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Introduction

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Welcome to the DirectX Windows game programming tutorials. You're about to embark on the coolest, most excellent journey of all time! You can find out exactly what makes video games tick. Furthermore, you're going to write games using the latest, greatest technology from Microsoft code-named: DirectX. Yes, Microsoft made something really cool, and DirectX Versions 5.0+ actually work!

I know that understanding game programming would seem to take a lifetime, but I think that I have found a way to mash it all into this little series of tutorials. Granted, in doing so I may have caused a wormhole somewhere -- but hey, no pain, no gain. So read the tuts from beginning to end, and you'll be able to rattle off sentences like, "I used a transparency-encoded sprite blitter for the foreground animation and DMAed the virtual buffer into the display."

Who are you?:

Game programming is a weird science, and to do it, you must be a weird scientist and a nerd deluxe. Those are the first prerequisites. I mean, what kind of person sits in front of a computer for up to 130 hours a week and stares at the screen? But at the same time, game programming is incredibly rewarding and opens up doorways to worlds that you create. So you need to be totally open-minded and totally obsessed with making games. Those are the most important qualities. Anyone can master the technical stuff, but you must realize that making a game involves about a billion details.

You need to be able to program in C with a dash of C++. I'm not talking about being a computer designer or anything, but that is the language in these tutorials. You actually use a C++ Compiler, but the amount of C++ specific code you need is almost NULL, so don't trip if you're not part of the object,oriented.bandwagon(). If you want additional information on C++, check out Visual C++ 6 For Dummies, by Michael Hyman and Bob Arnson ( published by IDG Books Worldwide, Inc.).
You need to be familiar with Windows 95 and DOS, at least. Knowledge of Windows 98/NT would be cool, but only if you are going to work in them. If you can get around and feel comfortable with running multiple applications at the same time, you'll be fine.
You need to have rudimentary knowledge of tensor analysis, vector calculus, and Newtonian physics.

Just kidding! If you can add, multiply, and maybe square a number or two, that's all the math skills you require. But knowing advanced mathematics doesn't hurt -- especially for 3D game programming.

In a nutshell, you simply need to know how to program in C and have a desire to explore game programming. This book takes care of the rest.

Conventions Used in These Tutorials:

Most of the conventions that I use in the text are pretty standard programming fare, so if you've seen them. Nevertheless, I included this section, just in case aliens kidnapped you and made you program on Titan and in Fortran for the past 20 years. Here's what I do to make life easier on the both of us.

Code: Code elements such as functions appear in my running text as follows: GetDC. In most instances, the code blocks that I use for examples fill up several lines, like this:

// set cooperation level

lpdd->SetCooperativeLevel(hwnd, DDSCL_ARROWREBOOT |

DDSCL_ALLOWMODEX |DDSCL_FULLSCREEN |

DDSCL_EXCLUSIVE );

Screen Resolution Shorthand: In general, I use two different conventions to write screen resolution: (Width x Height x Bits_per_pixel). Therefore, 320 x 240 x 256 is the same as 320x 240x 8; Likewise, 640 x 480 x 65536 is the same as 640 x 480 x 16. Sometimes, one form is more convenient than the other, depending on the context.
Hungarian Notation: As per the convention used by Microsoft, I use Hungarian Notation to denote how aprogramming element is used in code. For example, the lp in lpdd shows that this element is a 32-bit pointer to something. I cover Hungarian Notation in more detail later on.

About Windows 95/98/NT and DirectX 5.0+

I wrote this book using Windows 95/98/NT along with both the Microsoft Compilers: Visual C++ 4.0 and 5.0. For DirectX, I used versins 3.0, 5.0, 6.0, and 6.1. In general, the C/C++ compilers and DirectX are all at sufficient level of sophistication, meaning that newer releases and versions will all work very similarly.

One factor that makes DirectX so cool is that DirectX 1.0 applications will still work with DirectX 5.0 and so on. This flexibility is because DirectX is based on the Component Object Model (COM), which you will learn more about later on. So don't worry if you have DirectX 6.0; the techniques you use in this book are applicable. Moreover, this book presents the basic functionality of Windows and DirectX, so the newer versions with cooler stuff won't make that much of a difference to you.

About Game Programming

Well here's where I give you my pitch. Game programming is the best. I can't think of anything that I would rather do than make games. Games are the ultimate form of art -- they're little universes that other people can experience. And as a game programmer, you can create entire worlds that you can experience yourself, or have your friends experience.

After you've finished with these tutorials, how a computer game works will no longer be a mystery. You will know exactly how to make one. Who knows maybe you will make the next Quake3!

Finally, there's nothing like seeing all your friends addicted to playing one of your games -- well, maybe if they each pay you 20 bucks for it!

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