Managed DirectX 9 Kick Start: Graphics and Game Programming [Anglais] [Broché]

Just the first chapter explains more than practically any other book about Managed DirectX I have read. Sure, it doesn't have all the long and ellaborate explanations some of the other books have. But for some reason, I still felt like a had a better understanding of how to do things the 'right way' after reading this book. This may have to do with the fact that the author of the book is also the author of the API.

The book covers a lot of ground. Most of the chapters deal with Direct3D (which is what I was interested in), although the author does touch on other subjects such as DirectInput. The pace is fast and the author covers the whole range from primitive drawing techniques to using higher level concepts, such as meshes, and eve the HLSL (high level shader language), which many would consider an advanced topic. Well, I do anyway... ;-)

The book doesn't just provide shallow introductions. In fact, the author doesn't even shy away from topics such as skeletal anomation of meshes, or writing pixel and vertex shaders to create specular highlights and per-pixel lighting effects.

Well done! This book will explain a lot, and it does so quickly. However, if you have no experience with 3d graphics at all, you may want to follow up with another book, such as 'Introduction to 3D Game Programming with DX9' by Frank D. Luna, which will give you a good understanding of related topics, such as a lot of the underlying math used for matrix transformation and vector mechanics. This can be done as a second step though, since this book does not require knowledge of these things, as it uses functions provided by the Managed API for practically everything it does.

As we are starting do work more with 3d graphics as a company, I have a need to get team members up to speed on the subject matter. This is the book I recommended they all read...

Miller's book does a great job of covering the *entire* managed DirectX library including graphics, sound, input and networking. He walks through examples, introduces 3d concepts (along with the appropriate utilities in DirectX) and explores why you would take one approach over another. It was absolutely what I was looking for! The book also includes sample code that works right out of the box.

In a nutshell, I would say this book is like having the Managed DirectX team walk you through several tutorials that include commentary and reasons for taking certain approaches. It should also be required reading for anyone that wants to understand what is included in the DirectX SDK samples/tutorials.

So, what does this book provide then?

It provides a very concise treatment of the D3D part of MDX and fair coverage of the rest (enough to get you started). To get the most out of this book you should have a good knowledge of C#/.NET programming and a good idea of the fundamentals of 3D programming. It certainly wont hurt to have had some prior knowledge of the DirectX SDK and some idea of game programming.

In other words, this is an intermediate level book (says so on the back cover too) and provides exactly what it sets out to do and leaves the non-essential blanks to be filled in elsewhere.

Overall though, I give this book 5 stars for the following reasons:

1. Well written.
2. The author knows what he is taking about (no great surprise there).
3. Covers the topic well without the fluff.
4. The samples work (hint: install the summer update).
5. Priced well.