Books Books Books

I need a good book for DirectDraw and Direct3d I picked up a book recently Advanced 3-D game programming by adrian perez I don't really like it. I mean it what direct draw does and such but then when it gets into the code I don't like the way he did it he wraps everything in classes and just does the class decleration and doesn't show what the functions in the class do. I wanna learn DirectX and that is hard enough but wrapping it in classes and not giving explainations of the class kicks my ass. So any books you would say are good would be a lot of help or if anyone wants to sell a book I might be willing to buy.

Ryan

That is one of the major shortcomings of C++. Understanding what is going on in the classes. As you've discovered, many books don't detail this critical information.

I'd stick with the professional's choice for games: C not C++. You learn it all that way.

I'd say it's more of a failing of the author/book if it doesn't provide the class methods.

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I'd stick with the professional's choice for games: C not C++.

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On some platforms, but the PC has a spread. I think Valve (Half-life), Epic (Unreal) would consider themselves professional and the games mentioned are written in C++. Perhaps id are being unprofessional for doing Doom 3 in C++?

For DirectX programming I'd recommend Inside DirectX. (it doesn't cover Direct3D) That's where I learned most of my stuff. It's a rather technical book and doesn't wrap things into classes, so you know exactly what it's doing. Problem is that it's a little bit out-dated (ver 5.0) and with the new version of DX (8.1) DirectDraw no longer exists. It is now DirectGraphics, which is really a new interface for Direct3D. And I think it's much easy to do 2D stuff inside the 3D now so I don't even use DirectDraw anymore. (There's a ton of overhead programming)
My suggestion is adquire the DX8.1 SDK and work through the documentation. Also check out http://www.drunkenhyena.com for some simpler, totally commented samples. (the SDK ones aren't all that easy if you don't know what you're doing)
Go ahead and learn DirectDraw if you want, but if you think you're up to it, I think your time would be better spent just jumping in to the DirectGraphics API (ignoring a lot of the 3D stuff). That way you'll be more comfortable when it comes to programming 3D later.

I wouldn't wanna switch to C and start learning that I am not saying that I am a master at C++ but I know enough not to wanna switch over and start relearning stuff. Also zen by reading all your posts I see you are extremely knowledgable on almost all aspects of C++ including directX and Windows I was wondering what did you read up on for DirectX? I am know reading through the Help files of the DirectX 7.0 SDK they do a way better job then my book. Thanks for any help.

ryan

Someone posted a directX book here just a week or so ago.

you can also find the book, "Thinking in C++" online somewhere.