Cheap Beginning DirectX 9 (Book) (Wendy Jones) Price

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Customer Reviews of Beginning DirectX 9

Very nice
This is a very nice introduction to DirectX 9, although it's a little confusing as to why there is also a Beginning Direct3D 9 book also by this publisher, that covers the same material (but written by a different author). The reason I make this comparison is because this book is about 80% Direct3D, and the other 20% covers DirectInput and DirectSound.

But, I would have to say, I enjoyed this book more than Beg D3D because it is easier to read, definitely a good choice for a beginner or an experienced programmer who wants to get up to speed with DX9.

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Good, but not great
I have several DirectX books and this one is the only one that I actually learned from. Hopefully I will be able to use the knowledge gained from this book to help me through my other books. I feel I can only give this book 4 stars though. As far as the book goes, it is very well written. Concepts are explained to you first, and then implemented. The author never throws more than a page of code at you at a time. However, there are some complaints. For some of the functions, the author doesn't say what actually calls them. This can lead to confusion if you are trying to do the code yourself and then checking it (which is the preferred way of learning). Also, the author doesn't point out all the things you need to change to move from one example to the next. Often the compiler will give you warnings or errors that you have to fix, although they are trivial in nature. A major complaint is that half of the .exe files on the cd do not work, and one of the directX updates doesn't seem to be a valid Win32 application, although I'm pretty sure the other update on the cd covers it. A problem I had was when the author chose to create the device using the Microsoft REF in one of the parameters. To get the example to work I had to use the HAL. After that everything worked just fine. This is a good introduction to directX and you will benifit greatly by owning it. You should also get another book that goes into more detail, after you have mastered the basics.

I have come back to edit this review and knock the star rating down to 3. In the chapter about lighting, there are no examples of using any light besides ambient light. When you try to use other lighting techniques, you get no results. Here's what I found out, after looking through the DirectX SDK Documentation, and samples. ** You have to use surface normals **. Thats right. Nowhere in the chapter did the author state you have to change your vertex definition to include the D3DFVF_NORMAL flag. For anyone who may be stuck in that chapter, this is probably your reason. Also, for texture mapping, you have to use the vertex buffer, not the index buffer, to get the correct mapping. It would've been nice had this been stated. To reiterate, the examples in this book are completely useless. In fact, I found much of the book taken word for word out of the SDK. It is still a good book to have though. It is the only one that has helped me learn DirectX. Just be prepared to look through the SDK documentation, especially in later chapters. Perhaps Wendy Jones was not the most qualified author to write this book. It seems like she's just familiar with the material in the book and is uncomfortable presenting some ideas clearly.

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Es un buen libro, pero...
Si no sabes nada de DirectX y estás buscando una forma de empezar, este libro es excelente.

- En la primera parte explica como crear una ventana con Visual C++ 7 y los objetos basicos de DirectX (como el objeto Device).
- Despues explica como crear graficos en 2D utilizando sprites.
- En 3D explica el Vertex y el Index buffer, Transformaciones, Iluminación, Texturas, Meshes, etc.
- Despues explica Direct Input y Direct Sound.
- Al final viene como hacer un pequeño "juego" utilizando todo lo aprendido.

Tiene explicaciones claras y concisas

Debes conocer lo básico de Visual C++. Y es mejor si también sabes algo de matemáticas.

El problema es que, como en todos los libros, en ocaciones el codigo del libro tiene algunos errores, lo cual puede dificultar su comprension. Pero al revisar los ejemplos del CD todo queda claro.