It looks like Course Technology, now that it owns the Premier Press brand, have given its editors a double brief of “know thy audience” and “maintain subject focus.” I am just reading through the latest Premier Press lineup, and compared to the older books with green & black covers, the new titles really are offering something new other than just updated covers.

With the publication of Beginning DirectX 9 the number of really valuable introductory texts to the subject of DirectX that I would personally recommend to fellow programmers has probably doubled in number. Wendy Jones has done a bang up job with her first book, teaching the graphics aspects of DirectX in an easy to read style that doesn’t waste the reader’s valuable time. Jones has been a programmer in the games industry for a number of years and currently works at Humongous Entertainment as a game developer.

Beginning DirectX 9 concentrates almost exclusively on the graphic aspects of the DirectX application programming interface (API) with only very brief chapters covering DirectSound and DirectInput. Jones completely ignores the networking aspects of the DirectX API, perhaps wisely as many of the aspects of DirectX are both broad and deep and doing justice to all areas of the DirectX technologies would no doubt double the number of published pages.

Unlike many introductory texts, Beginning DirectX 9 doesn’t waste pages covering subjects that any programmer contemplating creating DirectX applications should already know. Jones is targeting those people who are familiar with C++ and are capable of downloading and installing a software development kit (SDK) without step-by-step handholding. Other than short – and I mean very short – sections covering the architecture of DirectX, including a few obligatory paragraphs about the component object model (COM), I’m pleased to say that the book stays tightly focused and avoids wasting the reader’s time with superfluous information. It is not necessary for the five-nines (99.999%) of game programmers to know anything at all about COM or how DirectX utilizes it. Jones knows her audience; she mentions COM, then moves on to the more interesting items.

Of the DirectX graphics technologies covered Beginning DirectX 9 quickly walks through the 2D aspects — introducing surfaces, off-screen buffers and sprites, wrapping up with a section on making your sprite animations time-based rather than frame-based – before the book finally leaps off in to the world of 3D, introducing the basics of Direct3D; vertices, meshes, textures and lighting, including introductions to vectors & matrices, though again Jones assumes the reader is familiar with the basics of 3D math.

Each chapter wraps up with a quick summary, including some review questions — the answers to which are given in the first appendix — and a few small exercises termed “on your own” that an inquisitive reader can use to explore the discussed subject a little further.

The DirectInput chapter covers the basics of input devices, rapidly covering keyboard, mouse and joystick or gamepad, including handling multiple input devices simultaneously. Surprisingly there is a small section on force feedback devices. The one omission to the chapter is action-mapping which would have been a useful part of the DirectInput API to cover when dealing with multiple input devices.

The DirectSound chapter is probably the smallest I’ve seen in any DirectX book, perhaps the author is a hardcore graphics programmer, or felt she couldn’t do justice to the subject in the limited space available, either way the chapter offers only the barest minimum of information on how to enumerate the sound devices, play back a sound, and adjust the volume.

The final chapter, and the only one that really deviates from the focus of the book, was actually the most surprising . The chapter puts together all of the aspects of the earlier pages in to a small “game”, then pleasingly shows how to create an installer for the game along with the DirectX runtime that Microsoft allows to be distributed with applications. Certainly useful knowledge for developers not familiar with this aspect of DirectX.

I’m pleased to say the CD-ROM is well organized and clearly laid out; each demo and chapter of the book is contained in its own directory and large “framework” files are avoided where possible.

There are only two short appendices; the first iterates the answers to each of the review questions and the second offers brief details covering the CD-ROM contents and how to install the DirectX SDK.

When all that’s needed are the essentials of DirectX, perhaps as a developer you’ve only lived life in the world of PlayStation 2 or GameCube consoles or OpenGL on other operating systems this book is an ideal introduction to the subject of DirectX graphics. It’s aimed at beginning programmers but there is much to recommend it to seasoned veterans who are just coming to Microsoft’s DirectX SDK, perhaps due to a move to the Xbox. The book does exactly what it says on the cover and doesn’t waste time informing, or insulting the reader.

Buy this book from Amazon.com now!

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Wendy Jones devoted herself to computers while still in elementary school. She spent every free moment learning BASIC and graphics programming, as well as Pascal, C, Java and C++. As Wendy’s career in computers took off, she taught herself Windows programming and then began devoting any extra energy to expanding her programming skills in games. Her true passion became apparent when she accepted a job at Atari’s Humongous Entertainment as a game programmer working on both PC and console titles. She is currently working with PocketPC software and handheld gaming devices.

VERDICT

Beginning DirectX 9

Author: Wendy Jones
Publisher: Premier Press (Course/Technology)
ISBN: 1-59200-349-4
Pages: 332

Rating

7 out of 10

Pros

1. A good introductory text to the graphi aspects of DirectX 9.
2. Doesn’t waste your time with irrelevancy.
3. Source code framework is easy for beginners to understand.

Cons

1. Non-graphical aspects of DirectX 9 are given short shrift.
2. Assumes the reader is reasonably well-veresed in C++.
3. May be a little too terse for readers who have absolutely no other graphics programming background.

Buy this book from Amazon.com now!

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