"Ultimate Game Programming with DirectX, Second Edition" teaches readers how to combine their existing skills and dedication for playing games with some basic C++ programming skills to create your own games. Written for game development students, beginning game programmers, and C++ programmers wanting to learn game development, this book covers every part of the process. Throughout the book, readers create a top-down shooter game. Beginning with an introduction to Direct X 10 and Direct3D graphics, you’ll build the game engine and complete game chapter by chapter. The book covers fundamental graphical techniques, essential mathematics, collision detection, input device detection and response, sound playback, scene management, animation, and model/character loading and drawing.

Creating computer games is challenging. It requires plenty of technical skill, dedication, and creativity. Ultimate Game Programming with DirectX teaches you how to combine your existing skills and dedication for playing games with some basic C++ programming skills to create your own games. Written for game development students, beginning game programmers, and C++ programmers wanting to learn game development, this book covers every part of the process. Throughout the book, you’ll be creating a first-person shooter game called Stranded. Beginning with an introduction to Direct X and Direct3D graphics, you’ll build the game engine and complete game chapter by chapter. You’ll learn the fundamental graphical techniques, essential mathematics, collision detection, input device detection and response, sound playback, scene management, animation, and model/character loading and drawing. Once you’ve built this game, you can easily expand upon it and customize it to add your own unique features. You’ll also have the foundational knowledge and skills you need to build your own games and take on new programming challenges. If you have basic C++ programming skills, a love for games, and a desire to create your own, you’ll find what you need here. WHAT YOU’LL LEARN * The fundamentals of DirectX game development and Direct3D graphics * Foundational programming techniques that you can use for any game project * Essential mathematics and physics techniques * Basic graphics and animation techniques, including basic techniques include drawing basic shapes and objects, displaying images on top of surfaces, creating and displaying text to the screen, and learning how to work in 3D space. * Coverage of scene management topics rarely covered in books for C++ programmers and aspiring game programmers * A complete DirectX reference for game development, including the creation of a complete FPS game

Ultimate Game Programming with DirectX explores the ins-and-outs of DirectX, the most widely used game development API available. Anyone interested in learning how to program a game, you need to know DirectX. Written for game development students, hobby programmers with a basic to intermediate knowledge of C++, and beginner game and graphics programmers, the book details the complexities of DirectX in an easy-to-follow and practical style. Using the creation of an FPS game as the ultimate project in the book, programmers work through all aspects of DirectX beginning with an overview of Direct3D. From there they progress to lighting & objects, textures, and an essential math review. Next come collision detection, input & sound, animation, models, .X files, bone animation, world management, height maps, octrees, and BSP trees. With all of this knowledge, you?ll be ready to work through the last part of the book where the FPS game is createdand you’ll have the knowledge and skills you need to program your own games and high-quality animations.

One to skip

Just to establish my own credentials - I’m a game developer with 5 published titles under my belt including Master of Orion 3, Kohan 2, Axis & Allies, and two Zoo Tycoon 2 games.

I was asked on very short notice to teach a Game Development class at a local college. So off I went to Borders to find a textbook. After some digging, this is what I picked out. The features that recommended it to me where that it included the source code, and over the course of the book it promised to build a fully functional game.

Here’s what I found instead:

* I would guess from his terminology that the author has never worked at a game company. He just doesn’t know the lingo - or he’s worked somewhere so remote from my own experience that his lingo is completely different. Also, based on the quality of his code and the quality of the resulting game, he wouldn’t survive a second at any game company out there. He wouldn’t make it past the phone interview. If you are considering a career in game development, do NOT follow this person’s example or you won’t even get in the door.

* The code is the most horribly written I have ever seen. I would expect better out of anyone who has ever taken any sort of class on object oriented programming - or worked on any sort of project employing more than one person. The best way to describe it is poorly written C code written in C++. The spacing is non-standard. That variable names are horrible. For many of the programs, it’s all in the main.cpp file. Global variables everywhere. Hardly any use of classes, and where they are used they are monolithic and poorly designed. Ugh.

* The book is frequently innaccurate. It needs an errata list badly - but if there is one, I haven’t been able to find it. For example, in chapter 1 he tells you that you only need 1 line of code to enable z-buffering. After talking to colleagues and looking on the web, I was able to get this to work (I’m an AI guy, not a graphics guy) - but he was missing 4 of the 5 lines needed to make it happen.

* The book also tends to be incredibly light on details. It tells you the DirectX functions you need to call (mostly) and the specific values to plug in - but not what the functions do, or what the other possible values for their paramaters are, or how the parameters affect the output. The style of the writing is also incredibly informal - it sounds like something written by a 10th grader. Granted, if the quality of the content was solid I wouldn’t care about this - but added to the poor content it makes the whole thing feel unprofessional.

* The quality of the final game is what I would expect out of a high school project (at best). The collision detection is horrifically buggy. The characters don’t animate or move at all (although my understanding from looking at the book is that they’re supposed to). The code won’t compile under VS2005, only VS2003. It also won’t run without a game controller plugged in to the computer - but it doesn’t appear to actually use the game controller. He’s been promising since the book came out to post the fixes for those last two problems on his web site, but I couldn’t find them.

All in all, this book is an embarassment. I’m sorry I made my students spend the money on it - and now I’m scrambling to find material to teach my class, because this book hasn’t delivered anything close to what it promised.

Huh?

Rather cryptic title I put for my review, but the book seems to follow the same route.



I purchased another book awhile back: Programming a Multiplayer FPS in DirectX - very well written and organized.



Ultimate Game Programming has a lot of "bugs". The program as you go along seems to fall apart, what is in the book isn’t exactly the same as the code provided on the CD Rom. The author leaves out information as to what header files are required, where you should place some of your code. As said before the key failure is the difference in code from book and Rom.



Aside from the bad points. Good points. I do like the some code in the pages provided, even though I must realize it might be different on the Rom. Mainly because I’m using another book and this to help solidify my DirectX concepts.



So considering I have the Microsoft documentation, another book from the same publisher on programming in DirectX and now this, I have to really research and piece everything together.



The coding is really night and day too. The book by Vaughn Young, really sticks to appropriate coding practices, while this seems quickly written.

Huh?

Rather cryptic title I put for my review, but the book seems to follow the same route.

I purchased another book awhile back: Programming a Multiplayer FPS in DirectX - very well written and organized.

Ultimate Game Programming has a lot of "bugs". The program as you go along seems to fall apart, what is in the book isn’t exactly the same as the code provided on the CD Rom. The author leaves out information as to what header files are required, where you should place some of your code. As said before the key failure is the difference in code from book and Rom.

Aside from the bad points. Good points. I do like the some code in the pages provided, even though I must realize it might be different on the Rom. Mainly because I’m using another book and this to help solidify my DirectX concepts.

So considering I have the Microsoft documentation, another book from the same publisher on programming in DirectX and now this, I have to really research and piece everything together.

The coding is really night and day too. The book by Vaughn Young, really sticks to appropriate coding practices, while this seems quickly written.

A very gook book

I am halfway through the book, and I think it is a good book. It has helped me so far by helping me to understand how a game engine is designed, organized and coded in general. Holistically looking, this book is more about organizing (code-wise) all programming aspects of computer game development. It won’t teach you to design a perfect object model for making a game engine, but it uses object oriented concepts moderately to build a coherent one. I think this book raises the skill level of an elementary game engine developer to junior or intermediate level. Please notice that your programming knowledge in C++ must be already intermediate or at least beyond beginners. Comparatively, five star for this book is fair.

Well written and easy to follow

This book is excellent. It is technically well written and easy to follow. The Author is obviously very knowledgeable in game programming and DirectX.

Be CAREFUL If You Plan on Buying This Book

The Good :
- Well organized.
- Good examples.
- The TEXT is easy to read.
- The code can be complied, built, and run without
receiving errors.

The Bad :
- The code included on the CD-ROM doesn’t always
match the code covered in the text. Sometimes
little changes have been made, but at other times
ENTIRE functions appear out of nowhere.

The Ugly :
- The author’s coding practices and techniques are
HORRID. They are by far the worst that I have ever
come across in any computer science book that I
have ever read. His rare use of spaces makes the
code very difficult to read. Also, the names that
he gives his variables are nothing short of
ludicrous. Many of them make absolutely no sense.


In my experience, people who write code that is this hard to follow, have very little experience working with other programmers. This is a guy who has a computer information systems degree from DeVry and I’m guessing is only a hobbyist at best. Don’t get me wrong, there are some good DirectX points made in this text, but the heart of any programming text is always the code.

Be CAREFUL If You Plan on Buying This Book

The Good :

- Well organized.

- Good examples.

- The TEXT is easy to read.

- The code can be complied, built, and run without

receiving errors.



The Bad :

- The code included on the CD-ROM doesn’t always

match the code covered in the text. Sometimes

little changes have been made, but at other times

ENTIRE functions appear out of nowhere.



The Ugly :

- The author’s coding practices and techniques are

HORRID. They are by far the worst that I have ever

come across in any computer science book that I

have ever read. His rare use of spaces makes the

code very difficult to read. Also, the names that

he gives his variables are nothing short of

ludicrous. Many of them make absolutely no sense.





In my experience, people who write code that is this hard to follow, have very little experience working with other programmers. This is a guy who has a computer information systems degree from DeVry and I’m guessing is only a hobbyist at best. Don’t get me wrong, there are some good DirectX points made in this text, but the heart of any programming text is always the code.

The worst book I ever bought

I totally regret buying this book. It explains nothing.

It just lists a lot of code, with useless remarks like:

this the first function, it takes these parameters. And that’s it. You will have no idea what is the function is used for or how to treat its parameteres.

By the the way I have a strong backround in c++ programming, win32, math and physics. And yet everything in this book make nosence because it’s not explained.

I learnt almost nothing in this book, and I’m looking for a different one to teach me Directx.

The worst book I ever bought

I totally regret buying this book. It explains nothing.
It just lists a lot of code, with useless remarks like:
this the first function, it takes these parameters. And that’s it. You will have no idea what is the function is used for or how to treat its parameteres.
By the the way I have a strong backround in c++ programming, win32, math and physics. And yet everything in this book make nosence because it’s not explained.
I learnt almost nothing in this book, and I’m looking for a different one to teach me Directx.

Presumes you know C++

This book is aimed at the C++ programmer who wants to move into game development and programming. It is oriented around the Microsoft DirectX SDK, which is included on the CD supplied with the book. The format of the book is tutorial in nature. It takes the construction of a game from concept to a finished game one chapter at a time so that each major component of the game is constructed in a logical sequence. By the end of the book a game engine has been constructed as well as the game itself. (It a first person shooter type game.)

The book presumes no game experience, but as stated does presume that you already know C++, so should be classified as an intermediate level book. The book is divided into three basic sections: the first is an introduction of DirectX and the Direct 3D API; the second section covers game mathematics and collision detection, input detection and sound; finally it covers model building and animation.

The creation of a game is by no means an easy task. This book, however is a great primer on the techniques and skills needed to do good games.