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Rating: 
Summary: Know what you're getting
Review: It seems that the reviews for this book have been somewhat controversial, with people generally either loving or hating it. In light of that, I tried to read it with as open a mind as possible, and hopefully this review is objective. The title of any book tends to create an expectation of what the book covers, so you would expect the focus of this book to be on advanced game programming techniques first, and on DirectX second. Okay, so how does it do in each area then? To start on a positive note, when it comes to DirectX coverage, the book does a pretty good job. Having read several books covering DirectX, only a couple of which included Direct3D, this book holds up pretty well to the competition. It's not perfect; the non-Direct3D components are only covered briefly, but probably enough to get you up and running. The Direct3D coverage is decent, though, and easier to understand than what I've seen elsewhere. The texture mapping chapter was probably the most relevant of the entire book (though a little more depth on multitexturing applications and an explanation of how to generate the images used in environment mapping would have helped). The hole in the DirectX coverage comes in the omission of DirectPlay. Granted, there is a big chapter covering UDP instead, which is more widely used than DirectPlay anyway, but there should at least have been an explanation of why DirectPlay isn't used. The coverage of advanced techniques is somewhat limited, primarily because a great deal of the book assumes you are a beginner. Given that the word "Advanced" appears in the title, a lot of beginners are going to be hesitant to pick this up. And yet, the first several chapters introduce Windows programming, DirectX, and 3D math, which anyone considering themselves ready for an advanced book should already understand. Normally, I wouldn't consider these beginner sections a bad thing, since they are fairly well written (although the 3D math section isn't as well presented as it could have been) and to the point; however, as you'll see in a moment, the space could have been better used. When the book finally gets to more advanced topics, the coverage provided is somewhat spotty. Even though, as you can see from the TOC, many advanced topics are mentioned, only a handful of them provide enough depth of coverage or sample applications. Generally, the author's excuse for not providing complete coverage of a topic is a lack of space; if that's the case, and if this book really was intended to cover advanced game programming, he should have dropped the beginners sections and instead focused on advanced techniques that are being used in games. One other thing I just couldn't understand about the book was the ordering. Several chapters are inserted between the DirectX introduction and the Direct3D chapter (and it's not like all the chapters in between are required to understand Direct3D, since they include the AI, networking, and physics chapters). Since you can read the chapters out of order, this is just a minor annoyance, but it doesn't make much sense. So, in summary, the title of this book is misleading. People buying it for coverage of advanced topics are going to be disappointed, although there are a few nuggets to be had. On the other hand, it provides a great deal of information for beginners, including fairly complete coverage of DirectX, and better coverage of Direct3D than you'll find in many other books. Although it's not for absolute beginners, if you have some game programming experience and are ready to get into 3D, this may be worth picking up.
Rating: 
Summary: Good Term Paper -- Bad Book
Review: Although I typically like to refrain from posting negative reviews, I think it is necessary in the case of Adrian Perez' "Advanced 3D Game Programming..." Perez, only a college student, attempts to break down an intricate world into tiny pieces but fails to provide detailed explanations to questions that beginners or even advanced programmers may have. Having had no time actually practicing the trade, Perez does not have a solid enough grounding as to what is relevant for readers looking for a game programming book. Other reviews have mentioned the absurd title, so I will simply note my agreement on that point. What this book essentially amounts to is a good college level term paper (albeit quite a lengthy one) that I'm sure would receive raves from Perez's professors. However, in terms of a book that people are going to spend substantial money on -- it gets a D- from me.
Rating: 
Summary: A great book, if you read from cover to cover
Review: Granted, that takes a while... but it is worth it. This is basically a book that seems to cater to me exactly: I'm a programmer with a great deal of experience in C/C++, but I've never once tried to do DirectX. As such, I sat down this morning and by the afternoon I had read the first half of the book, and I must say that I am impressed. I've tried to jump into DirectX before, but no book could explain the theories as well as this one... pared up with the DirectX help files from the microsoft web site, I was able to finally understand what on earth is going on with modern graphical programming. =) The book does use wrappers, like a great deal of other books, but unlike some other books I've seen it shows you the theory behind the wrappers by slowly creating them over the length of the book... basically, making the wrapper the "tutorial example". Perhaps having a game as the continuative example would be better for some people, but I found the use of the wrapper as the example to be refreshing... perhaps I've been programming in the non-3D world too long though. =) So, if you're in the same position as I am, where you have a lot of programming experience but until now was too afraid to try DirectX, try out this book. It seems good to me. =) Just be sure to have the Microsoft DirectX SDK instruction web site handy in case you have additional questions (I'd reccomend that no matter what book you're using though). -Vendal Thornheart
Rating: 
Summary: Well worth the money if.....
Review: I think the reviewers on this board are focusing on the authors age / "professional experiance" far too much. The content in the book is what matters. And in my opinion this book is perfect for those who are beginning 3d programming. If you don't know what a matrix is, or what a texel is then you NEED this book. In fact this book contains the entire subject matter of my college level Real Time 3d class. The only down side to the book is that it honestly doesn't cover Direct 3d as well as I believe it should. The author spent too much time covering the basic information that 3d game programmers need to know rather than explaining the Direct 3d API. However this is a good thing! Far too many new programmers think they can purchase a single book and program the next quake with out knowing important information on the basics of 3d, calc, and Linear Algebra. This book exceeds in showing off those basics. Once the reader has completed this book they should be able to pick up the direct x documentation and understand what's going on. Isn't that the whole point? So if you've just finished tutoring your self on 2d game programming, or wish to start 3d game programming with out any prior experiance this book is a must have! However if you have completed some 3d game projects, used OpenGL, or another 3d API and are looking to expand your knowledge check out "Real Time Rendering", or "3d Game Engine Design" for they are more suited for your needs.
Rating:
Summary: A satisfied customer...
Review: I was looking forward to this book, as I thought Adrian's previous work was quite good and his willingness to share knowledge commendable. I had confidence that he would deliver one of the better game programming books around, so I put the book on pre-order. Now that I've had it a couple of days, I feel quite satisfied with my purchase. The book covered exactly what it said it would, it was a little dissapointing that CSG and Physics (apart from some basic stuff) got dropped on the way to getting the book published, but what is left in the book more than makes up for it, in my opinion. I don't know of any other books on the market about DirectX at the moment, that would allow a moderately experienced C++ developer to create a networked, multiplayer game engine with visibility algorithms like BSP Trees or Portals and some bells and whistles likes Bezier Curves, fancy texturing, etc. Other DX books I have purchased have turned out to be either too simple or just a printed copy of the DX Help Files. This book is much more than that. Part of the reason that I feel happy with my purchase of the book is that the author intends to add to the code base that came on the CD and become involved with people who intend to improve the existing code. I am sure this book is going to remain in a prominent place on my desk for many months. 4 stars - No Physics or CSG are the only negatives, in my opinion. Of course, you wish every technical book could be longer, but you're only allowed so much bang for your buck. I'd have no problem putting the next book on pre-order also.
Rating:
Summary: Well worth the money if.....
Review: Several gripes about this terrible book: 1. The author has no professional game programming experience, and, since he was in college when the book was written, probably no professional programming experience of any kind. As such, he was unable to present the material in any meaningful way. 2. Halfway through the book, I still had no idea what Direct 3D actually does. At this point I was well into the Direct3D chapter, and still no idea. See next point. 3. The information is presented mostly at random, with very few examples, diagrams or meaningful sections. INformation is presented as it pops into the writer's head and there is no motivation given for why the information is presented as it is. The 3D math section, for example, is horribly written. He goes through various calculations, NEVER bringing them back to the overall topic of transforming 3d coordinates. He introduces the topic of rendering to the screen with NO explanation. I had to re-read the Foley book just to make sure I DID understand 3d math. Another example is the Direct 3D section. I was expecting after the big chapter on 3d math, he would start by saying "Here's what D3D does for", but instead I was halfway through the chapter and had read about all the constants you can check to see what the video card does (and THAT part of the book was essentially the documentation from MS reproduced in the book). In short, DO NOT BUY THIS BOOK.
Rating:
Summary: Just what I've been looking for - great for starters!
Review: The "advanced" part of the title seems to reflect the expectation that you know C++ or at least a lot about how programming works. If you have that under your belt, this book takes you through a wide variety of topics involved in game programming, including a very good chapter on the mathematics involved in 3d graphics programming. This is the chapter that I've found lacking in so many other books, since my advanced math skills (especially with matrices!) aren't all that strong, but when someone explains how to do something clearly, I can usually follow along. Yes, you probably need to have taken trigonometry at one point, but this book gives a good refresher in that area. The CD-ROM comes packed with source code to different popular 3d games (like Quake and Doom), and with a 20,000 line example game that demonstrates most of the techniques that appear in the book, so there's a lot to work from in this package. However, you need to have some idea of what you're doing, both in terms of game concept design and programming, in order to get the most out of it. The fact the book is written by a college student is a plus to me: the style may not always be perfect, but it's written at a level that other college students can understand.
Rating: 
Summary: Not good at all.
Review: The writer of this book has tried to get as much information as possible into a single book. He has put: WindowsProgramming DirectDraw, Direct3D, DirectSound, DirectInput. AI programming Network programming Basic 3d Math, Advanced 3d techniques Since he tries to put this much information into a single book he just touches some of the subjects very little. In order for each subject to be clear I feel like I need one book for each of the lines above. It seems like the author has tried very hard to show everybody all he knows and to teach everyone all of this but you just end up confused. Luckily I already know alot about DirectX so I bought the book for the 3D parts but I read all of it and wasnt pleased.
Rating:
Summary: "Advanced" development by a non-developer
Review: then this is for you. As an experienced programmer yet inexperinced game developer, I found this book very boring and thin. It looks to be more useful to me as an "in-hand reference." Using the document with the SDK is better and quicker (for DirectX 8) but I realize everyone have different learning curves and tolerance. Looking at the other reviews though, I'm probably wrong ;)
Rating:
Summary: Good Reference...that's all
Review: When I first looked at the Table of Contents, I thought this book was too good to be true! It seemed to include everything I needed to create my own game. However, after reading through less than half of the book, I became bored. There is simply too much information and lack of explanation. I'm not saying that it is completely useless, just confusing. I did find this book useful alongside MSDN and several other online resources I found. If you're expecting a step-by-step walkthrough of Direct 3D applications, I suggest you look elsewhere.
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