Visual Basic Graphics Programming

Rating:
Summary: Best VB book I bought of 13 books.
Review: Author is very clear and concise. Examples abound. Programs on CD-ROM relevant and incredible! Enough to go from no graphics knowledge to functional in a short time. Couldn't put it down, especially discussion on 3D, ray-tracing. Hope he writes part II.

Rating:
Summary: Excellent reference
Review: This book covers everything u ever wanted to know about Graphics Programming (especially in VB) for Windows. Don't spend time learning DirectX. If u want to be a pro windows programmer - get this book! I been looking for something like this for years, and I really feel this is the best book about Windows Graphics Programming ever written!

Rating:
Summary: Well-Done Stephens!
Review: This book includes a lot of ideas and concepts that extremely serve graphics programmers. I really found this book very useful, and it gave me new ideas that enhanced my way in programming. Besides it gives the reader full illustration for some problems in descriptive geometry and numerical analysis. REALLY Well-done Rod! Adel

Rating:
Summary: Excellent reference
Review: This is a good book for anyone with some knowledge about Visual Basic who wants to know how to make better graphics in the language. It starts off with the basics--lines, API functions, etc. Later, it has sections on more complex topics, such as ray tracing and higher-dimensional graphics.

Rating:
Summary: Rod Stephens is a very good teacher for an apt student
Review: This is a very good programming book, especially in teaching graphics techniques. It starts out a little over simplified, but eventually it evolves. The first few chapters you build a simple graphical applications. Then luckily you start over with a more organize application.

Rod Stephens has a great style of teaching and this is only the first book I bought by him three years ago. All his other books are very useful.

However as another critic here said the code it not in ready to run form for other applications. If you are an apt student and programmer the conversion is not difficult. This is a teaching book, building complex class function libraries was not it's goal. You will have tons of fun with this book and all his others.

Rating:
Summary: I think this is a great book especially for beginners!
Review: This is one of those few books a programmer can find he can't do without. While it does not go into depth in certain areas and limits graphics to 256 colors, the principles and the way they are explained make this a must read!

Rating:
Summary: Amazing! Expand your VB skills!
Review: When you are making games in Visual Basic or in any other language for the matter, then most of the graphics are done before the game code even thinks about executing. Usually you have bitmaps with sprites and masks. These are copied or most likely blitted to the gaming field using various methods. This is usually good enough for the simplest of games, but what happens when you want to create those special effects you see in the commercial games - such as a fading game field when you have completed a level or when everything turns red as your game character die? Well the old way of doing things was to get a Graphics Programming book, which showed you various algorithms usually written in C or some other non-VB friendly language. Not surprisingly I now tell you that this is not way any more, simply because there is a book on this subject written for Visual Basic programmers - Visual Basic Graphics Programming by Rod Stephens.

If you ever want to program serious games in Visual Basic or do some serious graphics programming then I can only recommend this book. The book starts out by explaining the various methods you have available when doing graphics programming with VB, including a discussion on when to actually do then drawing. You are then carried gracefully through the API way of doing things and lead into the world of colors. Colors are, as you probably already know, a confusing issue especially when it comes to color modes and color palettes. The book explains the palette issue in a very compelling way and best of all there are examples using the techniques described. The next issue in the book that is of critical interest to the VB game programmer is the chapter on image processing. The techniques describe therein will enable you to create those special fades and color conversions i.e. turning the gaming field into bloody red scene. As you read through the chapter on image processing you will undoubtedly get many ideas for small special effects that will spice your game up, such as a blur on the gaming field when the player has done something wrong. Chapter 5 in the book is the chapter I thing is most relevant for game programmers, simply because it deals with the essence of game programming - Animation. If you don't know how to speed your games up and even keep them down, then you will learn it here. The chapter also deals with many cool effects to apply to your games. Among these are some very cool wipes and dissolve effects, which would suit any `in-between' level transitions.

There are many special effects described in the book that you can apply to your games if you want to spice them up a bit, but the most important aspect is actually the future. The future I speak of here is of course the support for DirectX in Visual Basic programs, a support Microsoft will realize with DirectX 7.0. This will enable you to use the video hardware for some of the ordinary operations such as Blits, Color fills, rotation, scaling etc... But it also imposes a challenge to the game programmer, since using the GDI subsystem with DirectX is very slow and is only recommended for Text output. So what do you do when you have to draw lines, curves or even simple rectangles? Well the simple solution is of course not to use them, though this is hardly a viable one if you want to be serious. The only solution is to draw them manually using scan-line algorithms. Not surprisingly I recommend the book again, since it will give the needed background information to do this. Another cool feature in DirectX is that you are able to work with memory surfaces that contains the raw bitmap data, meaning that you have direct access to the graphical data. This access level is a great basis for performing splitting fast image processing that will take game your application to the next level using the algorithms discussed in the book.

You can't mention DirectX without going into Direct3D, the standard 3D engine used for many Window games. Direct3D comes in two flavors Retained Mode and Immediate Mode. Retained mode is the `easy' mode for using Direct3D, which naturally also means that it is the slow mode. Using Retained mode does not require you to know much of the underlying 3D techniques, but as stated it does impose a great deal of overhead and thus it is not ideal for fast games. For games you are almost forced to use Immediate mode if you want speed and space to work with. Immediate does, unlike Retained mode, require knowledge of 3d math and techniques. Though the book does not teach you how to build a full-flexed 3D engine it does cover the basics that you need to know, such as Vector and matrix operations, scaling, rotation and much more. It also covers simple and complex surfaces and how to hide parts of these when that is needed. You might be wondering why you would need a graphics-programming book instead of one the books that will undoubtedly be published on the subject of Direct3D and Visual Basic? If we were to take the C world of programming as an example, then the books there that describes Direct3D is very poor and basically useless. The reason is of course that Direct3D is a vast subject with many intricacies and quirks, and the best source is the SDK that comes with it. But this SDK does not teach the basics, it teaches you how to use the Direct3D API and nothing more. So to get anything out of this you definitely need a resource that explains the basics of 3D in a way so you fully understand it. This is what the book does, simply because it shows you how implement your own 3D algorithms and if you can implement the techniques then you also understand them.

That is about everything I have to say on this and to conclude I can only recommend this book as a great source for graphical programming with Visual Basic, either with the ordinary GDI but also more importantly in the future with DirectX. Don't think that the book will give ready to plug-in code for your game projects because it will not. What it will give you is an explanation on the topics along with a whole array of samples (over 150), and then you can take it from there. Knowledge of simple geometry math and some experience in VB programming is a prerequisite for the book.