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| An Introduction To DirectX 8 - And More!!! - page 1 |
What you will learn
How to use the DirectX libraries from Visual Basic
How to get input from the most commonly used devices - keyboard and mouse - using DirectInput
How to load and play a wave file using DirectSound
How to create a rendering device with Direct3D
How to use the D3DX helper functions
How to use vertex and index buffers to create simple geometry
How to use view and projection matrices to set up a camera
How to use world matrices to make animation and reuse the same geometry
How to load textures from a bitmap file
How to unload all of this safely
How you will learn it
Overview of DirectX8
Explanation of DirectX terms
Explanation of sample program
Full working demo program to download with source code and comments
Evaluation of what has been learnt
Exercises to extend your knowledge
Thoughts for future tutorials
Boring Intro
Back by popular demand is my DirectX tutorial series! Although I'm sort of starting again for DirectX 8. So for complete newbies, this tutorial is great, and for those who already know some DX7 or DX8, the tutorial includes some more complex stuff than previous tutorials. In DirectX 8, the API has become simpler in the initialization of objects and it also has many more maths functions to help you. But it's still alot of work to do by yourself, so that's why you should help spread the word by making free source demos and tutorials. At this point I acknowledge Richard Hayden for his free source Direct3D8 world, it is a great example of what I am talking about and helped me begin to learn the new API. Enough of the chit chat...
Before you begin
If you don't already have DirectX 8 and the DirectX 8 Type Libraries for Visual Basic then you've got some downloading to do! Sorry, but it is worth it. You don't need all the SDK documentation, although I recommend getting it, and you don't need the C++ SDK if you are a VB'er only, so your download might not be as big as mine was. I managed to download 135 MB though my cheap 56 K phone line though, and that was the full download including everything. So it is possible, but you will need to get a program such as GetRight to help you download such a big file. All developer information and downloads can be found at www.microsoft.com/directx . Once DirectX 8 is installed, and you have the DX VB Type Libs, read on.
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