lighting to the application can be achieved. Excellent introduction to texture mapping and advance texture mapping. I felt the author did a very good job illustration and explaining texture mapping, texture coordinates, cube environment mapping, sphere environment mapping, and alpha blending. Special Effects span the last half the book. Topics covered: clouds, fades,wipes,melts,crunches,3d rain,smoke ,fire,2d explosions,guns and projectiles,lens flare,3d water. Each of the effects has a brief introduction to the concept and the author has provided a generous set of code samples to illustrate each special effect. The author does not detail the programming apis necessary to create each effect, rather provides code samples to learn from. If the reader is a beginner developer plan on spending alittle time to discover how to program the special effect in your application.
Rating:
Summary: A Mamoth Project but more is Needed
Review: WSU Virtual Worlds: Strong Introduction to GDI. The author provides specifications highlighting device context, creating a window, dialogs, pens, solid and hatched brushs, and gdi objects such as circle, line, rectangle, polygon, and arches. I liked the authors ability to provide simple concepts which could be immediately grasped. Good Introduction to COM. I felt the introduction to COM Interfaces were good. However, more helpful information was needed. If each COM query interface was described for Direct Music, Direct Show, and Direct Graphics my overall understanding of how to control these devices would have been enhanced. Adequate introduction to Direct Music but sketchy. In the book, Direct music was explained, but creating an application using Direct Music required study of the DirectX Sample SDK. Its is true that the author provided the high level descriptions for Direct Music, but I was not satisfied that he explained: direct audio, direct sound, loading sements, and character type conversion in great enough detail. However, he did explain the relationship between direct sound and direct audio in the book. I had enough information to implement Direct Music in my application, but not enough information to know all the special effects that could be done with Direct Music. In the Direct X Sample code there must be over ten special effects that can be create with direct sound. Elementary introduction to Direct Show. A very short code snippet was provided for Direct Show. Direct Show filters provide media streams for a variety of data formats: mpg,mp2,wav,avi,wmv,..etc I was excited to implement Direct Show in my application. However, control of Direct Show was lacking, I need information about how to control the media COM interface, getting feedback on the media frame, and positioning to a specific media frame. For more detail on the subject, I returned to reading sample code provided by the DirectX samples. More detail needs to be added for Direct Play. A simple diagram is provided showing the two topologys for network games. This is a deceptively simple diagram. I would have liked to actual have step by step instructions necessary to create direct play. A very helpful sample like two person tic-tac-toe would have been greatly appreciated. It seems like network games would be an area of strong interest, but the author largely ignored direct play. Direct Draw is scattered throughout the book. Most programmer will never become 3D programmers. However, the bulk of developers writing games will be creating 2D games. The book does cover 2D effects in the second half of the book, so make sure to browse the complete book to reduce fustration. Most game developers I know spend the first few years programming 2D games before moving in to 3D. 3D game programming requires a broad range of tool knowledge. The author show how to convert a 3DS file into an XFile and load the xfile into the application; however, he does not show how to implement a skinned mesh. If you want animated xfile development time is required. Good introduction to Matrix and Vector Mathematics. The author provides a good introduction to the basic of 3D math: points, segments, vectors/math, cross product, dot product, and matrice multiplication; along with a simple introduction of transformation matrices: translation, transformation, and rotation. A more rigorous explanation can be found in Computer Graphics Using Open GL (2nd Edition) by Francis S. Hill Jr The author provides step by step instructions on how to create your first direct3D object. Carefully study flexible vertex format, CUSTOM_VERTEX, and vertex buffers. The Flexible vertex format is used to tell Direct3D how to pixel shade: a diffuse colored polygon, a material and normal polygon, and a texture mapped polygon. Its very important that the reader has a perfect understanding of FVF. The author does a good job explaining how custom_vertex structures can be streamed to a vertex buffer. Vertex buffers have been widely accepted in Opengl, but implementation in DirectX was very different for me. Adequate introduction to lighting. I would have liked at least three samples for : directional, positional, and spot light. The ability to alter the materials, light properties, and environment would have been very helpful. The author provides all the directx api specifications and concepts necessary to create light, but needs to add more assembly of the apis so a stronger understand of how to apply lighting to the application can be achieved. Excellent introduction to texture mapping and advance texture mapping. I felt the author did a very good job illustration and explaining texture mapping, texture coordinates, cube environment mapping, sphere environment mapping, and alpha blending. Special Effects span the last half the book. Topics covered: clouds, fades,wipes,melts,crunches,3d rain,smoke ,fire,2d explosions,guns and projectiles,lens flare,3d water. Each of the effects has a brief introduction to the concept and the author has provided a generous set of code samples to illustrate each special effect. The author does not detail the programming apis necessary to create each effect, rather provides code samples to learn from. If the reader is a beginner developer plan on spending alittle time to discover how to program the special effect in your application.
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