Inside Direct3D

Rating:
Summary: The best there is, at least right now
Review: A word of warning to those who are unfamiliar with transformation and vector math: this book won't help you with these. It will, however, give you a complete, yet compact, tutorial to the overwhelmingly complicated Direct3D. I say compact because the author is light on examples, and heavy on code. This doesn't deter from the learning, it just makes the reader have to read a chapter over and over again. The bottom line on this book is that if you're willing to put in the time and effort, and have references to transformation matricies and vectors handy, you can learn how to program Direct3D.

Rating:
Summary: The best there is, at least right now
Review: A word of warning to those who are unfamiliar with transformation and vector math: this book won't help you with these. It will, however, give you a complete, yet compact, tutorial to the overwhelmingly complicated Direct3D. I say compact because the author is light on examples, and heavy on code. This doesn't deter from the learning, it just makes the reader have to read a chapter over and over again. The bottom line on this book is that if you're willing to put in the time and effort, and have references to transformation matricies and vectors handy, you can learn how to program Direct3D.

Rating:
Summary: Only two books available for Direct3D Intermediate Mode
Review: First off, yes, you can get all of the information presented here in the DirectX SDK docs. By that argument, you can get whatever information you want from the MSDN Library, so why buy any books at all? The reason is that this book gives a better explanation than the SDK docs, and comes with a sample program that actually works. It goes over enough of the api, and gives you a framework that you can actually go through and build a working program with. I do agree with a couple of the other reviews and question the inclusion of DirectPlay and DirectInput. But because they are there doesn't justify giving this book a lower rating. If you can't get the programs to compile then you need to spend some time learning a little more about your compiler. I bought this book so that I could make a D3D port of my openGL code and was able to easily make the transition thanks to this text.

Rating:
Summary: Well, he tried...
Review: I have to consider the author has made a real effort to bring up some glimpses to program this API. I think the book is good the way it was written, because it explain the basics of Direct3D and gives a fair explanation on how to construct your engine using some nice features from Direct3D, and in a step-by-step manner.

We may notice the first problem with the book on the API itself, because DirectX 7 (and previous versions) was written to give us flexibility, but no way it's easy to use. Microsoft promises that DirectX 8 will be easy play, so if you want to wait a bit more... on the other hand, the book is a bit confusing, especially for the newbies, because the author does consider that the user already know how to program C++ and have a good knowledge on COM and a bit of knowledge on DirectX. I say this because the explanations from chapter one through four are a bit *compact* (let's say this way).

Chapter 5 is fine, but chapter 6 starts again to be confused and poor on explanations. And this continues to go on the rest of the book. I have to say that if i didn't have any previous knowledge on Direct3D i shouldn't understand the some parts of the book.

For someone who is starting now, i recommend reading this book, specially if you are trying to work with microsoft provided framework that makes our lives easier. But *do not* buy this book if you expect to see clarification on WHY things are done - the author just cares about writing HOW they do it, nothing more... the author just rehashed a bunch of Microsoft's SDK Documentation, wrote some progressive examples to make easier to understand and made some comments on each feature.

I also recommend to search over the internet for more tutorials, so the understanding will be easier.

Anyway, it's a fair book, because i haven't seen any good book that the author dares to teach Immediate Mode (remember that Trujillo just talks about Retained Mode) and succeed. The API itself is very hard, and if you expect to domain it you will have to fight hard. Certainly, it isn't "the definitive guide" but surelly it can put you on the right road.

Rating:
Summary: Only two books available for Direct3D Intermediate Mode
Review: My feeling is that this is most likley the best Direct3D Intermediate Mode book that is currently available. I have doing DirectX Development on and off for a number of years, but this book represents my first real attempt to understand Direct3D Intermediate mode.

The main problem with this book is that the Kovach develops a framework for developing games. He does a poor job at explaining his framework and expanding on Microsoft's SDK documentation. I have to give him credit for having code that actually compiles without hundreads of warning, but their is just two much code for someone who is trying to grasp the basics of Direct3D Intermediate mode.

It is very easy to get lost, since Kovach does not use small, focused, well documentated examples to explain the Direct3D Intermediate mode concepts. Once lost, you will not find the awnsers with the pages of this book, because there is not enough detailed explaination. Cutting-Edge Direct3D Programming does a good job of explaining these concepts for Retained Mode.

In conclusion, get your self familier with the Microsoft SDK Direct3D sample files, and don't expect this book to be your only reference.

Rating:
Summary: Now needs updating. Based on DirectX7.
Review: Reviewing is difficult because we all know graphics and/or programming at different levels. I am experienced in both computer graphics and MFC/C++.

The full examples, and description of the framework, are listed in the text. That's good. The CD-ROM is very good and gives all examples.

However, I'm working on a DirectX8 program, and the samples won't compile under DirectX8 (MS says code is supposed to be backward compatible). In addition, the examples keep looking for a joystick. I don't have, need or want a joystick. Aparently if you don't have a joystick, it's an error. :-)

Rating:
Summary: Now needs updating. Based on DirectX7.
Review: Reviewing is difficult because we all know graphics and/or programming at different levels. I am experienced in both computer graphics and MFC/C++.

The full examples, and description of the framework, are listed in the text. That's good. The CD-ROM is very good and gives all examples.

However, I'm working on a DirectX8 program, and the samples won't compile under DirectX8 (MS says code is supposed to be backward compatible). In addition, the examples keep looking for a joystick. I don't have, need or want a joystick. Aparently if you don't have a joystick, it's an error. :-)

Rating:
Summary: Missed Target
Review: The book fails to provide necessary concepts enough to understand programming in 3D. The concept is there, but the explanation is often too short and brief. You'll need to dig up many other 3D computer graphics books just to understand various terminologies and concepts. Unfortunately, exact same thing happens when it comes to covering Direct3D. It lacks significant amount of explanation on various Direct3D Immediate Mode functions. Often times you will find yourself browsing through DirectX help files to find what individual functions do, only to find out Microsoft's own help files too lacks a good explanation on what that function/member of a structure do.

Come on guys! We're talking about programming 3D application using Direct3D Immediate Mode, by far the most complicated subject when it comes to Windows programming, and mere 300 pages is not going to cut it.

I also find that a lot of texts on Direct3D Immediate Mode in this book is a direct (or indirect on some) copy from DirectX SDK Documentation.

This book definitely missed a target. Save yourself. Dig through Microsoft's SDK Documentation and its sample codes until a real, definite Direct3D tutorial book for a beginner comes along.