Beginning DirectX 9 (Game Development Series) 1st Edition

I have several DirectX books and this one is the only one that I actually learned from. Hopefully I will be able to use the knowledge gained from this book to help me through my other books. I feel I can only give this book 4 stars though. As far as the book goes, it is very well written. Concepts are explained to you first, and then implemented. The author never throws more than a page of code at you at a time. However, there are some complaints. For some of the functions, the author doesn't say what actually calls them. This can lead to confusion if you are trying to do the code yourself and then checking it (which is the preferred way of learning). Also, the author doesn't point out all the things you need to change to move from one example to the next. Often the compiler will give you warnings or errors that you have to fix, although they are trivial in nature. A major complaint is that half of the .exe files on the cd do not work, and one of the directX updates doesn't seem to be a valid Win32 application, although I'm pretty sure the other update on the cd covers it. A problem I had was when the author chose to create the device using the Microsoft REF in one of the parameters. To get the example to work I had to use the HAL. After that everything worked just fine. This is a good introduction to directX and you will benifit greatly by owning it. You should also get another book that goes into more detail, after you have mastered the basics.I have come back to edit this review and knock the star rating down to 3. In the chapter about lighting, there are no examples of using any light besides ambient light. When you try to use other lighting techniques, you get no results. Here's what I found out, after looking through the DirectX SDK Documentation, and samples. ** You have to use surface normals **. Thats right. Nowhere in the chapter did the author state you have to change your vertex definition to include the D3DFVF_NORMAL flag. For anyone who may be stuck in that chapter, this is probably your reason. Also, for texture mapping, you have to use the vertex buffer, not the index buffer, to get the correct mapping. It would've been nice had this been stated. To reiterate, the examples in this book are completely useless. In fact, I found much of the book taken word for word out of the SDK. It is still a good book to have though. It is the only one that has helped me learn DirectX. Just be prepared to look through the SDK documentation, especially in later chapters. Perhaps Wendy Jones was not the most qualified author to write this book. It seems like she's just familiar with the material in the book and is uncomfortable presenting some ideas clearly.

In some ways this book appears to have been written as a classroom textbook but you can learn a lot about DirectX 9 from it even without a classroom teacher to guide you.The best thing about the book might be the chapter exercises. Ultimately, the author builds up to a final project for the reader, a user controlled spaceship in flight near a planet. Solutions are provided for all reader exercises including the final project.All code and examples are in C++. A variety of example programs are provided on the disk and some of the code could be used as the foundation for a 3D game engine. FYI, you can also download updated source code for this book from the publishers website course.cengage.com. I had only a few small problems compiling and running them in Visual Studio Express 2008. One caveat: the author seems fairly comfortable and adept with C++ classing and assumes you are, too, so be prepared to do a little additional study if you're not up to speed on C++.This book does not really discuss game programming in any significant way and pretty much sticks to teaching a number of the most important DirectX concepts and functions, like vertex buffers, point sprites, transformations, textures, DirectInput, and DirectSound. One unfortunate omission is the subject of 3D character animation.If you can finish the book and work out the exercises you should have a much better grasp on the subject of DirectX 9 3D graphics programming (assuming your are a novice) and can probably take it to the next level using the SDK documentation and tutorials. That's my plan, anyway, after learning some OpenGL.Novices and non-professionals (like me) who don't have a lot of time on their hands to learn C++ low level graphics programming but who want to try their hand at 3D Games might be better off creating modules with the kits that come with some games or looking into some of the inexpensive game SDK's - in some cases free - that are on the market.

I can understand some of the bad reviews because a few of the variable names are inconsistent from text to source code; but that is really the only thing wrong with the book. The code is very clear and follows the chapters well. The explanations of code are adequate for a 300pg book and you really don't need to go more in-depth if you are a beginner. I feel that most of the bad reviews are by people who let small inaccuracies cloud their mind, who cannot problem-solve very well, or who feel like they should be able to read the book once through and understand everything. There are no actual errors that I could find in the code since it compiled fine, they are simply typos. The reason I can say this is actually a good beginner book is because I read through the book thoroughly. Every time I start one of the sections I read the section while I type the whole program from the beginning and then I repeat the section several times keeping good coding practices in mind.MISCONCEPTIONS UNRAVELED...The source code is not written using the best practices, it is written with readability in mind. So feel free to throw all the DirectX stuff into its own singleton class.The whole message loop fiasco that a couple of others wrote about is explained in the book (maybe try reading instead of skimming). It was very clear to me what the author did.The code solutions are for VS7 which was standard at the time of publishing. So you need to use VS7 or later, I have VS8.The book is only 300 pages so you will have to use the CD source code.You have to compile the source code to use it, no executables are provided. And I can assure you the code _WILL_ compile.CONCLUSION...This is a good book to learn DirectX9.0c if you are a beginner. Skip it if you are more advanced. I haven't found any better books to learn DirectX since I really don't like the Wordware collections.

I find this a very good introduction to all aspects of dX9 game programming. It explains the most substantial bits and pieces quite well, leaving the reader with good knowledge on the most basic aspects. The script examples are explained in detail, going over every line, one by one.Having said that, I also must add that this is not a good reference book. Some the script examples written in the book are either outdated or wrong and some of the material on the disc doesn't work. This does not present a big problem though if you have another reference book or access to internet based reference sites.

A poorly written book, I imagine the author outsourced the coding; as what it written in the book as directions to be followed does not match up with the coding samples on the CD. Some don't even work at all. I wouldn't recommend this book to absolute beginners as it would be easy to become frustrated when your code doesn't work through no fault of your own.

If you want to start programming in directx 9 this is a good book for the purpose.