Books for/about - DirectX

Programming a Multiplayer FPS in DirectX (Game Development Series)

Publisher: Charles River Media
Authors: Vaughan Young

ISBN: 1584503637
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Summary: Man does this book suck!
This book is terrible! You read through the whole thing, and you don't even learn anything!

I would strongly recommend people not to buy this book.

Otherwise, you just wasted 30 dollars on worthless bs.

Summary: Good but not perfect
This book gives the reader a good general understanding of how networked gameprogramming works, and also a good bit of information about the internals of a complete game engine. The downside about this book is that it uses mixed hardware/software vertex processing which results in noncompatable programs with my laptop, however, if you change that to only software and recompile every demo then it works greate (A setting in CreateDevice()...), but slow (on my laptop...),, the occlusion checks ain't the best, and the partitioning on load is slow,, slow as in - you cant augment the code for profiling or it will be runnig for more then 15 minutes on a 1.03GHz laptop... ("more then" due to the fact that i aborted it....) and the use of 3DsMAX files as levelmodels... and the occlusions based not on the real environement but on objects placed in the scene.. (invisible...)...

Except the minor none-perfect things this book is GREATE!!! AND a BIG NOTE: The minors noted above ain't to bad,, it just looks like much when it's writen down,, and I think that this book is a good read for everyone,, and I do REALY recomend it... however, i give it 4 of 5 due to the recomile things and the occlusion,,, however, this book ain't about perfekt rendering,, it's about connection a game to the internet :)... and it gives you MORE then plenty :)

Summary: A perfect book for beginners/intermediate level programmers
This is a PERFECT book for intermediate level programmers that have a decent
knowledge of C++ and basic knowledge of DirectX and have always wanted to build their own 3d game.

This is the only book (as far as i know) that guides you from the beginning, and explains
every important part of the engine code.
in every chapter new features are added to the engine and in the end
you have a full working FPS engine!

Great!

Author explains not only usual stuff that can be seen in every other book (how to setup a DirectX or use DirectInput), but also goes into detail on how to design your engine writing
a reusable code and build that can later be easily improved.

Topics covered are Engine Design, Engine Control, Scripting, Rendering, Sound, Networking, Materials and Meshes, Objects, Scene management etc.

I wish that all programming book were written this way.

Absolutely recommended.

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Introduction to 3D Game Programming with DirectX 9.0

Publisher: Wordware Publishing Inc.
Authors: Frank D. Luna

ISBN: 1556229135
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Summary: Very easy to follow
This book is written very well, and it is written in a way that allows the reader to follow without getting lost in the terminology. Everything is explained very well. I use the book constantly as a reference when programming. Pick this book up if your serious about learning DirectX.

Summary: Great Book -- Misleading title. :(
While I agree with all the other reviews on how this book is EXCELLENT for learning the introduction (and some advanced) concepts and applications of Direct 3D it is severely lacking one thing: game programming mechanics.

Frank D. Luna has an awesome ability to teach Direct 3D in an easy to understand and fun way but this is not a book to buy if you want to learn how game systems and mechanics interface with direct 3d. There is no game project nor is there any helpful information on animation/sound/or comprehensive explanation of DirectInput (though there is a really nice camera class you create in the book).

Anyway...I give this book 2 stars not because it lacks validity or helpful notes, as was stated earlier its really well organized and easy-to-understand. But don't expect to come out of this book without any questions about D3D games because there is a lot that he doesnt cover. I still recommend this book to anybody interested in graphics programming and back it up with full support in that respect.

Summary: An Intro D3D book written by developers, not dev wannabees
This is a solid book covering the basics of Direct 3D (and only Direct 3D...no Direct Input, Sound, etc). BTW there is no CD, but the web site has all the code as promised (and unlike other intro D3D books the samples actually compile and run). And unlike other intro books I've seen the code is clear & crisp and a joy to work with.
You will learn techniques in this book that you can use in real games. Sure, you will get the boring intro stuff like color and texturing but the coverage is more developer-oriented with detailed coverage of the API and an extensible code framework in real rather than butchered C++. And then its off to surfaces (terrain rendering) and a first-person camera to go along with it. In an intro book. Now, that just simply kicks butt. Not to mention an excellent particle class, and on to HLSL (even experienced DX folk can have an interesting lunch with this book).
About the only thing I didn't agree with was the use of frustum diagrams in diagrams describing world-to-view space transformations. The frustum just goes along for the ride. The more important thing to show are the orthogonal axes in the transformation, and these were absent in some diagrams.
I was going to give this book 4 stars...but its more deserving with its excellent development of simpler concepts into more advanced constructs with major payoffs for your first games as to tilt the balance.
I can't think of a better book for a developer with their act together about to rock with D3D.

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	Introduction to 3D Game Programming with Direct X 9.0c: A Shader Approach (Wordware Game and Graphics Library) Publisher: Wordware Publishing, Inc. Authors: Frank Luna
ISBN: 1598220160 List Price: $49.95 Amazon Price: $31.47 Usually ships in 24 hours Buy this book from amazon.com or from amazon.co.uk	Avg Cusomer Rating: Reviews: Summary:

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Managed DirectX 9 Kick Start: Graphics and Game Programming

Publisher: Sams
Authors: Tom Miller

ISBN: 0672325969
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Summary: So much info my brain hurts, in a good way.
Background: No professional programming experience, but i wrote MUDs in the late 90s. I learned C++ at a junior college. 4 classes of C++, analysis and design, discrete math, calculus, and a class of java. (and some other unrelated stuff)

I will recommend reading Ron Pentons MDX book before this one... it's much simpler (even though his sprite implementation is from dx 9.0b and won't compile... but learning how to fix it is good for you :P)

Tom does a great job of leaving out all of the baby stuff (like how to set up your IDE, install DX, etc etc.) and goes right into the meat and potatoes. So, for people who get bored too fast skipping simple concepts... this book is great for you.

I recommend getting this book, reading each chapter twice, then printing the sample code and hand typing it (don't let intellisense do the work). You'll quickly memorize the methods in MDX that way. Then read the chapter a third time to recap what you just did.

Hope you all enjoy learning as I have.

Summary: Very good book on managed DirectX
This is a very good book on managed DirectX - i.e. using C# rather than using C++, using the managed rather than unmanaged API, using .Net, etc. Adequate chapters on how to get started but not in as much literal detail as some books - you will need to already understand how to use Visual Studio, how to include libraries into your Visual Studio projects, etc. Starts off with the basics and fundamentals but quickly moves into more advanced topics.

Summary: Decent approach, bad information
The way that this book approaches teaching Managed DirectX is a pretty good one compared to some other books I have looked at, provided that you are willing to do most of the work of trying to understand what you're doing yourself.

However, the book has loads and loads of errors. Many of them are simple and easy to correct if you know a little about C# or .NET (which you should if you want to use the book), but there are some that will probably confuse most beginners. For example, the book gets a pretty fundamental bit of information about back face culling completely backwards from the way things really work.

For those interested in the technical details, this book tells you that counterclockwise culling mode means you must specify vertices in counterclockwise order for them to be displayed and that clockwise-ordered vertices are not rendered. This is completely wrong. Counterclockwise culling mode means that counterlockwise-ordered vertices are the ones that are not displayed (if you check the official DirectX SDK documentation [and most every other source of info about DirectX available on the Internet] you will see that this is the case).

While probably not the worst DirectX book you could possibly find, this book should not be used by itself. Just about everything it tells you should be double-checked against the SDK documentation or some other DirectX reference to make sure that the information is correct.

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ShaderX3: Advanced Rendering with DirectX and OpenGL (Shaderx Series)

Publisher: Charles River Media
Authors: Wolfgang Engel

ISBN: 1584503572
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Summary: Up To Date View of the State of the Art
This book is a collection of forty-seven articles around the common theme of shading images in real time. Many of these effects have been common in the movie world for many years, but in that application the shading can be done on very expensive machines and the time it takes to produce an image is not important because the resulting image is to be shown on screen rather than immediately on a display. Now, with the increasing power in the PC's in widespread use, these techniques are being brought down to the standard desktop.

In this book a wide selection of authors discuss the start of the art in shading. They are, for the most part, active professionally in the graphics display business. A number of them work for ATI, the video card manufacturer, a number work for gaming companies, or for companies producing software used in gaming.

This approach provides for a fast time to print, rather than one author taking a year to write the book. In this industry a year is a lifetime, well, at least a generation in the software.

Summary: A comprehensive collection of ready-to-use techniques
Shader X3: Advanced Rendering With DirectX And Open GL compiled, organized, and deftly edited by Wolfgang Engle (Senior Special FX Engineer at Wings Simulations) is packed from cover to cover with 630-pages of insightful new techniques, innovative approaches to common problems, as well as practical tools and tricks that will help in all areas of shader programming. All of the articles comprising Shader X3 evolved from the the working experiences of industry professionals, and all of the sections were expertly edited by shader programming experts. This comprehensive collection of ready-to-use techniques will enable even the most novice programmer to get up to speed quickly, and the more experienced programmers will find a wealth of insights and techniques to improve efficiency and avoid redundancies. Shader X3 is an essential, "user friendly", and highly recommended instructional reference for shader programmers.

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Visual Basic Game Programming with DirectX (The Premier Press Game Development Series)

Publisher: Course Technology PTR
Authors: Jonathan S. Harbour

ISBN: 193184125X
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Summary: Needs to be updated to VB .Net
This book was written about the time VB .Net was coming out and the author even mentions that he considered writing some of the code in .Net. I bought the book, realizing it was dated, thinking that it would be a good learning experience to convert the examples to VB .Net. Of course, it's proving to be very frustrating.

This is a good book and well written and if you are determined to stick with VB6 and want to learn game programming. However, if you're moving on to .Net I would suggest looking for a different title. (If you find a good one let me know.)

I really wish they would publish a new edition with re-written examples. That would be ideal.

Summary: Good Reference, However...
This book is in fact a good reference, but I hit snags trying to run the sample code. I have Visual Studio .NET and I love it, and thought that this book would be a good starting point for game programming. And it was until I hit the first program "ChunkyPixels" I put the code into the VB.NET IDE and it would not compile. The examples are all writen in VB 6.0 and has no compatibility with VB.NET. So, in conclusion, if you want a good reference and do not have VB.NET, buy this book, but if you have VB.NET you are, as am I, out of luck

PS IF anyone knows of any websites that would have updated code samples, I would be happy to hear where! :)

Summary: Not quite what it says
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.

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Programming Role Playing Games with DirectX, Second Edition (Game Development Series)

Publisher: Course Technology PTR
Authors: Jim Adams

ISBN: 159200315X
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Summary: Want information? Look elsewhere.
While this book does give some useful information and tips, I found that most of the code in the game library is uncommented and the functions and connections between the classes is not clearly documented anywhere (an appendex section with the classes in the library and the relations to the other classes along with descriptions of the methods and members would have been nice). Although I did read the book over about three times, when it came to coding I found that I ended up looking more at the DirectX SDK documentation to figure out what was going on than I did at the book. Considering this is the second edition of the book (the first edition covering DX8), it also would have been nice if there would have been some kind of notification on what changed from DX8 to DX9, especially in the mesh/animation area.

Everything considered, I was really disappointed by the content in this book, or lack there of. If you're going to purchase it, I suggest already being familiar with DirectX 9, having a good C and C++ background, then make sure you have the DirectX documentation at hand so you can search for information when it actually comes to coding.

Summary: Extremely Confusing!
I worked through "Beginning C++ Game Programming" by Michael Dawson and that book was fantastic.

However, this book is very vague, and not very helful at all. Unless you already know DirectX very well, don't bother with this book. It's extremely confusing and doesn't explain anything, it just gives pieces of code that don't always work. It's a complete waste if you're anything below an intermediate to advanced level. I'm very angry because this book cost me $50 at the bookstore and I probably won't use it. DONT BUY THIS BOOK.

Summary: Where to get a free compiler
If you want to program and don't have the cash for Visual Studio, grab this one it's free and works with a bunch of different languages especially C/C++.

www.eclipse.org

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Real-Time Rendering Tricks and Techniques in DirectX (Premier Press Game Development (Software))

Publisher: Course Technology PTR
Authors: Kelly Dempski

ISBN: 1931841276
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Avg Cusomer Rating: 5
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Summary: Best Direct3D Book I've Seen Thus Far
I picked this book up about a year ago as it seemed to start from the beginning and cover much ground. Little did I know at the time that this would be the best book I'd find on the topic a year later. The coverage on shadow volumes and shadow maps is impressive. The discussion of things such as the depth buffer and stencil buffers is good. Plus having access to the various vertex and pixel shaders code made it easy to learn from just reviewing the code.

Outside of the SDK, this is the only D3D book that I continue to reference, even as I move to DirectX 9.

Summary: Good book
This book helped me understand vertex shaders and pixel shaders, which was the point of the book. The only thing I did not like about the book was that some of the code had bad logic. But its very readable code and I must give the guy props, he must have coded this super fast. Plus his chapter on video was werid and hard to understand and the code was akward and to me was out of place in the book. It had way to much source code and no explaination of why it works. His other book on curves was good too ... check it out.

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