Tricks of the Windows Game Programming Gurus [Paperback]

Andre Lamothe (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 27, 1999

Tricks of the 3D Game Programming Gurus takes game programmers to the next level of programming, teaching them the latest techniques and tools: DirectX, 3D acceleration, Artificial Intelligence and explains, in detail, 3D algorithms including texture mapping and lighting.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

New from bestselling video game guru, André LaMothe, Tricks of the Windows Game Programming Gurus provides an incredibly rich tour of today's video game programming techniques for the Microsoft DirectX gaming platform. Filled with entertaining and challenging code examples in C, this book sets a high standard as a tutorial for getting started with game programming and will certainly earn a place on the bookshelf of any working (or aspiring) game developer.

The incredibly rich detail within this book on virtually all facets of game development on the DirectX platform is what sets it apart from other titles. The author, a truly legendary game programmer, conveys his expert knowledge with a sense of authority and flair in a massive format (nearly 1,000 pages). After a tour of basic Windows C programming, this book centers on Microsoft DirectX for game development. Though most of the printed book centers on DirectDraw (for 2D APIs), these APIs are used to render 3D worlds. (A wide variety of articles on Direct3D are included on the accompanying CD-ROM.) The author also shows how to get the most out of other Microsoft APIs for high-performance gaming, including sound (DirectSound and DirectMusic) and input (with DirectInput).

Rarely does the ordinary programmer get a glimpse into the high-powered world of video game development. That's what's offered here with plenty of techniques and tips for creating leading-edge game effects (such as simulating the laws of physics in your games, like gravity, or creating smarter characters with artificial intelligence). Whether you are an aspiring game developer or an interested game enthusiast with a programming background who wants a peek under the hood, Tricks of the Windows Game Programming Gurus shows you how it's done in an exciting, technically rich, and authoritatively told tutorial on how to use DirectX for creating realistic video games. --Richard Dragan

Topics covered: Game basics, history of video games, 3D modelers and graphics tools, Windows C programming primer, graphics, COM, DirectX and DirectDraw fundamentals, DirectDraw surfaces, double buffering, working with bitmaps, color-keying, vector rasterization, 2D transformations and clipping, input and DirectInput, sound effects with DirectSound and DirectMusic, binary search trees (BSTs) for 3D worlds, multithreading, artificial intelligence for games, physics modeling, gravity, bouncing effects and particle systems, and Direct3D and 3D programming (on CD-ROM).

From the Back Cover

Tricks of the 3D Game Programming Gurus takes game programmers to the next level of programming, teaching them the latest techniques and tools: DirectX, 3D acceleration, Artificial Intelligence and explains, in detail, 3D algorithms including texture mapping and lighting.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 1040 pages
• Publisher: Sams; Bk&CD Rom edition (September 27, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0672313618
• ISBN-13: 978-0672313615
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 7.4 x 2.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.8 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (165 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,408,080 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

56 of 59 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars A good book, but not all that was promised., November 9, 1999

By 

James Walley (Maple Valley, WA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Tricks of the Windows Game Programming Gurus (Paperback)

Andre Lamothe is one of the best game programming writers in terms of explaining complex matters clearly. So, this book looked like the Holy Grail of modern game programming. Well, not quite...

1) Until you get into the text itself, you don't find out that this is only volume one of a two-volume set. It is not mentioned anywhere on the book's cover, nor in any of the promotional material. If you're most interested in the 3D part (and who wouldn't be, since non-3D games are a dying breed, and good books on Direct3D Immediate Mode are practically nonexistent?), you'll have to wait until Lamothe finishes volume two. Since THIS volume shipped quite late, God only knows when you'll see THAT one. (There are some tutorials on 3D on the CD-ROM, but they're not written by Lamothe, which means that they don't have his trademark knack for explaining difficult concepts.)

2) Volume 1 is actually an extended re-write of his earlier "Windows Game Programming for Dummies." If you've read that book, you'll find that the vast majority of the topics (and the order they are presented in, such as: first general Windows programming, then GDI, then a game console framework, then COM, and finally DirectX itself) and even the "engine" source code comes directly from the "...Dummies" volume. Granted, "Tricks..." does go into a lot more detail and covers some newer features of DirectX (force-feedback, DirectMusic) that the earlier book didn't touch. Also, if you have any professional aspirations, it's a lot less embarrassing to say you picked up a technique from a book titled "Tricks of the Windows Game Programming Gurus" instead of "Windows Game Programming for Dummies!" However, those who bought the latter volume should be aware that they're going to see a LOT of material, verbatim, for the second time.

3) Finally, there are a number of typos in the text and bugs in the sample source code. As an example of the former, look at the rotation matrix at the bottom of page 455. Owing to a bad choice of font, it has two elements missing! In terms of code bugs, look at Demo7_13 or Demo7_14. In Scan_Image_Bitmap(), the dest_ptr is being incremented by ddsd.dwWidth, when it should be by ddsd.lPitch. The fact that Lamothe has cautioned the user against making this VERY SAME MISTAKE earlier in the book adds insult to injury. (This is not unusual, by the way. I've read several of Lamothe's books, and have always found bugs in the sample source, which can be especially maddening for the student who may only know that something isn't working right, but might have no clue on how to even begin to fix it. Worse, these bugs should have been immediately apparent when the program was run, which leads me to suspect that Lamothe considers himself such a "guru" that he writes his code blind and doesn't always bother testing it before sending it out to the publisher.)

So, there you have it. Despite its faults, this book is one of the most comprehensive texts on the current iteration of DirectX (minus Direct3D), and contains other valuable information about AI, advanced algorithms and data structures, multithreading, game physics, etc. It is probably a "must buy" for anyone serious about game programming. However, until Lamothe gets around to finishing volume two, this is really nothing more than a "work in progress." Even as such, the reader had better be prepared to do some serious debugging on his or her own.

65 of 70 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent Comprehensive Book, November 25, 1999

By 

Graham Stanton (Los Angeles, California) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Tricks of the Windows Game Programming Gurus (Paperback)

A lot of people are complaining about the lack of 3D info. This is entirely unwarranted because if you do any research at all, they say that there is 3D stuff on the cd and that LaMothe will go over it in Volume II.

I have both his original Gurus book and his Windows Dummies book. By the time I got this one I already knew a good deal of game programming, but this book was most definitely not a waste of time! All the stuff that was in Dummies is in here and explained more fully as well as for DirectX 6.0 (Dummies was some strange hybrid of 1.0 and 5.0). For those who haven't seen it in a while, or never quite got there, he also explains basic Linear Algebra in a very straight-forward manner. In addition he has chapters on physics and stae-of-the-art artificial intelligence(Fuzzy Logic and Neural Nets!). The physics chapter is very important because the next time I see a Mario clone where you float to the top of your jump, float back down to the bottom at the same speed, and can change direction in the middle, I'm going to blow chunks all over my computer!

Anyone who knows C and some C++ can pick up this book, learn Windows programming, and make a game within a month or two. Face it, as a beginning programmer, or even an advanced lone programmer, you're not going to write the next Quake. This book will make sure your game at least doesn't stink.

17 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Don't read thisread the book!, June 20, 2000

By 

Ian Lent (Laurel, MD) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Tricks of the Windows Game Programming Gurus (Paperback)

I can't recommend this book enough. If you buy only one book on game programming (and even if you don't), buy this one.

I own over 20 books on: C/C++, MFC, Algorithms, Graphics Math, DirectX, and the like. I never quite got there. Don't get me wrong--I'm no novice: I'm a VB lead programmer on a corporate database project, but Windows programming is not trivial! The first three chapters, which step you through basic windows programming, are worth the price of the book.

LaMothe writes in a clear, engaging style. Windows, DirectX, COM, GDI, physics modeling, game AI, and other topics are covered well. LaMothe has put some serious thought in these things.

If you've given DirectX programming a try and you just can't seem to get off the blocks, try 'Tips and Tricks'. This book will make the pieces fall into place.

One final note: Unlike every other author I have ever come across, LaMothe answers his e-mail. I sent him a note and got a response back in 20 minutes. This is a little like buying your old, favorite professor for the price of a book.