.NET Game Programming with DirectX 9.0 by Alexandre Santos Lobão and Ellen Hatton ISBN:1590590511 Apress © 2003 (696 pages) The authors of this text show how easy it can be to produce interesting multimedia games using Managed DirectX 9.0 and programming with Visual Basic .NET on Everett, the latest version of Microsoft's Visual Studio. Table of Contents .NET Game Programming with DirectX 9.0 Foreword Preface Introduction Chapter 1 - .Nettrix: GDI+ and Collision Detection Chapter 2 - .Netterpillars: Artificial Intelligence and Sprites Chapter 3 - Managed DirectX First Steps: Direct3D Basics and DirectX vs. GDI+ Chapter 4 - River Pla.Net: Tiled Game Fields, Scrolling, and DirectAudio Chapter 5 - River Pla.Net II: DirectInput and Writing Text to Screen Chapter 6 - Magic KindergarteN.: Adventure Games, ADO.NET, and DirectShow Chapter 7 - Magic KindergarteN. II: Animation Techniques and Speech API Chapter 8 - .Netterpillars II: Multiplayer Games and Directplay Chapter 9 - D-iNfEcT: Multithreading, Nonrectangular Windows, and Access to Nonmanaged Code Bonus Chapter Porting .Nettrix to Pocket PC Appendix A - The State of PC Gaming Appendix B - Motivations in Games Appendix C - How Do I Make Games? Appendix D - Guidelines for Developing Successful Games Index List of Figures List of Tables .NET Game Programming with DirectX 9.0 by Alexandre Santos Lobão and Ellen Hatton ISBN:1590590511 Apress © 2003 (696 pages) The authors of this text show how easy it can be to produce interesting multimedia games using Managed DirectX 9.0 and programming with Visual Basic .NET on Everett, the latest version of Microsoft's Visual Studio. Table of Contents .NET Game Programming with DirectX 9.0 Foreword Preface Introduction Chapter 1 - .Nettrix: GDI+ and Collision Detection Chapter 2 - .Netterpillars: Artificial Intelligence and Sprites Chapter 3 - Managed DirectX First Steps: Direct3D Basics and DirectX vs. GDI+ Chapter 4 - River Pla.Net: Tiled Game Fields, Scrolling, and DirectAudio Chapter 5 - River Pla.Net II: DirectInput and Writing Text to Screen Chapter 6 - Magic KindergarteN.: Adventure Games, ADO.NET, and DirectShow Chapter 7 - Magic KindergarteN. II: Animation Techniques and Speech API Chapter 8 - .Netterpillars II: Multiplayer Games and Directplay Chapter 9 - D-iNfEcT: Multithreading, Nonrectangular Windows, and Access to Nonmanaged Code Bonus Chapter Porting .Nettrix to Pocket PC Appendix A - The State of PC Gaming Appendix B - Motivations in Games Appendix C - How Do I Make Games? Appendix D - Guidelines for Developing Successful Games Index List of Figures List of Tables Back Cover Presented in easy-to-understand language, .NET Game Programming with DirectX 9.0 is a must-have title for those who want to create out-of-the-ordinary but simple games, but have never had the time to expend reading hard- core game developers books. Lobao and Hatton show how easy it can be to produce interesting multimedia games using Managed DirectX 9.0 and programming with Visual Basic .NET on Everett, the latest version of Microsoft's Visual Studio. Although their focus is on simplicity, the authors are able to explore all basic concepts within Managed DirectX 9.0: Direct3D, DirectSound, DirectMusic (using the COM interface), DirectInput (including force- feedback joysticks), DirectShow, and DirectPlay. There are also chapters covering other technologies that can be used for game programming: the Speech API to generate game characters' voices, multithreading, and GDI+ for simple games. A bonus chapter shows how to port a simple game to Pocket PC. Sample games are presented over two chapters throughout the book. The first chapter presents the game with simple features, and the second chapter extends the game while presenting new concepts. A library of game programming helper classes is also created, step-by-step, in each chapter. About the Authors Alexandre Santos Lobão has been a non-professional game developer since 1981, when he got his first computer at 12 years of age. He received a bachelor's degree in Computer Science in 1991, from the University of Braslia. When he was attending the University, he helped to develop a graphics program and a computer graphics language (LAFITH - Hierarchical Animation Language for Three-dimensional Figures), which organizes objects in a hierarchical way and calculates the results of forces over the objects, giving them velocity and acceleration. This language was presented in many Brazilian conferences, and at the international conference, Compugraphics, in Sesimbra, in 1991.In 2000, he published his first book, The Box of Pandora and Other Stories , with short stories. Although he has written many technical articles, this is his first technical book. Ellen Hatton is currently completing a computer science degree at Edinburgh University. She was exposed to computers at a very early age and has been fascinated with them ever since. Her first experience of computer games was playing Dread Dragon Doom, at which she quickly excelled, at the age of 5. She's been hooked on games ever since. .NET Game Programming with DirectX 9.0 by Alexandre Santos Lobão and Ellen Hatton ISBN:1590590511 Apress © 2003 (696 pages) The authors of this text show how easy it can be to produce interesting multimedia games using Managed DirectX 9.0 and programming with Visual Basic .NET on Everett, the latest version of Microsoft's Visual Studio. Table of Contents .NET Game Programming with DirectX 9.0 Foreword Preface Introduction Chapter 1 - .Nettrix: GDI+ and Collision Detection Chapter 2 - .Netterpillars: Artificial Intelligence and Sprites Chapter 3 - Managed DirectX First Steps: Direct3D Basics and DirectX vs. GDI+ Chapter 4 - River Pla.Net: Tiled Game Fields, Scrolling, and DirectAudio Chapter 5 - River Pla.Net II: DirectInput and Writing Text to Screen Chapter 6 - Magic KindergarteN.: Adventure Games, ADO.NET, and DirectShow Chapter 7 - Magic KindergarteN. II: Animation Techniques and Speech API Chapter 8 - .Netterpillars II: Multiplayer Games and Directplay Chapter 9 - D-iNfEcT: Multithreading, Nonrectangular Windows, and Access to Nonmanaged Code Bonus Chapter Porting .Nettrix to Pocket PC Appendix A - The State of PC Gaming Appendix B - Motivations in Games Appendix C - How Do I Make Games? Appendix D - Guidelines for Developing Successful Games Index List of Figures List of Tables .NET Game Programming with DirectX 9.0 ALEXANDRE SANTOS LOBÃO AND ELLEN HATTON Copyright © 2003 by Alexandre Santos Lobão and Ellen Hatton All rights reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the copyright owner and the publisher. ISBN (pbk): 1-59059-051-1 Printed and bound in the United States of America 12345678910 Trademarked names may appear in this book. Rather than use a trademark symbol with every occurrence of a trademarked name, we use the names only in an editorial fashion and to the benefit of the trademark owner, with no intention of infringement of the trademark. Technical Reviewer: David Jung Editorial Directors: Dan Appleman, Gary Cornell, Simon Hayes, Karen Watterson, John Zukowski Managing Editor: Grace Wong Project Manager: Sofia Marchant Copy Editor: Ami Knox Production Manager: Kari Brooks Compositor: Diana Van Winkle, Van Winkle Design Group Artist and Cover Designer: Kurt Krames Indexer: Lynn Armstrong Manufacturing Manager: Tom Debolski Distributed to the book trade in the United States by Springer-Verlag New York, Inc., 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY, 10010 and outside the United States by Springer-Verlag GmbH & Co. KG, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69112 Heidelberg, Germany. In the United States, phone 1-800-SPRINGER, email < orders@springer-ny.com >, or visit http://www.springer-ny.com . Outside the United States, fax +49 6221 345229, email < orders@springer.de >, or visit http://www.springer.de . For information on translations, please contact Apress directly at 2560 9th Street, Suite 219, Berkeley, CA 94710. Phone 510-549-5930, fax: 510-549-5939, email < info@apress.com >, or visit http://www.apress.com . The information in this book is distributed on an "as is" basis, without warranty. Although every precaution has been taken in the preparation of this work, neither the author nor Apress shall have any liability to any person or entity with respect to any loss or damage caused or alleged to be caused directly or indirectly by .NET Game Programming with DirectX 9.0 by Alexandre Santos Lobão and Ellen Hatton ISBN:1590590511 Apress © 2003 (696 pages) The authors of this text show how easy it can be to produce interesting multimedia games using Managed DirectX 9.0 and programming with Visual Basic .NET on Everett, the latest version of Microsoft's Visual Studio. Table of Contents .NET Game Programming with DirectX 9.0 Foreword Preface Introduction Chapter 1 - .Nettrix: GDI+ and Collision Detection Chapter 2 - .Netterpillars: Artificial Intelligence and Sprites Chapter 3 - Managed DirectX First Steps: Direct3D Basics and DirectX vs. GDI+ Chapter 4 - River Pla.Net: Tiled Game Fields, Scrolling, and DirectAudio Chapter 5 - River Pla.Net II: DirectInput and Writing Text to Screen Chapter 6 - Magic KindergarteN.: Adventure Games, ADO.NET, and DirectShow Chapter 7 - Magic KindergarteN. II: Animation Techniques and Speech API Chapter 8 - .Netterpillars II: Multiplayer Games and Directplay Chapter 9 - D-iNfEcT: Multithreading, Nonrectangular Windows, and Access to Nonmanaged Code Bonus Chapter Porting .Nettrix to Pocket PC Appendix A - The State of PC Gaming Appendix B - Motivations in Games Appendix C - How Do I Make Games? Appendix D - Guidelines for Developing Successful Games Index List of Figures List of Tables the information contained in this work. To the funniest game of all: Real Life And to its Great and Omnipotent Designer About the Authors Alexandre Santos Lobão got his first computer in 1981, when he was 12, and immediately started to create simple games in Basic. Since then, computers have evolved massively, and so has he. Graduating with a bachelor's degree in computer science in 1991, he founded that same year with six friends a company that came to be known as a synonym for high-quality services in Brasilia, Brazil: Hepta Informática. Besides his excellent work in many software development areas, from financial to telecommunication, he never forgot his first passion, and has always worked as a nonprofessional game programmer. From 1997 to 1999 he also worked at Virtually Real ( http://www.vrealware.com ), a virtual Australian amateur game programming company founded by Craig Jardine. At the end of 2000, Alexandre started searching for new horizons and, leaving the company he helped to create, entered Microsoft as a consultant. Looking at the new and extremely interesting possibilities offered by the .NET Framework, he decided to take everything he's learned over the last decade and apply it to this new development platform. Ellen Hatton is a computer science undergraduate at Edinburgh University. She was exposed to computers at a very early age and has been fascinated with them ever since. Her first experience of computer games was playing Dread Dragon Doom, at which she quickly excelled at the age of 5. She's been hooked on games ever since. Ellen is not only interested in computers. She skis frequently, amongst other sports, and enjoys general student life in the bustling Scottish capital, Edinburgh. As her choice of degree suggests, Ellen still finds computers very interesting and is constantly looking for new challenges. This book is the latest. About the Technical Reviewer David Jung has over ten years' programming experience with leading organizations such as Mullin Consulting, Johnson & Johnson, City of Hope National Medical Center, Moss Software, ARCO Products, and Ernst & Young. He has specialized in distributed application and data warehousing solutions over the Internet and intranets using Visual Basic, C#, and other Internet technology. Mr. Jung has coauthored an extensive array of books and articles on programming and debugging Visual Basic, Microsoft Outlook, Java, and other Internet solutions that have been published internationally. He frequently is a speaker at seminars and user groups discussing how Visual Basic, Java, C#, and Internet technology can be integrated into business solutions. He has published several Microsoft Windows utility programs that help track down and eliminate system crashes as well as help prevent script-based viruses from spreading on Windows-based computers. Two of his programs, DLL Checker and VBS Defender, were reviewed by PC World and were given an Editor's Choice award, and have been sold to users all over the world. Acknowledgments Alexandre Lobão To Kentaro Takahashi, the guy who helped me take my first steps in the computer graphics world, back at university about 15 years ago, and helped me with all my previously published works in this area. I think this is a late acknowledgement, but better late than never! To Homero Picollo, the best teacher at my university, who guided me through these first steps. To Craig Jardine, Jonty Bell, and all the guys from Virtually Real, who believed in my work even before .NET Game Programming with DirectX 9.0 by Alexandre Santos Lobão and Ellen Hatton ISBN:1590590511 Apress © 2003 (696 pages) The authors of this text show how easy it can be to produce interesting multimedia games using Managed DirectX 9.0 and programming with Visual Basic .NET on Everett, the latest version of Microsoft's Visual Studio. Table of Contents .NET Game Programming with DirectX 9.0 Foreword Preface Introduction Chapter 1 - .Nettrix: GDI+ and Collision Detection Chapter 2 - .Netterpillars: Artificial Intelligence and Sprites Chapter 3 - Managed DirectX First Steps: Direct3D Basics and DirectX vs. GDI+ Chapter 4 - River Pla.Net: Tiled Game Fields, Scrolling, and DirectAudio Chapter 5 - River Pla.Net II: DirectInput and Writing Text to Screen Chapter 6 - Magic KindergarteN.: Adventure Games, ADO.NET, and DirectShow Chapter 7 - Magic KindergarteN. II: Animation Techniques and Speech API Chapter 8 - .Netterpillars II: Multiplayer Games and Directplay Chapter 9 - D-iNfEcT: Multithreading, Nonrectangular Windows, and Access to Nonmanaged Code Bonus Chapter Porting .Nettrix to Pocket PC Appendix A - The State of PC Gaming Appendix B - Motivations in Games Appendix C - How Do I Make Games? Appendix D - Guidelines for Developing Successful Games Index List of Figures List of Tables they had seen it! To Evali Gamarra and Keniston Rodrigues, who helped me take my first steps with DirectX. To Peter Blackburn, who believed in my dream, and to all the Apress guys who helped me to make it come true. To Tom Miller, the development leader from the Microsoft's Managed DirectX team, who always had the right answer for me, and great patience. To Phillip Taylor, the managed DirectX program manager, and to all members of the Managed DirectX SIG, who always supported me when I needed. To Igor Ripoll, who gave me invaluable logistics help, which made this book possible. To Igor Sinkovec and Waldivar Cesar, who helped me with their great graphics skills. To Bruce Shelley, Paul Sullivan, Geoff Howland, and Sarbasst Hassanpour, who kindly gave me permission to publish their own vision about game creation as appendices in the book. To Ellen Hatton, who helped me by translating my barely legible drafts to real chapters, and to David Jung, who reviewed all the code and increased the book's quality as much as possible. To everyone who helped me in any way to create this book (so if you are not mentioned before, feel free to include your name here!). And, most of all, to my family, who supported me even when I was stealing time from them to write this book. Thanks to all of you. Or, in good and loud Portuguese, "Muito Obrigado!!" Ellen Hatton I also have a few acknowledgements to make: To Alexandre for being the most understanding and talented person I've ever had the pleasure to work with. It was your ideas that made this book—not anyone else's. It's been fun working with you. To Peter Blackburn, you've been a constant source of support. You were the person who introduced me to this project, for which I am eternally grateful. There are too many people to thank you all individually, but you know who you are so thanks for everything. From a cup of tea to a friendly chat—it all helped. Also thanks to my family for getting me here in the first place and always encouraging me and my crazy ideas. Thanks again. Credits Figure 4-5 , page 217: Sid Meier's Civilization®, Civilization®, and Civ® are U.S. registered trademarks. Sid Meier's Civilization® courtesy of Infogrames Interactive © 2002 Infogrames Interactive, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Used With Permission. Figure 6-2 , page 350: Leisure Suit Larry is a trademark of Sierra Entertainment, Inc., and is used with permission. Figures 6-3 , 6-4 , and 6-5 , pages 351–352: Sam & Max Hit the Road® and The Secret of Monkey Island® © 2003 LucasArts Entertainment Company LLC & ™ or ® as indicated. All rights reserved. Used under .NET Game Programming with DirectX 9.0 by Alexandre Santos Lobão and Ellen Hatton ISBN:1590590511 Apress © 2003 (696 pages) The authors of this text show how easy it can be to produce interesting multimedia games using Managed DirectX 9.0 and programming with Visual Basic .NET on Everett, the latest version of Microsoft's Visual Studio. Table of Contents .NET Game Programming with DirectX 9.0 Foreword Preface Introduction Chapter 1 - .Nettrix: GDI+ and Collision Detection Chapter 2 - .Netterpillars: Artificial Intelligence and Sprites Chapter 3 - Managed DirectX First Steps: Direct3D Basics and DirectX vs. GDI+ Chapter 4 - River Pla.Net: Tiled Game Fields, Scrolling, and DirectAudio Chapter 5 - River Pla.Net II: DirectInput and Writing Text to Screen Chapter 6 - Magic KindergarteN.: Adventure Games, ADO.NET, and DirectShow Chapter 7 - Magic KindergarteN. II: Animation Techniques and Speech API Chapter 8 - .Netterpillars II: Multiplayer Games and Directplay Chapter 9 - D-iNfEcT: Multithreading, Nonrectangular Windows, and Access to Nonmanaged Code Bonus Chapter Porting .Nettrix to Pocket PC Appendix A - The State of PC Gaming Appendix B - Motivations in Games Appendix C - How Do I Make Games? Appendix D - Guidelines for Developing Successful Games Index List of Figures List of Tables authorization. LucasArts and the LucasArts logo are registered trademarks of Lucasfilm Ltd. Figures A-1 and A-2 , page 597: American McGee's Alice ™ Software © 2000 Electronic Arts Inc. All rights reserved. Portions © 2000 Rogue Entertainment, Inc. All rights reserved. This product contains software technology licensed from Id Software, Inc. Id Technology © 2000 Id Software, Inc. All rights reserved. Electronic Arts, the Electronic Arts logo and American McGee's Alice are trademarks or registered trademarks of Electronic Arts Inc. in the U.S. and/or other countries. The Rogue Entertainment logo is a trademark of Rogue Entertainment, Inc. Figure A-3 , page 600: Quake® is a trademark of Id Software. Figure A-4 , page 600: Unreal Tournament ©1999–2001 Epic Games Inc. Created by Epic Games, Inc. in collaboration with Digital Extremes. Unreal and the Unreal logos are trademarks of Epic Games, Inc. All rights reserved. All other trademarks are the property of their respective companies. Figures A-5 and A-6 , pages 602–603: Clive Barker's Undying ™ © 2000 Electronic Arts Inc. Undying, EA GAMES and the EA GAMES logo are trademarks or registered of Electronic Arts Inc. in the U.S. and/or other countries. All rights reserved. EA GAMES is an Electronic Arts ™ brand. Figure C-1 , page 617: Quake® is a trademark of Id Software. Figure C-3 , page 621: PAC-MAN® ©1980 Namco Ltd., All Rights Reserved. Courtesy of Namco Holding Corp. Figure C-4 , page 623: GALAGA® ©1980 Namco Ltd., All Rights Reserved. Courtesy of Namco Holding Corp. Figure C-5 , page 624: GAUNTLET® DARK LEGACY ™ © 1998–2000 Midway Games West Inc. GAUNTLET DARK LEGACY is a trademark of Midway Games West Inc. .NET Game Programming with DirectX 9.0 by Alexandre Santos Lobão and Ellen Hatton ISBN:1590590511 Apress © 2003 (696 pages) The authors of this text show how easy it can be to produce interesting multimedia games using Managed DirectX 9.0 and programming with Visual Basic .NET on Everett, the latest version of Microsoft's Visual Studio. Table of Contents .NET Game Programming with DirectX 9.0 Foreword Preface Introduction Chapter 1 - .Nettrix: GDI+ and Collision Detection Chapter 2 - .Netterpillars: Artificial Intelligence and Sprites Chapter 3 - Managed DirectX First Steps: Direct3D Basics and DirectX vs. GDI+ Chapter 4 - River Pla.Net: Tiled Game Fields, Scrolling, and DirectAudio Chapter 5 - River Pla.Net II: DirectInput and Writing Text to Screen Chapter 6 - Magic KindergarteN.: Adventure Games, ADO.NET, and DirectShow Chapter 7 - Magic KindergarteN. II: Animation Techniques and Speech API Chapter 8 - .Netterpillars II: Multiplayer Games and Directplay Chapter 9 - D-iNfEcT: Multithreading, Nonrectangular Windows, and Access to Nonmanaged Code Bonus Chapter Porting .Nettrix to Pocket PC Appendix A - The State of PC Gaming Appendix B - Motivations in Games Appendix C - How Do I Make Games? Appendix D - Guidelines for Developing Successful Games Index List of Figures List of Tables Foreword Ever since I built my first S100 Z80 PC kit, I was hooked. That was 1975. Twenty-eight years later, I still have very little life away from my "babies"—my array of systems. I use them to work, to write, to explore the outside world, and to play. I've written games and reviewed games, but mostly I've played games of all kinds. I've played Adventure, Hammurabi, and air traffic control simulators on the Z80—with 48KB of RAM. More recently, I've had to attend 12-step meetings to get over my addiction to Ages. Age of Mythology is my latest obsession. I only wish I had the source. It seems to have a pretty nasty memory/resource leak. When I heard that Alexandre and Ellen were writing a book on gaming, I jumped at the chance to take an early look. When I heard that the book focused on Visual Basic, I was convinced that I wanted to read it (and got cajoled into writing this foreword). It's been a long road for BASIC. I used (the other) Bill's BASIC on my Z80 system and even wrote CP/M systems software using the BASIC-80 compiler in the early 1980s. BASIC has always been seen as a fun little language to write simple "toy" applications—something like the "Easy-Bake Oven" language with a small lightbulb for heat. Visual Basic 1.0 changed a lot of minds, but Visual Basic 5.0 and its "real" compiler changed a lot more. Visual Basic .NET (which I fondly call "Visual Fred" due to its lack of similarity to any previous version of Visual Basic) is a deadly serious full-featured development tool. It's suitable for authoring virtually anything. No, I would not write a device driver with Visual Basic .NET, but I'll bet you could. It's a great choice for serious developers because it's so easy to learn and use. For MBASIC-80 developers, it will be somewhat of a challenge to learn, but for Visual Basic folks, it will take no time at all to come back up to speed (so to speak). DirectX (in my opinion) is the new de facto "Windows" interface of the gaming industry. In the early days, no computer would sell (no matter how technically superior it was) if it didn't run Lotus 1-2-3. That's because the application software was so closely tied to the hardware. When an application shipped in the DOS world, it had to have drivers for your printer or you couldn't print and drivers for your video card or you couldn't run the application at all. In those days, game companies got in bed with the video card companies and wrote straight to their newest hardware. There was only a slim chance a game would work with some other card. Windows changed some of that. It standardized video management, printing, memory management, and more to help application developers write just applications and leave all of the hardware worries to Microsoft and device driver developers. The game folks found that Windows simply got in the way; it wasn't nearly fast enough for anything except solitaire—and that was sluggish. When DirectX arrived, a new dawn appeared for the game developers. Now they had a much faster and generic way to write to the hardware and not worry (so much) about performance. Now (nine versions later) DirectX games are pervasive. They're fast, fun, easy to install (and uninstall), and easy to write, maintain, and support. As far as the technical content of the book, in case you're wondering, I took an extra close look at Chapter 6 where Alexandre and Ellen touch on ADO.NET. I think their approach to data access is fine. It's not that tough when you don't have to worry about more than a single user and more than a few thousand rows, but they don't lead you astray. Okay. I don't make a living writing games. I'm not that smart, and I couldn't talk my spouse into doing something that's challenging and fun but would not return me enough to buy groceries. My focus is Visual Basic, data access, and SQL Server. I like playing games, but I would like so much more to be able to write my own. I expect the easy-to-read tutorial style that Alexandre and Ellen use will make that very easy for both of us—amateur and pro alike. Enjoy. William R. Vaughn Microsoft MVP and author of ADO.NET and ADO Examples and Best Practices for VB Programmers, Second Edition President, Beta V Corporation ( http://www.betav.com ) Redmond, Washington .NET Game Programming with DirectX 9.0 by Alexandre Santos Lobão and Ellen Hatton ISBN:1590590511 Apress © 2003 (696 pages) The authors of this text show how easy it can be to produce interesting multimedia games using Managed DirectX 9.0 and programming with Visual Basic .NET on Everett, the latest version of Microsoft's Visual Studio. Table of Contents .NET Game Programming with DirectX 9.0 Foreword Preface Introduction Chapter 1 - .Nettrix: GDI+ and Collision Detection Chapter 2 - .Netterpillars: Artificial Intelligence and Sprites Chapter 3 - Managed DirectX First Steps: Direct3D Basics and DirectX vs. GDI+ Chapter 4 - River Pla.Net: Tiled Game Fields, Scrolling, and DirectAudio Chapter 5 - River Pla.Net II: DirectInput and Writing Text to Screen Chapter 6 - Magic KindergarteN.: Adventure Games, ADO.NET, and DirectShow Chapter 7 - Magic KindergarteN. II: Animation Techniques and Speech API Chapter 8 - .Netterpillars II: Multiplayer Games and Directplay Chapter 9 - D-iNfEcT: Multithreading, Nonrectangular Windows, and Access to Nonmanaged Code Bonus Chapter Porting .Nettrix to Pocket PC Appendix A - The State of PC Gaming Appendix B - Motivations in Games Appendix C - How Do I Make Games? Appendix D - Guidelines for Developing Successful Games Index List of Figures List of Tables Preface This book is intended to fill a gap that exists in books about game programming: Some are too basic, and some are too advanced, so intermediate programmers who want to create something new can't find anything to meet their needs. The main idea of this book is this: If you can do it the easy way, do it the easy way. Of course, we explore some very advanced concepts, like voice generation and recognition, multiplayer games, and the basics of 3-D game creation. However, we always look for the simplest way to do something. And if there's no easy way, then we just create some basic classes that do the dirty work, and create everything else over these classes. The whole book is designed to be read in a continuous way. In Chapter 1 , we start by creating a very simple game while presenting the basics of collision detection. Chapter 2 shows how to build a new game, using the concepts presented in Chapter 1 and adding new explanations and examples about artificial intelligence in games. In the following chapters, we continue to build new games and explore new topics relating to game programming, such as the basics of sprite creation, scrolling games, adventure games, multiplayer features, voice generation, porting a game to Pocket PC, and much more. We start with the basics and increase the complexity as we go along, so that by the time you come to the advanced topics, you have all the background you need to gain the most from them. But there's one more thing that makes this book unique: our discussion about several nonprogramming topics related to game creation—for example, how to design good character movement, the history of adventure games, and how to create an adventure game from a basic storyline. We don't restrict ourselves to showing only advanced game programming techniques, like DirectX and the Speech API. We teach you some simple tricks that don't require a lot of expertise, like how to control simple dialog in adventure games, using data from a Microsoft Access database, or how to create a nonrectangular window to add some extra spice to a game's screens. Although we don't explore all the details about managed DirectX 9.0, this book is a very good starting point for Managed DirectX 9.0 programming because we delve into the basics of every DirectX component—Direct3D, DirectSound, DirectMusic, DirectPlay, DirectInput, and DirectShow—creating reusable classes that will make it easier to use each of these components. We also discuss other programming topics apart from DirectX, including ADO.NET, Speech API for voice generation, GDI+ for creating simple games, programming for Pocket PCs with the .NET Compact Framework, and creating multithreading games. Since we show you how to create a set of reusable classes throughout the book, after finishing the book you'll be able to create your own games much more easily by simply sticking these classes together. This book is also a good starting point for those who want to understand the basics of .NET programming, but it is NOT intended to teach .NET programming on its own. Of course, we talk about many important .NET concepts, and every new concept in Visual Basic .NET programming is explained, but it's not our aim to write an exhaustive explanation of all that VB .NET has to offer. Nor is this book intended to provide a route to the professional game programming world, since we do not go deep enough into some essential aspects professional game developers need to know. However, you can think of this book as a first step into this world, since we do provide insights into important concepts such as the need to create a good game project and organizing the game's team, as well as appendixes written by professionals from the game industry that serve as guides to game creation. .NET Game Programming with DirectX 9.0 by Alexandre Santos Lobão and Ellen Hatton ISBN:1590590511 Apress © 2003 (696 pages) The authors of this text show how easy it can be to produce interesting multimedia games using Managed DirectX 9.0 and programming with Visual Basic .NET on Everett, the latest version of Microsoft's Visual Studio. Table of Contents .NET Game Programming with DirectX 9.0 Foreword Preface Introduction Chapter 1 - .Nettrix: GDI+ and Collision Detection Chapter 2 - .Netterpillars: Artificial Intelligence and Sprites Chapter 3 - Managed DirectX First Steps: Direct3D Basics and DirectX vs. GDI+ Chapter 4 - River Pla.Net: Tiled Game Fields, Scrolling, and DirectAudio Chapter 5 - River Pla.Net II: DirectInput and Writing Text to Screen Chapter 6 - Magic KindergarteN.: Adventure Games, ADO.NET, and DirectShow Chapter 7 - Magic KindergarteN. II: Animation Techniques and Speech API Chapter 8 - .Netterpillars II: Multiplayer Games and Directplay Chapter 9 - D-iNfEcT: Multithreading, Nonrectangular Windows, and Access to Nonmanaged Code Bonus Chapter Porting .Nettrix to Pocket PC Appendix A - The State of PC Gaming Appendix B - Motivations in Games Appendix C - How Do I Make Games? Appendix D - Guidelines for Developing Successful Games Index List of Figures List of Tables Introduction .NET—A Whole New Game Horizon For those who have been inside a cave for the last 2 years, .NET is Microsoft's new paradigm for creating the next generation of Internet programs, allowing any site on the Web to offer and use services, and joining the efforts from programmers around the world to make things better. But .NET is much more. You can create stand-alone programs with it (as we'll see in this book), and you can create programs targeted at many different platforms. For example, if your program runs in a browser, it'll appear using the full functionality offered by the browser. If instead it is running on a mobile device, such as a handheld computer, it'll use only the functionality offered by that device. We can expect to see .NET support for many new devices using different user interfaces (like voice recognition) to show up in the next few years. In short, we can say that .NET is the next big step in home computing. First, the PC became a standard for home and office computers. Then we saw Windows offering the new standard for programmers and users, with a graphical interface and the mouse as a new input device. Now, we have an open door to many new devices and user interfaces, and, most importantly, interaction between programs, allowing programmers to build over previously created services and give the end user more sophisticated services every time, with less programming and higher quality. Of course, the .NET Framework is still taking its first steps, but it's already worth a closer look for anyone seriously interested in programming in general, particularly game programming. Why Use .NET? Certainly there are many good reasons to use .NET besides the fact that it's a new programming paradigm that will probably take on the world in the next few years. Let's just review some of them: .NET is multiplatform: Although Java had promised this before, and sadly didn't make it, .NET had a bigger industrial commitment, not only by Microsoft and its partners, even before the launch of the final version of Visual Studio. One example: There are many initiatives to make a .NET JIT (just-in- time) compiler in Linux and other operating systems. Oh, yes, and there's another advantage over Java when running on a Web site: The .NET programs are just-in-time compiled before they run, and that means that they run in machine-native code (not interpreted), which makes for better performance. Another interesting point is that the compiled program is stored in memory, so the next executions don't have to pass to the compiler unless the computer is turned off or needs to free the memory used by the program. .NET is NOT just a new programming environment: It's a whole new framework of applications and services, many of them already released by Microsoft, and many others to come from Microsoft and other companies. .NET is service based: There are many servers that expose special features that we can use, and there are a huge collection of services coming from Microsoft and many other companies. What does this mean for game developers? For example, do you want to make your game speak, or understand what the player says? Do you need to add multiplayer features? Do you want to create a 3-D texture- mapped environment? Well, some services already do all of this and more. Why code again and again if someone has already done it? .NET is multilingual: You can write your .NET program in any language supported by the Visual Studio environment—right now, that means Visual Basic, Visual C#, Visual C++, FORTRAN, Visual .NET Game Programming with DirectX 9.0 by Alexandre Santos Lobão and Ellen Hatton ISBN:1590590511 Apress © 2003 (696 pages) The authors of this text show how easy it can be to produce interesting multimedia games using Managed DirectX 9.0 and programming with Visual Basic .NET on Everett, the latest version of Microsoft's Visual Studio. Table of Contents .NET Game Programming with DirectX 9.0 Foreword Preface Introduction Chapter 1 - .Nettrix: GDI+ and Collision Detection Chapter 2 - .Netterpillars: Artificial Intelligence and Sprites Chapter 3 - Managed DirectX First Steps: Direct3D Basics and DirectX vs. GDI+ Chapter 4 - River Pla.Net: Tiled Game Fields, Scrolling, and DirectAudio Chapter 5 - River Pla.Net II: DirectInput and Writing Text to Screen Chapter 6 - Magic KindergarteN.: Adventure Games, ADO.NET, and DirectShow Chapter 7 - Magic KindergarteN. II: Animation Techniques and Speech API Chapter 8 - .Netterpillars II: Multiplayer Games and Directplay Chapter 9 - D-iNfEcT: Multithreading, Nonrectangular Windows, and Access to Nonmanaged Code Bonus Chapter Porting .Nettrix to Pocket PC Appendix A - The State of PC Gaming Appendix B - Motivations in Games Appendix C - How Do I Make Games? Appendix D - Guidelines for Developing Successful Games Index List of Figures List of Tables J#, and COBOL, among others. Microsoft created a single and open environment to run it all, so you can write your programs in any language in the same programming console. Other languages are already being developed by other companies: APL, Pascal, Eiffel, Haskell, ML, Oberon, Perl, Python, Scheme, Smalltalk. Just choose the one you like best, or create your own! Of course, many other reasons exist for using .NET, like the extensive XML support or the enhanced data access features. When you start coding with Visual Studio, you'll see a lot more: The environment is even cleverer than previous versions, and helps the programmer a lot. It makes game creation a real pleasure, because you can concentrate on what you want your game to do, not how to make it. Why Use Visual Basic? Until Visual Basic 4.0, the code generated by the compiler was in fact a pseudocode, interpreted by a special DLL at execution time. The performance for some tasks was very poor, but we could already make some simple games on it, if the graphics weren't very demanding. In Visual Basic 5.0, Microsoft brought in part of the Visual C++ development team to create a native-code compiler. The performance increase was astonishing: We could see some benchmarks for floating-point calculations where the VB code performance was almost the same as VC++, but the graphical operations were still much slower than in C++. In Visual Basic 6.0, all the internal routines for drawing controls on screen and many of the features were refactored to aim for better performance. With this version, we could already create somewhat sophisticated games using COM interfaces to access DirectX features. Now, we have Visual Studio .NET. As we saw before, Visual Studio .NET is a multilanguage environment, which means, besides other things, that all languages share the same compiler. Therefore, there'll be a little difference, if any at all, in the performance of this compiler for each language. It's interesting to consider an interview with one of the Doom creators that appeared in a games magazine some years ago. When it was released, Doom was simply the best game ever from the technical point of view of creating a 3-D texture-mapped environment. And this guy basically said that Doom was proof to all assembly "pin-heads" that everything didn't have to be coded in assembly in order to achieve the best performance, because the game had just two assembly routines: one that drew a point on screen, and one that drew a line. Everything else was written in C. Time has passed. When the first reviewers looked at this book, they told me, "Game programming in Visual Basic? Using .NET Framework? Are you sure?" They thought Visual Basic performance could be a real problem, and that .NET Framework was designed only to create Web services. But they were wrong. Just look at games like the X-COM series, or the SIMCity series. We don't see anything that we can't do in Visual Basic. They aren't graphically intensive games. For fast-action shooters like Quake, we confess that Visual Basic won't be the best choice for programming for a while. But for other sophisticated games, if you can do them with a simple language like VB, why use assembly or C? Just think about the simplicity of coding and debugging, and you'll see there's no other choice. Even some hardcore C++ programmers gave us very good feedback about this book, telling us how they were astonished with the ease of creating games in Visual Basic that still have acceptable performance. But you don't have to just take our word for it. Just read the rest of the book, and you'll see for yourself. A Game Starts with a Good Idea Although the games released nowadays are more and more graphics intensive, the main point in a game is sometimes forgotten: the playability. We see games with breathtaking graphics, amazing cut-scenes, and 3-D worlds to make your eyes pop out, but many of them are really annoying to play. Even when a game's responsiveness is okay, sometimes the gameplay isn't clear or isn't fair. [...]... circles NET Game Programming with DirectX 9.0 by Alexandre Santos Lobão and Ellen Hatton Apress © 2003 (696 pages) ISBN :15 90590 511 The authors of this text show how easy it can be to produce interesting multimedia games using Managed DirectX 9.0 and programming with Visual Basic NET on Everett, the latest version of Microsoft' s Visual Studio Table of Contents NET Game Programming with DirectX 9.0 Foreword... Figure 1- 15 NET Game Programming with DirectX 9.0 by Alexandre Santos Lobão and Ellen Hatton Apress © 2003 (696 pages) ISBN :15 90590 511 The authors of this text show how easy it can be to produce interesting multimedia games using Managed DirectX 9.0 and programming with Visual Basic NET on Everett, the latest version of Microsoft' s Visual Studio Table of Contents NET Game Programming with DirectX 9.0 Foreword... using Managed DirectX 9.0 and programming with Visual Basic NET on Everett, the latest If rectangle1.x . multimedia games using Managed DirectX 9.0 and programming with Visual Basic .NET on Everett, the latest version of Microsoft& apos;s Visual Studio. Table of Contents .NET Game Programming with DirectX. multimedia games using Managed DirectX 9.0 and programming with Visual Basic .NET on Everett, the latest version of Microsoft& apos;s Visual Studio. Table of Contents .NET Game Programming with DirectX. multimedia games using Managed DirectX 9.0 and programming with Visual Basic .NET on Everett, the latest version of Microsoft& apos;s Visual Studio. Table of Contents .NET Game Programming with DirectX