Sams Teach Yourself DirectX 7 in 24 Hours (Teach Yourself -- Hours) [Paperback]

Robert Dunlop (Author), Dale Shepherd (Author), Mark Martin (Author)

Book Description

Series: The Sams Teach Yourself in 24 Hours Series | Publication Date: December 17, 1999

From the first hour, Sams Teach Yourself DirectX 7 in 24 Hours has you creating your own DirectX-enabled applications. Author Robert Dunlop guides you through the complicated DirectX APIs, empowering you to create your own DirectX powered applications featuring smooth 3D graphics and sound. In addition to laying the COM-based DirectX foundation, Robert covers animation, DirectSound, DirectMusic, Direct3D, control devices, force feedback controls, and multi-user games. This book is an ideal starting point to hone your DirectX skills quickly and easily.

Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover

From the first hour, Sams Teach Yourself DirectX 7 in 24 Hours has you creating your own DirectX-enabled applications. Author Robert Dunlop guides you through the complicated DirectX APIs, empowering you to create your own DirectX powered applications featuring smooth 3D graphics and sound. In addition to laying the COM-based DirectX foundation, Robert covers animation, DirectSound, DirectMusic, Direct3D, control devices, force feedback controls, and multi-user games. This book is an ideal starting point to hone your DirectX skills quickly and easily.

About the Author

Robert Dunlop is Microsoft's first and only MVP (Most Valuable Professional)for DirectX. Robert is a veteran game developer with over 10 years of programming experience, and a principal of Monarch Interactive, Inc., a company devoted to creation of new entertainment titles for the PC. Robert works very closely with the DirectX Team at Microsoft, and has been on the DirectX Beta Team since 1994.

Product Details

• Paperback: 450 pages
• Publisher: Pearson Sams Publishing (December 17, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 067231634X
• ISBN-13: 978-0672316340
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 7.4 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 2.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (38 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,624,950 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #73 in Books > Computers & Technology > Programming > Graphics & Multimedia > DirectX

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

19 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Concepts for beginners ... GREAT, Samples and Code ... POOR, January 28, 2000

By 

Steve Livingston - See all my reviews

This review is from: Sams Teach Yourself DirectX 7 in 24 Hours (Teach Yourself -- Hours) (Paperback)

I have just started learning DirectX and chose to start with 7.0. I wanted a book to start out with the basics and teach me the concepts. I like to skim the concepts, quickly picking up the topics in order to get an overall picture before moving to an intermediate mode of learning and subsequently fleshing out the details. THIS BOOK DID THAT! From knowing very little about DirectX programming, I picked up the basics extremely fast and understood the ideas and concepts with little effort thanks to the book's concise and informative path through the topics.

But it took me forever to program DirectX. The code was obviously left over from a prior version of DirectX. First of all, although the DirectX types were changed in the book ... the sample code on the CD reflected an older version of DirectX. Also the sample code in the book contained some basic mistakes that appear to come from changes in DirectX 7. I learned more about DirectX 7 hunting down the mistakes and fixing the coding problems than I really cared to in a beginner's book. Good or bad, for beginner's I feel this will deter some future programmers because it was a lot of work.

But should anyone stick with it, you will be somewhat proficient with DirectX by the time you finish the book and complete all the code. Maybe some people made up thier own code, but being new, I stuck with the examples in the book.

Overall I liked the book and it taught me what I wanted to know about DirectX 7. It was just a lot harder wadeing through the code than I thought it should be.

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars You've got to be kidding, April 7, 2000

By 

Michael Black - See all my reviews

This review is from: Sams Teach Yourself DirectX 7 in 24 Hours (Teach Yourself -- Hours) (Paperback)

In 24 hours? Ha! Here's the sequel... "Teach Yourself to Write Diablo 3 in 21 Days"!

You will not "Teach Yourself DirectX7" in 24 hours. You will, however, learn that this code dosn't compile without your having PREVIOUS KNOWLEDGE of DirectX.

The absolute beginner might like this book. However, since the stuff really doesn't work anyway, I can't recommend the book even for them.

Stay away from this book. Instead, read the .HLP files and example code in the SDK, which to this date are still the best source of info. Heck, they all but write your first app for you if you bother to look hard enough.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Not What It Claims To Be, March 31, 2000

By 

"michael__" - See all my reviews

This review is from: Sams Teach Yourself DirectX 7 in 24 Hours (Teach Yourself -- Hours) (Paperback)

The problem with this book is that it's not what it claims to be. If you want to learn DirectX by debugging the author's code with the aid of the broken and incomplete source clips from the text and the outdated code on the CD, then this is a great book for you. Because of these factors, however, Sam's "...in 24 Hours" in the title is inaccurate. Sam's decision to publish a book knowing the source on the CD was not what's discussed in the book is something else you may wish to consider before buying this book. I've chosen to go the debugging-the-author's-code route for the pure challenge of it, but I can't honestly recommend this book to anyone looking for a 24 hour primer. Debugging code written for a complex API you don't know will certainly take much longer (and require resources other than just this book), despite the "Who Cares If It's Broke" bravado of some of these other reviewers.