Rating: 
Summary: A great book for all
Review: "Windows Game Programming with Visual Basic and DirectX" is one of the best sources for game programming with Visual Basic. It is rare to find a nice VB book these days, and this one covers everything to make a sim kinda game. you make a mall and try to run it, teaching you how to Program games on the way. This is a must have for any Game programmer that wants to use VB for thair game.
Rating:
Summary: A great book for all
Review: "Windows Game Programming with Visual Basic and DirectX" is one of the best sources for game programming with Visual Basic. It is rare to find a nice VB book these days, and this one covers everything to make a sim kinda game. you make a mall and try to run it, teaching you how to Program games on the way. This is a must have for any Game programmer that wants to use VB for thair game.
Rating:
Summary: The book I've been dreaming of.
Review: As the Technical Editor of this book you think I would have an unjust view of the quality, but I am just another VB game programmer who fell into the job. This book not only covers the basics of directX but it takes you through the making of a fully playable 3D simulation game. I have done some reviews and read some reviews of other VB game programming books and one thing that was always mentioned was that there was never enough info on DirectX, Well here it is. You will also learn the basics of trueSpace 5 for the making of the graphics, Work with MS Speech API to make your characters talk, And Learn to play MP3s as background music for you games. I have to say I have been waiting for this book to be written for a long long time. Pick it up and learn to make some great games, From Beginner to advanced this book holds a lot for everyone to learn.
Rating:
Summary: find one like this book and tell me :)
Review: for me this the best book you can read it for games programming with visual basic but i don't know for vb6 or vb.net (i didn't read the book yet)
Rating: 
Summary: Some use some annoyance
Review: I bought the book hoping to gain some knowledge of 3D graphics programming. Since I am only starting out programming I fealt it better to learn in a language that's easy to follow.
The book does seem to describe some aspects of 3D programming quite well. However, as I read more of the book I couldn't help thinking I'd have been better off wading through a book on C++ game programing. I realise that the authur is trying to simplify the process, but there doesn't actually seem to be much REAL information.
The books usefullness wasn't helped by the fact that I couldn't get the examples to run. I understand that it is not the authurs responsibility to ensure that your hardware and software are set up correctly. But when the entire process of learning depends on seeing the code in action, you'd have thought there'd be a section on troubleshooting at the very least. I can't help feeling that the code is contrived to produce (on most machines) a fancy game, without any of the real programming necesary for a half-decent game.
I'd possibly recommend this book to people with compatible systems (whatever that is neither of mine will run the game). who want to play with a (from what I can tell) nifty little game.
To anyone else I'd say - for games, learn C/C++.
Rating:
Summary: Some use some annoyance
Review: I bought the book hoping to gain some knowledge of 3D graphics programming. Since I am only starting out programming I fealt it better to learn in a language that's easy to follow.
The book does seem to describe some aspects of 3D programming quite well. However, as I read more of the book I couldn't help thinking I'd have been better off wading through a book on C++ game programing. I realise that the authur is trying to simplify the process, but there doesn't actually seem to be much REAL information.
The books usefullness wasn't helped by the fact that I couldn't get the examples to run. I understand that it is not the authurs responsibility to ensure that your hardware and software are set up correctly. But when the entire process of learning depends on seeing the code in action, you'd have thought there'd be a section on troubleshooting at the very least. I can't help feeling that the code is contrived to produce (on most machines) a fancy game, without any of the real programming necesary for a half-decent game.
I'd possibly recommend this book to people with compatible systems (whatever that is neither of mine will run the game). who want to play with a (from what I can tell) nifty little game.
To anyone else I'd say - for games, learn C/C++.
Rating: 
Summary: Explanation is not so good
Review: I expected a thorough explanation of DirectX when I bought this book. I want to know what CLIPPER is, why we have to use it...etc. There's so much cryptic terms to learn in DirectX - DDSCAPS_OFFSCREENPLAIN, DDSCAPS_PRIMARYSURFACE, DDSCL_ALLOWMODEX, BltFast, Blt just to name a few. The book does explain how to set up DirectX so that we can use Direct3D etc, but it does a poor job on explaining them succinctly, instead it spends too much time on third-party graphics tools. The explanation on the 3D coordinate space, vertex, points etc is very short.
The explanation on the logic of the game is very boring, to be objective, it doesn't help me much. Overall, I'm disappointed.
Rating:
Summary: Mixed feelings
Review: I have mixed feelings about this book. I am an intermediate level game programmer but I have relatively little experience with Direct3D. I think it is great to finally see a book that deals with the use of Direct3D for VB. My largest complaint about this book is that it makes extensive use of a $600 3D graphics tool called TrueSpace. It comes with a "Trial" version so I figured I would be able to use it for 30 days or something to see if it was worth buying, but the trial version doesn't even let you save files. Without the ability to save the files to load into my game applications, I can not properly evaluate the software. So the author needs to be more clear that the purchase of some very expensive software is required to fully utilize the book. The book is also a little limited in scope in that it focuses on the development of only one game (an underwater 3D sim mall). I also found the capabilities of the code presented rather week. I have achieved much higher frame rates using my own graphics engine with VB and WIN API calls. I understand that non-optimized code is often used for clarity, but it is simply too inefficient for real game programming. With all that said, I still learned a lot in reading this book, and I would recommend buying it if you are an intermediate level VB game programmer. Just don't expect to write the next Quake any time soon.
Rating: 
Summary: Helpful; has me thinking about things
Review: I just bought this book, and it is actually quite helpful. I have never written a game, but am fairly experienced in VB6. I wanted to explore DirectX programming, and this is a good start. As far as other reviews complaining about having to use Truespace, you can also use 3dStudio Max, get the file exporter from Microsoft and you can can create .x files with that. Should also work with Maya, and you can get that for free. I thought the code was well organized, and on my 1.2 ghz machine, I get excellant frame rates. I only wish there was more detail about Direct3d, but still, enough here to get started. I recommend this book if you are an intermediate level VB programmer, and need some ideas on how to program games, if you are new to VB, probably not the best book to get.
Rating:
Summary: Comprehensive Approach, Great Support!
Review: I see some reviewers faulted the book for developing a single simulation game example (which the book does clearly advertise on the cover), yet this was one of the things I liked most about the book. Rather than develop a series of simplistic arcade-like games, you worked your way from game design planning up through a finished product that's easy to customize based on your imagination, artistic abilities, and such. It was much easier to delve into the subtleties of VB/DirectX that way, and I really appreciated having everything on CD rather than having to schlep off to a web site to download sample code. I encountered some funky issues with my old video card, but Mr. Freeze actually took the time via e-mail to help me through it. Wow, it was the first time an author ever actually took the time to answer one of me e-mails! This guy won't leave you hanging like some, and his writing style is very clear and makes complex topics a breeze to understand.
|
