Beginning Game Development: Part III - DirectX II

re: Beginning Game Development: Part III - DirectX II

Justin — Sun, 22 Apr 2007 06:25:25 GMT

Everything works fine until I add the following line of code:

device.DrawUserPrimitives ( PrimitiveType.LineStrip, 6,

CreateCrossHairVertexArrayTop ( ) );

device.DrawUserPrimitives ( PrimitiveType.LineStrip, 6,

CreateCrossHairVertexArrayBottom ( ) );

After that every time I try to run the program it hi-lights the first two lines of code and says "InvalidCallException was unhandled" or "InvalidCallException occured". I don't know if I set up something wrong or what but I can't get it to work after that.

re: Beginning Game Development: Part III - DirectX II

kyle — Sat, 28 Apr 2007 07:24:17 GMT

going great so far...I think I have the code in all the right places.....cant wait to get a finished product

re: Beginning Game Development: Part III - DirectX II

Sat, 05 May 2007 06:53:25 GMT

I´m new to C# and could not find a solution...

the lines:

device.DrawUserPrimitives(PrimitiveType.LineStrip, 6, CreateCrossHairVertexArrayTop());

device.DrawUserPrimitives(PrimitiveType.LineStrip, 6, CreateCrossHairVertexArrayBottom());

retuns an InvalidCallException

what can I do?

re: Beginning Game Development: Part III - DirectX II

Mike — Mon, 07 May 2007 02:13:45 GMT

When I run the program it crashes on:

device.DrawUserPrimitives(PrimitiveType.LineStrip, 6, CreateCrossHairVertexArrayTop());

All it says is in the debugger is "InvalidCallException was unhandled"

I'm using C# and dx SDK April 2007

re: Beginning Game Development: Part III - DirectX II

juliano — Wed, 23 May 2007 16:23:10 GMT

Hi everyone. I'm completely new to directX, but I'm an experienced programmer (c#, java, php), and also worked with 3D modeling and video post-production. I'm having problems understanding the units and coordinates system, and some else.

The questions are:

1 - We always work with gerenic units? (If so,we must always know the scale we are dealing with)

2 - I tried to modify the crosshair object. Ok I did it, but I'm not comfortable with this yet. I think I need a clue on where is the world origin.

3 - Where did we define DirectX stage would occupy all the form size? I ask this because I want to know how to create a form (like 800x600) but filled with form controls (Like combos and buttons ), and the directX stage would be a 320x240 box next to the controls, so I can control drawing into the directx through the buttons outside the 3d space.

Thank you a lot, and congratulations on this tutorial series, it is really good.

re: Beginning Game Development: Part III - DirectX II

Carl — Wed, 23 May 2007 17:58:44 GMT

I had to compare the sample code(download top of page) to my own work to get my code working.

re: Beginning Game Development: Part III - DirectX II

waco stimson — Sat, 26 May 2007 20:53:42 GMT

haveing some troubles witht the CustomVertex.PositionColored[] crossHairs = new CustomVertex.Postion colored[7];

line. the first CustomVertex is the problem and i cannot figure it out. it says a get or set accessor expected. but im not sure how to fix it any help would be hot. thanks

re: Beginning Game Development: Part III - DirectX II

Dast — Sun, 27 May 2007 20:07:37 GMT

Can anyone clue me in here as to why it is a good idea to constantly 'new' arrays of verticies rather than just creating them once and saving them? Is there something about the pipeline in DirectX that makes this a requirement? Obviously, they will be cleaned up by gc at some point, but constantly creating new copies during the render loop seems... odd.

re: Beginning Game Development: Part III - DirectX II

Leo Sieben — Wed, 06 Jun 2007 09:39:08 GMT

Juliano -

1) Yes, somewhere someone "defines" what units are. This definition doesn't happen anywhere in code, however; it is implicit. Essentially a 3D artist models some object, say a house. He will create it in arbitrary units in the modeling package, so he follows guidelines set by his company. The company I work for, Gearbox Software, uses centimeters. A 30-ft wide house would be 914 cm wide, so it should be 914 units wide in the modeling app.. Typically the lead artist and the lead programmer agree on a convention (or it's been handed down by the company).

2) The world origin, as this code is written in this article when I read it, appears in the center of the screen. This is because the Matrix.LookAtLH() function's second parameter is (0,0,0), the origin.

You might find it a fun exercise to make a debugging function called DrawCoordinateAxes(). This function might draw three lines:

(0,0,0) --> (1,0,0) //An x-axis

(0,0,0) --> (0,1,0) //A y-axis

(0,0,0) --> (0,0,1) //A z-axis

Then since all three of these lines start from (0,0,0), you could visually "see" the origin, and get a feel for which way is up.

3) DirectX is told to hog the whole Form when, in the CreateDevice() function, 'this' was specified for the third parameter. If you wanted to have normal widgets on the side of the rendering viewport, try to make a typical user interface, and have one of the components be a Panel, then pass that Panel to the CreateDevice function...

You'll get to have a lot of "fun" getting the app's render loop to play nice with the other components, tho.

===================================

Dast -

You're right, it's an exquisitely inefficient approach. But the author is not trying to make a production-quality clone, he is just taking small steps for the benefit of the readers who are new to all of this. Some of my personal thoughts on ways to make this a lot better, if you were curious:

A) It would be much better to cache the vertices and reuse them.

B) It would be nice if the crosshair's design wasn't hardcoded. Make the app data-driven so that it reads a file.

C) Prolly the best idea is to make the crosshair design part of a texture and then texture a simple quad in screen-space. Then a designer or artist could tweak the crosshair in an art program, and the code never needs to change.

The author is trying to keep the example simple. But good eye. =)

re: Beginning Game Development: Part III - DirectX II

Marky — Tue, 12 Jun 2007 13:35:38 GMT

Great Tutorial!

But I have one big problem when I try to compile the program by the end of this chapter. I always get an error saying the following:

Microsoft.DirectX.Direct3D.InvalidCallException wurde nicht behandelt.

Message="Fehler in der Anwendung."

Source="Microsoft.DirectX.Direct3D"

ErrorCode=-2005530516

ErrorString="D3DERR_INVALIDCALL"

StackTrace:

bei Microsoft.DirectX.Direct3D.Device.DrawUserPrimitives(PrimitiveType primitiveType, Int32 primitiveCount, Object vertexStreamZeroData)

bei BattleTank_2007.GameEngine.OnPaint(PaintEventArgs e) in C:\Dokumente und Einstellungen\NB_Geraet\Eigene Dateien\Visual Studio 2005\Projects\BattleTank 2007\BattleTank 2007\GameEngine.cs:Zeile 83.

bei System.Windows.Forms.Control.PaintWithErrorHandling(PaintEventArgs e, Int16 layer, Boolean disposeEventArgs)

bei System.Windows.Forms.Control.WmPaint(Message& m)

bei System.Windows.Forms.Control.WndProc(Message& m)

bei System.Windows.Forms.ScrollableControl.WndProc(Message& m)

bei System.Windows.Forms.ContainerControl.WndProc(Message& m)

bei System.Windows.Forms.Form.WndProc(Message& m)

bei System.Windows.Forms.Control.ControlNativeWindow.OnMessage(Message& m)

bei System.Windows.Forms.Control.ControlNativeWindow.WndProc(Message& m)

bei System.Windows.Forms.NativeWindow.DebuggableCallback(IntPtr hWnd, Int32 msg, IntPtr wparam, IntPtr lparam)

bei System.Windows.Forms.UnsafeNativeMethods.DispatchMessageW(MSG& msg)

bei System.Windows.Forms.Application.ComponentManager.System.Windows.Forms.UnsafeNativeMethods.IMsoComponentManager.FPushMessageLoop(Int32 dwComponentID, Int32 reason, Int32 pvLoopData)

bei System.Windows.Forms.Application.ThreadContext.RunMessageLoopInner(Int32 reason, ApplicationContext context)

bei System.Windows.Forms.Application.ThreadContext.RunMessageLoop(Int32 reason, ApplicationContext context)

bei System.Windows.Forms.Application.Run(Form mainForm)

bei BattleTank_2007.Program.Main() in C:\Dokumente und Einstellungen\NB_Geraet\Eigene Dateien\Visual Studio 2005\Projects\BattleTank 2007\BattleTank 2007\Program.cs:Zeile 17.

bei System.AppDomain.nExecuteAssembly(Assembly assembly, String[] args)

bei System.AppDomain.ExecuteAssembly(String assemblyFile, Evidence assemblySecurity, String[] args)

bei Microsoft.VisualStudio.HostingProcess.HostProc.RunUsersAssembly()

bei System.Threading.ThreadHelper.ThreadStart_Context(Object state)

bei System.Threading.ExecutionContext.Run(ExecutionContext executionContext, ContextCallback callback, Object state)

bei System.Threading.ThreadHelper.ThreadStart()

Then the program crashes.

Can anyone help me?

Thanks a lot

re: Beginning Game Development: Part III - DirectX II

Hoazl — Wed, 27 Jun 2007 23:41:13 GMT

Hi there,

you have to add the line

device.VertexFormat = CustomVertex.PositionColored.Format;

between

device.BeginScene();

and

device.DrawUserPrimitives ( .... );

this should help!

Greetings,

Hoazl

re: Beginning Game Development: Part III - DirectX II

Nick — Thu, 05 Jul 2007 22:50:11 GMT

Can anyone tell me why its saying it doesn't recognize Vector3 and Matrix? Is there a using statement I forgot to put at the top?

re: Beginning Game Development: Part III - DirectX II

Sylas — Mon, 09 Jul 2007 22:56:50 GMT

An unhandled exception of type 'Microsoft.DirectX.Direct3D.InvalidCallException' occurred in Microsoft.DirectX.Direct3D.dll

Additional information: Error in the application.

no errors accept after I try to run the app. Then I get the above exception?

It occurs on this:

device.DrawUserPrimitives(PrimitiveType.LineStrip, 6,

CreateCrossHairVertexArrayTop());

re: Beginning Game Development: Part III - DirectX II

Steve — Fri, 20 Jul 2007 02:58:50 GMT

Anyone else getting a runtime error after you run this one? I get "An unhandled exception of type 'Microsoft.DirectX.Direct3D.InvalidCallException' occurred in Microsoft.DirectX.Direct3D.dll

Additional information: Error in the application"

this only occurs during runtime as it compiles fine... I am running DirectX SDK June 2007 if that matters

re: Beginning Game Development: Part III - DirectX II

Steve — Fri, 20 Jul 2007 03:00:14 GMT

the code it points out is at

"device.DrawUserPrimitives(PrimitiveType.LineStrip, 6, CreateCrossHairVertexArrayTop());"

re: Beginning Game Development: Part III - DirectX II

frizey — Mon, 23 Jul 2007 12:31:29 GMT

hi it is very hard to read the intructions straight off the net it would be a good idea if they were avalible to download.

re: Beginning Game Development: Part III - DirectX II

Perrin — Tue, 07 Aug 2007 03:21:00 GMT

Why does changing the field of view angle zoom in or out?

re: Beginning Game Development: Part III - DirectX II

Goki — Fri, 10 Aug 2007 09:49:55 GMT

Ya, a bit of confusion with Greek letters here, I see. To convert degrees to radians, multiply the degrees with Pi/180, not with Ro (as indicated in the text).

re: Beginning Game Development: Part III - DirectX II

tierro — Sun, 12 Aug 2007 18:00:31 GMT

To make a long story very, very short.

IT doesn't make sense. I can get nothing to work. Not in C#, neither in VB. Thousands of errors while i can compile anything else whithout a problem. If you want to drive people nuts, go work at a callcenter.

re: Beginning Game Development: Part III - DirectX II

Kevin — Tue, 14 Aug 2007 03:21:29 GMT

i have come up with 19 errors one is Matrix does not exist and vector3 could not be found any help would be gr8

THANKS

Kevin

re: Beginning Game Development: Part III - DirectX II

Jesse — Wed, 15 Aug 2007 22:35:16 GMT

when i try to run the program i get a runtime error at this line:

device.DrawUserPrimitives(PrimitiveType.LineStrip, 6, CreateCrossHairVertexArrayTop());

the debugger says InvalicCallException was unhandled, and Error in the application. When i click details i get not much useful information for me, it just displays the properties of the invalidcallexception that i dont understand (probably because im pretty new with this stuff--which is why im here in the first place).

anyone get a similar error and know how to fix it?

re: Beginning Game Development: Part III - DirectX II

Ryan — Fri, 31 Aug 2007 21:14:03 GMT

Anyone have any idea how to print the individual frames on this thing. How do I print this stuff so I don't waste too much paper? "Print frames individually" doesn't seem to work on this; Is anyone using firefox to print this stuff out correctly?

re: Beginning Game Development: Part III - DirectX II

cocoflop — Tue, 04 Sep 2007 15:13:10 GMT

"1 - We always work with gerenic units? (If so,we must always know the scale we are dealing with)"

It's true that DirectX uses generic units as you mentioned. On the other hand, think of the functionality that some 3D modeling software require to display a 3D world, a choice between DirectX or OpenGL as a rendered device is used. There is a compatibility/simplicity issue here, it seems quite logical for: 1 max unit = 1 dx/gl unit.

"2 - I tried to modify the crosshair object. Ok I did it, but I'm not comfortable with this yet. I think I need a clue on where is the world origin."

The origin of all the 3D world is located at [0,0,0]. Each vertex of our crosshair has it's own position so it can form a nice shape (Local position). After we formed a nice crosshair, all that left to do is to find the exact location to place the crosshair, just in-front of the camera (Global position). That means that you construct each 3D piece individually using it's own local dimensions, afterwards simply "throw" this object in the Direct3D world so it can take a global position.

"3 - Where did we define DirectX stage would occupy all the form size? I ask this because I want to know how to create a form (like 800x600) but filled with form controls (Like combos and buttons )".

It's the method this.SetStyle() inside the constructor method. There you can find method's parameter ControlStyles.AllPaintingInWmPaint.

You can give whatever functionality you wish in your Form. That means that you can put a GUI component that deals with drawing and rendering stuff. I am not sure to tell you though, it could be PictureBox but I recommend you to browse the MSDN library that it's fully documented.

I hope that information helped.

I agree with you btw on this great tutorial, I am a DX noob myself, though I have be programming in Blitz3D for many years.

re: Beginning Game Development: Part III - DirectX II

John — Thu, 04 Oct 2007 03:53:20 GMT

I am having the same problem as waco it says that a get or set accessor is expected can some one explain

re: Beginning Game Development: Part III - DirectX II

Ryan — Tue, 23 Oct 2007 21:23:28 GMT

Any idea how we're supposed to read these coordinates?

crossHairs(0).Position = New Vector3(1.0F, -1.0F, zval)

what does the .of stand for? How are these numbers read?

What does the "f' stand for in front of each number? Are these left hand cartesian coordinates?

Drop me a line at tramel_e4196@sbcglobal.net if you know the answers. I've been struggling with this for weeks now.

crossHairs[6].Position = new Vector3 ( -1f, -1f, zval );

re: Beginning Game Development: Part III - DirectX II

Daniel — Mon, 05 Nov 2007 00:36:41 GMT

'F' indicates that the value is of type float.

re: Beginning Game Development: Part III - DirectX II

djhayman — Tue, 06 Nov 2007 12:37:23 GMT

Ryan:

The "f" on the end of a number tells the compiler that it is a floating-point number, not an integer.

The ".0f" is just saying "1.0 as a float".

Likewise, you could say "1.5f" which means "1.5 as a float".

re: Beginning Game Development: Part III - DirectX II

WydOne — Tue, 13 Nov 2007 12:30:00 GMT

At this point you also need a:

using Microsoft.DirectX;

at the beginning of your GameEngine.cs file in order to have the Vertex3 and Matrix classes.

re: Beginning Game Development: Part III - DirectX II

Jon — Wed, 28 Nov 2007 13:28:39 GMT

I was getting the runtime error

An unhandled exception of type 'Microsoft.DirectX.Direct3D.InvalidCallException' occurred in Microsoft.DirectX.Direct3D.dll

So I moved the line

device.VertexFormat=CustomVertecPositionColored.Format

directly after the device.BeginScene() and before device.DrawUserPrimitives

this sorted it out for me

re: Beginning Game Development: Part III - DirectX II

Peter Keating — Wed, 28 Nov 2007 16:28:36 GMT

To fix the exception mentioned by many people you must move this line:

_device.VertexFormat = CustomVertex.PositionColored.Format;

above these lines:

_device.DrawUserPrimitives(PrimitiveType.LineStrip, 6, CreateCrossHairVertexArrayTop());

_device.DrawUserPrimitives(PrimitiveType.LineStrip, 6, CreateCrossHairVertexArrayBottom());

Hope this helps :)

re: Beginning Game Development: Part III - DirectX II

jtrosp — Tue, 11 Dec 2007 09:23:40 GMT

I am new to writing code and this has been a challenging experience so far. In each part, I have had to use both the tutorial and the help comments to work the bugs out of my code. Thanks All!

Due to my experience I will not be able to help others with the code. However, to other newbes you might want to cut and past the tutorial to a word document (and Print). If you notice some of the longer lines of code on the right side get cut off. If you cut and past you will be able to read them.

I hope this helps.

re: Beginning Game Development: Part III - DirectX II

prem — Tue, 15 Jan 2008 13:41:26 GMT

Everything works fine until I add the following line of code:

device.DrawUserPrimitives ( PrimitiveType.LineStrip, 6,

CreateCrossHairVertexArrayTop ( ) );

device.DrawUserPrimitives ( PrimitiveType.LineStrip, 6,

CreateCrossHairVertexArrayBottom ( ) );

re: Beginning Game Development: Part III - DirectX II

janaka — Thu, 17 Jan 2008 22:30:28 GMT

I have the same problem as prem; the error messages I get is :

The name 'CreateCrossHairVertexArrayTop' does not exist in the current context

The name 'CreateCrossHairVertexArrayBottom' does not exist in the current context

Those lines of code appear right after:

device.BeginScene();

thanks

re: Beginning Game Development: Part III - DirectX II

akaim — Sat, 19 Jan 2008 23:24:50 GMT

To fix the exception mentioned by many people you must move this line:

_device.VertexFormat = CustomVertex.PositionColored.Format;

above these lines:

_device.DrawUserPrimitives(PrimitiveType.LineStrip, 6, CreateCrossHairVertexArrayTop());

_device.DrawUserPrimitives(PrimitiveType.LineStrip, 6, CreateCrossHairVertexArrayBottom());

Hope this helps :)

=================================

it doesn#t help at all :/

re: Beginning Game Development: Part III - DirectX II

Link_Dead — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 07:22:27 GMT

ok to fix the "InvalidCallException" in the OnPaint code block, make SURE these statements are in this EXACT order...

protected override void OnPaint(PaintEventArgs e)

{

deltaTime = FrameworkTimer.GetElapsedTime();

this.Text = string.Format("Framerate: {0}", FrameRate.CalculateFrameRate());

this.Invalidate();

FrameworkTimer.Start();

device.Clear(ClearFlags.Target, Color.Black, 1.0f, 0);

device.Transform.View = Matrix.LookAtLH(new Vector3(0, 0, 5f), new Vector3(0, 0, 0), new Vector3(0, 1, 0));

device.Transform.Projection = Matrix.PerspectiveFovLH((float)Math.PI / 4, this.Width / this.Height, 1.0f, 100.0f);

device.RenderState.Lighting = false;

device.RenderState.CullMode = Cull.None;

device.BeginScene();

device.VertexFormat = CustomVertex.PositionColored.Format;

device.DrawUserPrimitives(PrimitiveType.LineStrip, 6, CreateCrossHairVertexArrayTop());

device.DrawUserPrimitives(PrimitiveType.LineStrip, 6, CreateCrossHairVertexArrayBottom());

device.EndScene();

device.Present();

this.Size = new Size(800, 600);

}

c/p (copy/paste) if you want, mine were in the wrong order giving me an error. If this does NOT help, email the person, he DOES read his email ;)

Beginning Game Development: Part II - Introduction to DirectX

Coding4Fun — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 23:36:23 GMT

This is Part 2 of an introductory series on game programming using the Microsoft .NET Framework and managed

Coding4Fun : Beginning Game Development: Part V - Adding Units

Coding4Fun : Beginning Game Development: Part V - Adding Units — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 23:37:54 GMT

PingBack from http://blogs.msdn.com/coding4fun/archive/2006/11/03/941679.aspx

Coding4Fun : Beginning Game Development: Part I ??? Introduction

Coding4Fun : Beginning Game Development: Part I ??? Introduction — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 23:40:25 GMT

PingBack from http://blogs.msdn.com/coding4fun/archive/2006/11/02/938703.aspx

Coding4Fun : Beginning Game Development: Part IV - DirectInput

Coding4Fun : Beginning Game Development: Part IV - DirectInput — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 23:41:24 GMT

PingBack from http://blogs.msdn.com/coding4fun/archive/2006/11/03/940908.aspx

Coding4Fun : Beginning Game Development: Part VIII - DirectSound

Coding4Fun : Beginning Game Development: Part VIII - DirectSound — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 23:55:30 GMT

PingBack from http://blogs.msdn.com/coding4fun/archive/2006/11/06/999786.aspx

re: Beginning Game Development: Part III - DirectX II

biswarup ghosh — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 04:44:34 GMT

all prob.s related to error in the foll:

device.DrawUserPrimitives ( PrimitiveType.LineStrip, 6, CreateCrossHairVertexArrayTop ( ) );

device.DrawUserPrimitives ( PrimitiveType.LineStrip, 6, CreateCrossHairVertexArrayBottom ( ) );

gets resolved ONCE YOU DOWNLOAD THE SRC-CODE GIVEN ON THIS PAGE.

on analysing, u'll find out that PROBLEM LIES IN THE POSITION OF THE FOLL:

device.EndScene ( );

device.Present ( );

THESE 2 LINES HAVE TO BE PLACED AFTER THE

device.DrawUserPrimitives(..) LINES OF CODE.

ITS MENTIONED TO INCLUDE EndScene IMMEDIATELY BEFORE THE PresentScene

BUT NO-WHERE IS IT STATED THAT EndScene IS TO BE HAD AFTER DrawUserPrimitives.

HAVING SAID THAT, ITS REALLY A TUTORIAL IN WHICH MOST OF THE THINGS HAVE BEEN STATED EXCEPTIONALLY WELL AND CLEARLY.

AND FURTHERMORE, THE SRC-CODE IS ALWYS ACCOMPANYING THE TUTORIAL SO THAT IF ANYTHING GOES WRONG, THEN SRC-CODE MAY COME TO RESCUE!!!

AND AFTER ALL, THE AUTHOR TOO'S A HUMAN-BEING. A TRIVIAL LITTLE SOMETHING LEFT OUT CAN BE EASILY MANAGED ONCE U FOLLOW THE SOURCE-CODE.

I'D GIVE THUMBS UP TO ALL THE AUTHOR'S EFFORTS.

re: Beginning Game Development: Part III - DirectX II

Edward — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 22:14:30 GMT

Thank you to all who contributed in this tutorial. It still is helping people out there.

re: Beginning Game Development: Part III - DirectX II

Sharad — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 09:05:22 GMT

Yes...indeed - extremely helpful and a superb explanation of how DirectX works :-) Many many thanks!!

re: Beginning Game Development: Part III - DirectX II

Brian — Sun, 07 Jun 2009 05:11:42 GMT

if you get a mmds loader lock problem thing, go to the debug menu item in your ide, click on Exceptions, go to the managed Debugging assistant and Uncheck the Loader Lock flag

re: Beginning Game Development: Part III - DirectX II

Dave — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 00:44:50 GMT

Well, I pretty much worked all the bugs out within 10-20 minutes and I can even see the rotating cube but this is a real challanging tutorial because of all the co-ordinates being used to draw the shapes. Very brain busting. Is there an easy way to plot out how you are going to create a shape or object and mark out the co-ordinates. For the triangle, the first point is the top part of the triangle, the second is the right side, and the third is the left. Had to play with the numbers just to figure that out.