Advanced 3D Game Programming with DirectX 10.0

By Peter Walsh

Advanced 3D Game Programming with DirectX 10.0 provides a guide to developing cutting-edge games using DirectX 10.0. Beginning with the foundations of 3D math and the components of DirectX,... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1598220543
• ISBN13: 9781598220544
• Release Date: January 2008
• Publisher: Wordware Publishing, Inc.
• Length: 552 Pages
• Weight: 1.76 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.1" x 1.2" x 6.1"

Customer Reviews

Excellent textbook for a short course

Because it covers all principal topics on game programming in a straight to the point way and with C++ code, makes it a practical book for learning fast and concise. it is possible to develop an application in less than a semester. I recommend it to students and people who prefer reading a book than the DX API documentation from the screen. Hope to see "Advanced 3D Game programming with DX10" someday (anyway it should be called "Intermediate" instead of "Advanced")

Great book! ...but I would have liked a little more

I learned programming DirectX 8 months ago just using the SDK, and that created several holes of knowledge on my mind. Now with Advanced 3D Programming with DirectX 9.0, I filled out the missing ideas. This book is clearly explained, and the intro sections could guide a newbie into the field of 3D programming. The code is also easy to understand, and many tables of structures and values where printed on the book, so you don't have to look inside the SDK. Most common fields and values where bolded and explained, making this book useful as a short reference, that's nice. Also, I really enjoyed looking at the pictures on how lighting, texture operations and many other techniques modify the 3D scene. This book is well illustrated.The main problem I found is that many discussions where skiped because "there isn't enough space on this book", as the authors wrote. For example, I read in the index there was a section about Stencil Buffers. When I opened that page there was a little intro of half a sheet saying that I could use stencils to create real time shadows, and I would get more on the stencil topic later. The mention of this shadow technique made me really interested! But when I got to the real stencil section there was just a title and two lines saying that shadows and mirrors are a nifty use of stencil buffers. I think the authors should have removed some dicussions on old techniques, and placed one or two pages on this topic and others that are modern and advanced. A larger discussion on 3D file formats should also be placed on this book, and should be a must on any other 3D programming book, because not many things for games you can do with dinamically created spheres and boxes. I mean, for game development you need models and animated models, the same as textures with transparency, and those doesn't come from the programmers, but from the artists.Anyway, IMHO this books is greatly explained, even for newbies. That's why I give 5 stars.

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Good Code Dump

I really like the style of this Author, as he does not *rewrite* *SDK* helpdocs*. He tries to give you his understanding of what he sees going on from his experience of coding. I find this very helpful, as he is always turning over lots of things,and illustrating them so I feel I understand them better.The title of the book is DirectX 8, so there isn't alot of handholding on constructing the C++ end of the code. You are warned about this in the intro, and it is true. Wrappers, and alot of *advanced* coding stuff are used, and It is up to you to puzzle the language of it through.Also, alot of necessary details regarding changes Microsoft made to Direct3D, which the Author had no choice but to cover.

A very In depth book

After recently purchasing SAMS learn DirectX 7 in 24 hours I was put off programming for a while, it contained a lot of unexplained code, that the reader was expected to remember without understanding. When I received this book for christmas however I was delighted to find that right from the start every peice of code is explained. The author also explained the advantages of various operating systems and programming langauges, which I found quite usefull. I was also pleased to see that the book not only explained just the direct X programming langauge, but also covered many other aspects of game programming, such as the creating of windows, using the message pump and various other functions in the windows API. The CD which comes with the book also contains some very usefull source code including the Quake 3 engine source code. To sum things up this is a great book, for programmers who wish to write efficient code and understand what they are actually writing. I would recommend it to Advanced programmers, Intermediate programmers and possibly even ambitious beginners.