Visual Basic Game Programming with DirectX

Rating:
Summary: Missed the Mark
Review: Admittedly I am a novice, but it seemed to me that the author spent way too much time and space on old, outmoded ways of graphics programming and not enough on current 3D methods. The coverage on the 3D seemed spotty and "jumped around" a lot. His style is personable but there seem to be a lot of unexplained gaps. Maybe VB does work, but when I consider the time I spent on refreshing my VB skills and then plowing thru this book, I wish I had bitten the bullet and done the C++ route with another title.

Rating:
Summary: Missed the Mark
Review: Admittedly I am a novice, but it seemed to me that the author spent way too much time and space on old, outmoded ways of graphics programming and not enough on current 3D methods. The coverage on the 3D seemed spotty and "jumped around" a lot. His style is personable but there seem to be a lot of unexplained gaps. Maybe VB does work, but when I consider the time I spent on refreshing my VB skills and then plowing thru this book, I wish I had bitten the bullet and done the C++ route with another title.

Rating:
Summary: Thank you Jonathan!!!
Review: After hours of working through C oriented DirectX books and fighting to get Direct3D demos going on VB6 I finally got this book. EXCELLENT! Can save you much $$$ over using commercial wrapper classes. Well Done! Thank you Jonathan S. Harbour

Rating:
Summary: Not quite what it says
Review: As a Visual Basic die-hard, I got very excited about this book when I saw it. The prospect of expanding Visual Basic by using DirectX was just too much to pass on. Unfortunately, the title is a bit deceiving. The author spends the first chapter discussing a history of video and computer games, which is interesting to some, but, in my opinion, out of place in a technical book. The author assumes that you know little or nothing about Visual Basic and walks you through the installation process and provides an overview of the language. This may be useful for some, but I felt that someone who was new to the language would probably not pick up a book on a more advanced topic such as DirectX. After this, the author spends several chapters discussing antiquated graphics techniques that do not involve DirectX at all. These chapters were the biggest waste of space, in my opinion. I read through them all, thinking that all this information was a prerequisite to DirectX programming, but I was disappointed to learn that this is not the case. The author informs the reader at the end of it all that he is merely presenting a different method to give the reader more options. While I can appreciate the effort to provide multiple solutions to a problem, the book is supposed to be about programming with DirectX. There are a multitude of books out there that will teach you how to use these other graphics techniques, and anyone who was interested in learning these techniques would pick up one of those books.

That being said, when the author finally does begin discussing DirectX, the material he provides is a solid introduction to using DirectX with Visual Basic. He provides a good overview of how to use all components of DirectX, and the source code that comes with the book provides useful examples of the techniques being demonstrated. There are four complete games that come with the book also, although actually only two of them use DirectX as a base for their graphics. Reading this book will also provide you with a level of familiarity with DirectX that you will be able to use C++ DirectX books and translate the code contained therein to Visual Basic. At the end of this book, you will be in a position to design and program your own simple game using DirectX.

In short, be aware of what you are getting. If you have little or no experience with Visual Basic and would like to learn game programming using this language, this book is probably worth picking up, although you will probably need to suppliment this information with another source on the Visual Basic language. If you are looking for a comprehensive tutorial on DirectX, I suggest looking elsewhere.

Rating:
Summary: Not quite what it says
Review: As a Visual Basic die-hard, I got very excited about this book when I saw it. The prospect of expanding Visual Basic by using DirectX was just too much to pass on. Unfortunately, the title is a bit deceiving. The author spends the first chapter discussing a history of video and computer games, which is interesting to some, but, in my opinion, out of place in a technical book. The author assumes that you know little or nothing about Visual Basic and walks you through the installation process and provides an overview of the language. This may be useful for some, but I felt that someone who was new to the language would probably not pick up a book on a more advanced topic such as DirectX. After this, the author spends several chapters discussing antiquated graphics techniques that do not involve DirectX at all. These chapters were the biggest waste of space, in my opinion. I read through them all, thinking that all this information was a prerequisite to DirectX programming, but I was disappointed to learn that this is not the case. The author informs the reader at the end of it all that he is merely presenting a different method to give the reader more options. While I can appreciate the effort to provide multiple solutions to a problem, the book is supposed to be about programming with DirectX. There are a multitude of books out there that will teach you how to use these other graphics techniques, and anyone who was interested in learning these techniques would pick up one of those books.

That being said, when the author finally does begin discussing DirectX, the material he provides is a solid introduction to using DirectX with Visual Basic. He provides a good overview of how to use all components of DirectX, and the source code that comes with the book provides useful examples of the techniques being demonstrated. There are four complete games that come with the book also, although actually only two of them use DirectX as a base for their graphics. Reading this book will also provide you with a level of familiarity with DirectX that you will be able to use C++ DirectX books and translate the code contained therein to Visual Basic. At the end of this book, you will be in a position to design and program your own simple game using DirectX.

In short, be aware of what you are getting. If you have little or no experience with Visual Basic and would like to learn game programming using this language, this book is probably worth picking up, although you will probably need to suppliment this information with another source on the Visual Basic language. If you are looking for a comprehensive tutorial on DirectX, I suggest looking elsewhere.

Rating:
Summary: Absolutely fabulous!
Review: As an experienced VB programmer who has followed the language since it's inception, I have to say that this is the first time I have ever been so excited at the possibilities of VB; and it's all thanks to this book.

This book presumes a basic knowledge of VB, of course; but beyond that, it will do wonders to get you out of the 'Application' programming mindset, and into GAME programming. And the book makes an excellent case for why Visual Basic is entirely acceptable for programming Windows games.

Unlike any other VB Game programming book I've ever seen, this one goes far beyond card games or a bad remake of an old arcade game. The information in this book will have you pushing the very limits of VB and DirectX together... and it will surprise you with exactly how far out those limits are.

If you are serious about VB, and serious about game programming, this book is an absolute MUST.

Also.. one thing that wasn't too clear to me before I bought this book was what version of VB it applies to. While it does include some info on VB.NET, everything in it is made for VB6.0, so don't feel shy about picking it up if you only have 5.0 or 6.0.

Get it!

Rating:
Summary: The sample code alone earns these stars.
Review: Before meeting this book I never even imagined that Visual Basic was reading for game programming, and after reading the introduction, I thought for sure that this guy was a has been programmer trying to write a book about something seemingly impossible just to sell it and reassure everyone of just that.

A few chapters in, I realized just how wrong I was. Mr. Harbour digs right in and clears up all doubts before you even reach the hardcore code.

This book is remarkable, and though I cannot compare it to the other DirectX with Visual Basic 6 books (as this is the only one I have read), I can assure you that it is indeed a GREAT buy. The sample code alone earns the five stars.. wow, if only I could write more than 1,000 words in this review.

This book is good for beginners and advanced programmers alike, and even if you have absolutely no intention of writing your own game in Visual Basic, it is still a supurb resource for giving your user interfaces a makeover.

Rating:
Summary: Self taught
Review: Great book so far. Im half way through it. The book is great for teaching how to make your first game. All your question on how do you do that gets answered in the first 8 chapters. I know 8 chapters seems alot but... They go very quick and the code examples take up most of the chapter. The beginning 8 chapters show you how to develope your game using vb6 function and api calls. Which is great if you dont want to program in Directx. But im glad he explained this because it helped alot on how everything works. I'm gettin ready to start the directdraw chapter 10 and i can't wait. I give a 4 cause some of the code he creates he doesn't explain everything it does. Also so far his source code is original and works fine for vb6 (on cd).

Rating:
Summary: I need more stars....
Review: I am awestruck! Jonathan Harbor has written the specific book, the manual for how to develop the game I've always wanted to make! I'm only half way through and I've learned more about VB's graphics and programming capabilities than I've learned in all the rest of my experience with the program. And I've even taught MS Visual Basic certified classes!

If you want to know about the graphic muscle that is hidden under the mild-mannered Visual Basic application language, look here. The limitations that I thought were inherent in VB just don't exist. Couple this with VB's superior ability to manipulate databases and you have a terrific platform to deliver high-performance, highly detailed strategy games! Sid Meier could have programmed all of the versions of Civilization in VB with this book!

Most impressively, this author also includes help for the artist that must be involved in the process and for the designer who must decide how things will be done as well as for the programmer. It's a manual for writing games as well as a tutorial on how to use an everyday language to program games competitive with C and C++ games in the market today. He maintains his emphasis on game playability while supplying all the tools to implement your game idea.

For the first time, I wish I had some more stars to award....

Rating:
Summary: A real waste of cash....
Review: I got this book hoping that it would get straight to DirectX and 3D game programming. Instead I open up the book and find that the author had friends with Atari ST and Amiga 500 computers! Wowee! I thought that perhaps he was just giving a little bit of background on old computer games, but no, his story about the grand old days of his youth and how he was an arcade nerd go on and on. Instead of going straight into DirectX this book first tells you how TO INSTALL VISUAL BASIC!!!, and then starts at the very beginner level of programming with a program called "Chunky Pixels". From then it moves on to more advanced graphics tequniques using the windows API and BitBlt. It finally goes into DirectX on page 374 but it dosent go into anything 3D, instead it goes into DirectDraw and even more boring techniques of drawing 2D graphics. The book finally gets into a 3D game after 960 PAGES!!! Even then the only thing that the author does is make a dumb 3D pong game...