Advanced 3-D Game Programming With Directx 7.0 (Wordware Game Developer's Library) [Englisch] [Taschenbuch]

I wanted a book that takes a basic Direct3D immediate mode app, pulls it apart bit by bit, and starts explaining things, devoting entire chapters to subjects as necessary. But this isn't it. This guy is 3 years out of high school, and has never written a game or a book before, and it has just as much quality as you'd expect from that description.

This book isn't even as good as the examples shipped with the Microsoft DirectX SDK. :-/ Save your money and look elsewhere. END

The first 138 pages cover Windows and DirectX basics (DirectDraw, DirectSound, DirectInput, etc). Being basic information, I skipped this.

The next 96 pages take you through the foundations of 3D math. I started here to refresh what I learned in other books and college and must admit that I was lost within a few pages. The author understands what formulas are used where, but he can't explain the concepts behind them or why they work the way they do. You're often told that's just how they work, but without a fundamental explanation it just doesn't click. I guess it's the difference between a friend teaching you to drive ("this is how it's done") and an instructor teaching you to drive ("this is why it's done this way"). In short, I had to skip this chapter. ("Cutting Edge 3D Game Programming with C++" does a good job of working through 3D concepts in a fashion that's understandable.)

Chapter 4 (Artificial Intelligence) goes from page 233-276, however the practical knowledge stops on page 255. After that, motivation for AI characters, Neural Networks and Genetic Algorithms are all touched on, though not in practical terms (and other than neural nets, no code). The first 8 pages of the chapter talk about how NOT to do AI, so in the end you end up with a 14 page discussion of path-finding through a set of rooms.

Pages 277-321 cover UDP Networking (Winsock), which I found odd since the title would imply DirectPlay (and lobbies). The author doesn't compare/contrast DirectPlay vs Winsock. Flipping through each page, I don't see anything that explains how best to implement a multiplayer game (like managing interaction for a 16-person action game), only the functions to do it.

Chapter 6 takes you to page 405 and covers the basics of Direct3D - getting your app up and running. Nothing new here, mostly a list of the functions and parameters (which is fine). If you're buying a book *just* to get into Direc3D Immediate Mode, I'd recommend Microsoft's Inside Direc3D which spends much more time and whose initialization code alone is worth the price of admission.

It's not until page 407 that you get into the meat of the book: advanced 3D programming (not using Direct3D) which covers forward/inverse kinematics, bezier curves, progressive meshes and radiosity. Bezier curves appear to be covered well, but progressive meshes are just talked about. The rest really don't play a part in game programming.

Chapter 8 (up to page 566) is called "Advanced Direct3D" though it really covers Direct3D beyond the initial setup and rendering and deals mainly with textures - filtering, MIP maps, multi-texturing, etc. (Again, this info is all in Inside Direct3D.)

The last 32 pages (Chapter 9) covers scene management (how to not render what you can't possibly see).

That's the book in a nutshell. The author says up front he's not a professional game programmer and is still in college (which is fine and not meant to knock him at all) and it's apparent in the disjointed and sketchy presentation. In the end, I would recommend buying "foundation books" (like those I mentioned) and if you still have a yen for more knowledge, this book may offer a few new nuggets.