Beginning Game Development: Part IV - DirectInput

re: Beginning Game Development: Part IV - DirectInput

directNoob — Tue, 01 May 2007 16:53:21 GMT

I am new to directX and as such I have the February 2007 SDK.

TextureLoader is now deprecated and i was wondering if you could post and alternative for loading textures from bitmaps. I have looked all over and cant get this to work.

re: Beginning Game Development: Part IV - DirectInput

Carl — Wed, 23 May 2007 22:24:16 GMT

I was going along fine,I managed part 3.I don't know how you expect anyone learning to program to be able to create all those classes,write reams of code and correctly edit part 3 to fit part 4.I'ts so typical of tutorials.They start of simple and rapidly become too complicated.There's no other comments on part 4 because nobody's done it.The only people who could do it are proffesional developers,but why would they bother.I was enjoying this tutorial on Direct X and i'm quite dissapointed it's turned out like this.

re: Beginning Game Development: Part IV - DirectInput

Foxman13 — Thu, 31 May 2007 04:56:50 GMT

You can download the source code for the project at the top of the page. All you have to do is model your code after that.

re: Beginning Game Development: Part IV - DirectInput

Bobby — Fri, 01 Jun 2007 14:25:59 GMT

I agree with Carl. I not even can do the changes from the old article to this. :/

re: Beginning Game Development: Part IV - DirectInput

DaveS — Sat, 02 Jun 2007 22:32:30 GMT

Got to agree with Carl here. Just had to download the new project as it was impossible to follow the modifications.

Looking through the new code it all makes sense, but its not really "learnt" as I'm not doing it.

re: Beginning Game Development: Part IV - DirectInput

JJ — Tue, 05 Jun 2007 00:02:01 GMT

i agree...i was also following it very fine but got into this problem u explained and now i can no longer follow. i must say that this series of tutorials is damn good, but when they take big jumps then its hard to keep up...i hope they consider it.

re: Beginning Game Development: Part IV - DirectInput

JJ — Tue, 05 Jun 2007 00:11:51 GMT

forgot to say that of course you can play with the code that you can download for the tutorials

re: Beginning Game Development: Part IV - DirectInput

Gareth — Sun, 10 Jun 2007 13:41:03 GMT

True I stopped programming by this part (can only do so much in a day!) and I'm downloading the examples at the top of the page and running them...not much point typing out the code in this page in my own project (it won't copy properly when I cut & paste en masse which is annoying) yet I can still understand what the author is going on about. This has some very useful foundations for a fully fledged 3D game - not a bad effort for a tutorial series. My only expereince with 3D engine guides is a cryptic 1000-page text book and broken examples on the provided CD - in comparison this is brilliant!

re: Beginning Game Development: Part IV - DirectInput

LeoSieben — Tue, 12 Jun 2007 10:22:09 GMT

Yes, the articles have jumped vastly ahead. It is my hope to fill in the gap. I'm a professional developer and would personally hate to see anyone get discouraged because of the sudden learning curve. More to come...

re: Beginning Game Development: Part IV - DirectInput

Ahmad — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 00:32:38 GMT

Man you are doing a really great job here,but this article is way too advanced,you are trying to teach DirectX noobs to develop a game so don't get into the advanced stuff now,i didn't even continue 1/4 of this article,i tried but i don't understand many things.

and thanks again for the articles

re: Beginning Game Development: Part IV - DirectInput

Dustin — Thu, 14 Jun 2007 12:36:11 GMT

Not true Carl, it's simple, just follow what was written for whatever language you are using. To aid, the code is even given at the top you can use to orient how your code is looking to his.

Besides, this isn't an introductory tutorial on programming, you should have a very good grasp on basic programming before you go into more advanced tutorials such as DirectX, managing classes is a week1 topic in any intro to x development class, and that's all he's doing at the beginning.

Also, this is the method that is generally used, you write the base engine first, then you go in and nitpick within that your more specific events, then the UI or whatnot, and it has to slide within certain parts of the engine code that was already written. And reams of code? This is actually very little code compared to what I've seen written for the same program. =\

re: Beginning Game Development: Part IV - DirectInput

James — Sun, 17 Jun 2007 17:38:14 GMT

I'm afraid he's right. The only way I got past this was by downloading the code and looking over it for a while to figure out what everything did.

re: Beginning Game Development: Part IV - DirectInput

Adam — Thu, 21 Jun 2007 05:12:16 GMT

Yeah, this part kinda lost me right from the start. For one thing I had problems following what was changed in the code cleanup part. I have downloaded the source code to look at to see whats happened but it going to take me a long time to track everything. This part could have been much better written.

The code means nothing because it doesn't tell you where each bit should go. Its all out of context.

re: Beginning Game Development: Part IV - DirectInput

Ragnar — Sun, 24 Jun 2007 18:08:33 GMT

I don't think your supposed to update the code from earlier stages by following the tutorial. Download the code for each lesson at the top of the page and follow along looking at the changes.

re: Beginning Game Development: Part IV - DirectInput

Silvio Caetano — Thu, 28 Jun 2007 17:48:27 GMT

That is true.

I have program experience (Client/Server applications) with another language and I'm here trying to learn how to Make a games in C# in one Tutorial that is named "Beginning Game Developer".

Of course, I can search the methods that you used in example and try to see what do you did in that classes, but you could explain better your changes because it was a large step for someone who are learning.

re: Beginning Game Development: Part IV - DirectInput

Jesse — Tue, 03 Jul 2007 13:17:05 GMT

Im the same mind of Carl, the 3 part was still easy and understanable, but this 4 part goes litle bit too hard. And i even have litle bit experiens in programing but still i dont understand this, where should put all thoose statements?

re: Beginning Game Development: Part IV - DirectInput

Mike G — Wed, 04 Jul 2007 13:06:31 GMT

Agree with Carl. All was good in Part 3, then comes part 4! Had to check and make sure I hadn't missed a section (I hadn't). Got too complex too quickly

re: Beginning Game Development: Part IV - DirectInput

Nick — Thu, 05 Jul 2007 22:58:03 GMT

Ok, I really agree with Carl. I was getting everything up to this point but then you completely lost me. You start giving lines of code with no indication of where to put it.

re: Beginning Game Development: Part IV - DirectInput

Dan — Fri, 06 Jul 2007 20:20:42 GMT

i agree with carl, this is stupid. up untill now i was going fine. then you just expect someone who is just learning to manage to create all of those classes and all that code!

re: Beginning Game Development: Part IV - DirectInput

Anonymous — Thu, 12 Jul 2007 09:41:42 GMT

Just wanted to say great tutorial. It gave me exactly the info I needed (only using Direct Input). Got gamepad input up and going in no time.

re: Beginning Game Development: Part IV - DirectInput

Anthony — Fri, 13 Jul 2007 07:50:30 GMT

I agree with Carl. The changes from version 3 to version 4 are mentioned as if they are simple changes, but completely altering the structure of the code mandates more specific explanation.

Specifically, the new 'camera' class refactoring could use quite a bit more explanation.

re: Beginning Game Development: Part IV - DirectInput

Paul — Fri, 13 Jul 2007 19:40:04 GMT

Derek,

I would have to agree with Carl. This tutorial was going along nicely, and I was able to easily follow everything very well. Once I went to Part IV you lost me with all of your changes.

"In addition to these general housekeeping changes I added some code that I needed to make the DirectInput portion more interesting." Nowhere do you note these changes, what changes you made, you just said you did it.

I have over eight years of programming experience in several languages and even I couldn't follow this section after Part III, so I feel bad for any beginner attempting to learn game programming with this tutorial.

If you make a tutorial for beginners (even though your difficulty is "intermediate," your title proclaims "Beginning Game Development") you need to be more direct and show what needs to be done, not just state it and expect someone to follow.

If it was best to seperate several functions into classes/files, you should have not only explained that part in the previous lessons, but had the audience program that way since the beginning.

You've lost my interest in continuing this tutorial, I believe several other people felt the same after reaching this section. What a waste of about an hour of my life that I can't get back.

I also don't even want to hear about downloading your files to coordinate with your tutorial, that isn't how a tutorial works. A tutorial teaches you step-by-step to reach a specific goal, not tutor you half way then give you the answers so you can reach that goal. That has no learning value.

re: Beginning Game Development: Part IV - DirectInput

Steve — Fri, 20 Jul 2007 05:05:31 GMT

I agree, I was following along nicely, and even was understanding what was going on. I have done my fair share of programming, and I do it professionally, however; the just basically scrap parts 1-3 and "redo" them is just plainly retarded. This act by the author is the main reason that game companies never hit their expeted time goals.... Is that the real point of this tutorial? To teach advanced developers how to program like the gaming industry, late and over budget????

re: Beginning Game Development: Part IV - DirectInput

TulipVorlax — Fri, 20 Jul 2007 11:24:51 GMT

I agree with last comment because "Drawing the actual skybox uses the techniques we have discussed in the previous articles" is not true. We havent covered loading textures yet.

See ya.

re: Beginning Game Development: Part IV - DirectInput

Dou — Fri, 20 Jul 2007 12:42:02 GMT

I still like this tutorial, although it's a little complicated now. The difficulty is Intermediate,so it's not suitable for beginners.

I'm a beginer, but I think this tutorial can help me to reach intermediate level.

re: Beginning Game Development: Part IV - DirectInput

Tass — Fri, 20 Jul 2007 17:07:56 GMT

I can agreee with Carl's comments.

Though I did make it through the code cleanup changes up to "In addition to these general housekeeping changes I added some code that I needed to make the DirectInput portion more interesting." at which point I throw the toys out of the pram :).

It would have been nice to have the a copy of the code with the "general housekeeping" changes made but prior to any additions made in this section of the tutorial. Making it possible to follow the changes through the tutorial and have the fun of creating some working code rather than having the completed tutorial presented on a plate.

re: Beginning Game Development: Part IV - DirectInput

Toby — Tue, 31 Jul 2007 03:13:19 GMT

I would have to agree with Carl, I was happily going through the tutorials, got through number 3 them BAM, I have no idea what's going on. Saying I was disapointed would be an understatement.

re: Beginning Game Development: Part IV - DirectInput

Chen — Wed, 01 Aug 2007 13:31:23 GMT

I agree with Carl. There's such a gap between part 3 and part 4. So many new methods is involved here. I think it's better to seperate this chapter and describe in detail.

I appreciate your articles, but only for Part 1-3. I was baffled here, as a newbie.

re: Beginning Game Development: Part IV - DirectInput

Tony — Wed, 01 Aug 2007 22:06:10 GMT

Carl, game programming is not an easy subject, and most people who attempt to learn it with out some key programming background will find it difficult. The author of the artical clearly labeled the difficulty as Intermediate, and not beginner. I suggest you spend some time with VB or C#. get to know OOP. Spend some time with the system.IO class. Learn about GDI+, and the drawing classes. Work with a small database project. Once you have some good practice with .Net this tutorial won't be so bad.

re: Beginning Game Development: Part IV - DirectInput

Marc — Thu, 02 Aug 2007 14:46:55 GMT

Carl, with respect, this is *not* a tutorial for anyone that is learning to program.

re: Beginning Game Development: Part IV - DirectInput

Marcos - Brasil — Fri, 03 Aug 2007 01:19:33 GMT

I'm confusing, I don't know which class was created or edited. There is a difficulty to identify the portion of code explained, my suggestion is write the class.method and position of the codes. this tutorial is very interesting, but sin to requires special knowledge. I think that should get organized better.

I hope than you understand me.

Obrigado.

re: Beginning Game Development: Part IV - DirectInput

Mustafa — Fri, 03 Aug 2007 05:14:13 GMT

Carl, you can download the source codes from the top of this page

re: Beginning Game Development: Part IV - DirectInput

chris — Mon, 06 Aug 2007 11:38:00 GMT

jepp, it's just as carl said...

re: Beginning Game Development: Part IV - DirectInput

mali — Tue, 14 Aug 2007 01:56:47 GMT

Nice tutorial for fast solutions.

Not looking it like handbook.

Good job!

re: Beginning Game Development: Part IV - DirectInput

Goki — Tue, 14 Aug 2007 09:10:15 GMT

It would be better if the code is commented... at least a brief explanation of what each method does and why.

re: Beginning Game Development: Part IV - DirectInput

Matt — Thu, 16 Aug 2007 18:14:31 GMT

I have to agree with the above comment, this tutorial series completely changed changed pace and format with this tutorial. I'm slowly managing to understand this tutorial by comparing my code up against the downloaded one, but I don't think that this is the way that someone should be learning something.

re: Beginning Game Development: Part IV - DirectInput

Mike — Mon, 20 Aug 2007 20:00:09 GMT

Sadly, this is where I gave up. Parts 1, 2 and 3 I had managed to do by following the instructions, only compiling the provided code to check mine did the same. But the refactoring etc. made at the start of this part were beyond my abilities to deduce for myself. I tried, but, for example, I didn't know that in order to move the timer to "HiResTimer" I had to declare

[System.Security.SuppressUnmanagedCodeSecurity]

[DllImport ( "kernel32" )]

public static extern bool QueryPerformanceFrequency ( ref long PerformanceFrequency );

You should provide code from the /start/ of the part, after your refactoring, and various alterations, but /before/ doing the changes talked through in the tutorial. That way people will still be able to work through each section from the code provided.

Providing the code as it should be at the /end/ of the tutorial is less useful, as it means people can't work along with the instructions, which is presumably the point.

re: Beginning Game Development: Part IV - DirectInput

Dinah — Wed, 22 Aug 2007 17:35:11 GMT

I hate to dignify posts such as Carl's but I must regrettably agree. I am a professional dev'er. I first found this series quite a while ago and tried to do it. However, I found the errors impossible to get around. I'm a much better dev'er than I used to be and I've recently decided to dabble in game programming.

In my most recent attempt at this series, trying to make the transition between parts 3 => 4 has been particularly troublesome. At the very least, the download code for 4 should show where you should be at the beginning of 4 vs the end. Not just the end result. Way too much is left out. Especially for novices.

To those struggling with these: keep trying. Although some of the omissions here are frustrating, there's a lot of good info here. Try if you can.

re: Beginning Game Development: Part IV - DirectInput

Salty — Thu, 23 Aug 2007 10:14:26 GMT

I agree with Carl. We got along without all those extra classes before, why do we need them now? Especially for a tutorial. We can do that on our own once we understand how to use this stuff and wish to apply it to something that would be more suitable for our own creations. You may be demonstrating proper coding methods, but this is an intermediate tutorial designed for those already familiar with cleaning up code. You should've had the tutorial already planned.

re: Beginning Game Development: Part IV - DirectInput

Seb — Sat, 25 Aug 2007 14:16:50 GMT

I have to agree with Carl here, big jump without explaining much for some novices like me...

re: Beginning Game Development: Part IV - DirectInput

Kurtis — Sun, 26 Aug 2007 00:40:41 GMT

Carl is right... this is ridiculous. You made way to massive of a jump from part 3 to part 4. I am totally lost. FYI, I am not a beginning programmer. I am quite competent with c# and I am a full-time web developer. I am, however, very new to DirectX. You can't expect anyone to follow along and then when they get to part 4, you say, "Oh, by the way, I made this massive yet vague list of changes from part 3 to part 4." You could at least include a base project file for part 4 and then the completed project file for part 4. Tutorial was going great, but you royally screwed up.

re: Beginning Game Development: Part IV - DirectInput

Jack — Sun, 26 Aug 2007 07:10:02 GMT

I agree with Carl and I too am disappointed. The tutorial started off explaining everything, where the code goes, but what happened here?

It begins with

"I refactored all code that deals with the device in the OnPaint method of the GameEngine class into the Render method. "

What do you mean by 'refactoring'? What is the 'Render method'?

And you no longer tell us where the code goes.

You did a good job so far, please edit this to be like the previous parts.

re: Beginning Game Development: Part IV - DirectInput

Laurens — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 12:42:31 GMT

I agree with Carl.

Matrix worldMatrix = Matrix.Identity;Matrix viewMatrix = cam.View;viewMatrix.M41 = 0.0f;viewMatrix.M42 = 0.0f;viewMatrix.M43 = 0.0f;_device.Transform.View = viewMatrix;_device.Transform.World = worldMatrix;

Where does cam suddenly come from?

re: Beginning Game Development: Part IV - DirectInput

Fred — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 19:36:52 GMT

Well in my case some keys are not responding (WSAD) and on start I have a message :

A first chance exception of type 'Microsoft.DirectX.DirectInput.AcquiredException' occurred in Microsoft.DirectX.DirectInput.dll

To Carl : I believe you have to follow the curse here and download the project. Then you have to learn also about C#.

re: Beginning Game Development: Part IV - DirectInput

KTiger — Thu, 30 Aug 2007 22:48:28 GMT

Aren't the normals on _backFaceVertex[0].Nz supposed to go the other way?

Please look at your SkyBox.cs and you will find this:

_frontFaceVertex[0].Nz = -1.0f;

_backFaceVertex[0].Nz = -1.0f;

And I have to agree with Carl, this is an example of how NOT to write a tutorial (of any kind).

re: Beginning Game Development: Part IV - DirectInput

Ceri — Sat, 01 Sep 2007 18:46:05 GMT

True. How are you supposed to learn any of this stuff if you end up just copy+pasting code from the tutor's download into your own code? There are so many revisions from the preceding lesson to this one that it was an exercise in futility hand coding from the sparse instructions supplied, which is a shame.

Also some of the changes (like code movements from one class to another) mentioned at the start of this tutorial don't even marry up to code contained in the classes -it's only from checking the source download for this tutorial that you can see where the discrepancies lie.

Sadly i can't afford to buy a second monitor and gfx card for my computer so i can check and compare the code supplied in the download with my own AND follow this tutorial in a web browser =/

Hopefully Part V won't be as hard to follow as this....

re: Beginning Game Development: Part IV - DirectInput

keisal — Sun, 02 Sep 2007 23:52:28 GMT

You lost me on this article. I thought the first three articles were great but all the "housekeeping" has me lost in this one. You don't explain how you made any of the changes that you made. I tried figuring it out from the sample code but it doesn't look remotely similar to the code from before. I hope that you add instructions on how to make these changes in the future. After all, if this stuff is so simple that you didn't think we would need help with it then it should be simple to add.

re: Beginning Game Development: Part IV - DirectInput

Scott — Tue, 04 Sep 2007 14:48:49 GMT

I have to agree with Carl, I was really enjoying the tutorial up until this lesson. I downloaded the source and I was completely lost at what you had done. Sorry if it sounds like I'm moaning at you Derek, thanks for the effort you put into this.

re: Beginning Game Development: Part IV - DirectInput

Al — Sat, 08 Sep 2007 22:59:52 GMT

I was doing fine until chapter 3. The code for chapter 4 was rewriten so I had to download. I know the code is organized but this not relevant, important is understand the concept here. So my sugestion is to keep the code simple. Also why the member variables are declared at the end of the class, since everybody does at the top. Open any OO book and you will see the member at the top of the class. Also why the if's are tests backward like if (0 = var1). Same thing is there any reason for that, other that beign different?

re: Beginning Game Development: Part IV - DirectInput

David Powell — Wed, 12 Sep 2007 01:00:05 GMT

Whew! That was a lot to take in. I slightly agree with Carl that the quality of the tutorials are decreasing as the series goes along. But at the same time I have to admit that as I took the time and look over the code carefully and experiement a little I am still not lost.

I'd like to see these articles again after a few editors and experts got their hands on them. They were very easy to follow up until this one. Keep up the good work!

One question I have is when you write to the Console where am I supposed to view that output? Is there a console output window in VS that I am missing?

re: Beginning Game Development: Part IV - DirectInput

Patrick — Mon, 17 Sep 2007 22:48:34 GMT

I agree that the implicit rewriting of code was overly complex, and that I was hard pressed to carry it out. Finally, I gave in and downloaded the files from the link at the top of the page, and spent my time "glueing" the new files into my existing code. I would encourage anyone else with this issue to do the same, it saves time.

re: Beginning Game Development: Part IV - DirectInput

Anonymousdude — Tue, 25 Sep 2007 20:21:16 GMT

I found this part difficult to follow as well like Carl mentioned.

re: Beginning Game Development: Part IV - DirectInput

jeffery carlson — Thu, 27 Sep 2007 16:30:59 GMT

i've seen this code before why make it look harder then it is. comment the code more here i read about it in a older book its not hard you just make it seem hard but the code is great i like it it helps me convert me visual basic 6.0 code to vb.net 2005 express edition better.

re: Beginning Game Development: Part IV - DirectInput

Justin — Sun, 30 Sep 2007 06:06:32 GMT

I agree with Carl. I think this part instantly became complicated, mainly because it didnt tell begineers where to enter the code. I am also disappointed and maybe this part and the rest should be redone.

re: Beginning Game Development: Part IV - DirectInput

John — Thu, 04 Oct 2007 05:02:07 GMT

I am a little confused about the code cleanup perhaps you could explain how to do that more in depth

re: Beginning Game Development: Part IV - DirectInput

John — Thu, 04 Oct 2007 05:02:09 GMT

I am a little confused about the code cleanup perhaps you could explain how to do that more in depth

re: Beginning Game Development: Part IV - DirectInput

acolyte — Thu, 11 Oct 2007 01:01:06 GMT

I had to make up stuff as I went along to make this tutorial work. Iam glad the creator of this tutorial is not my professor or I'd be screwed.

re: Beginning Game Development: Part IV - DirectInput

Rob — Mon, 29 Oct 2007 08:59:22 GMT

I actually am a professional programmer and I didn't find the jump at the beginning of this section that helpful. I refactored the code no probs... However, the creation of classes from previous material was a stretch. When I encountered this jump, I just went to the end of this tutorial and started flipping the code. What might be nice is a before and after of the code in each section if you are going to optimize and refactor. All in all, still a pretty good tutorial though.

re: Beginning Game Development: Part IV - DirectInput

Johan — Wed, 31 Oct 2007 19:44:26 GMT

Must agree with Carl, I wrote all code myself and when you start changing alot of stuff I can't follow along anymore. Else it was a good tutorial, but I am giving it up now.

re: Beginning Game Development: Part IV - DirectInput

Jeremy — Sun, 11 Nov 2007 01:31:20 GMT

I have been playing around with directX a lil while now.. And honestly, this material has taught me more about the whole framework in general. And I didn't realize till now how trigonometry played such a big role in all of this.

In response to Carl, personally, im quite the NOOB, you just need to be willing to experiment with everything (change numbers, delete Classes, try to crash the system :| if that helps.)

For me, the Matrices were confusing but after a look through the sources provided things start to make sense. It's just mental debugging. Develop some logical sense... Run through the provided source codes in your head. It'll eventually make sense if you get a little confused. Don't be a loser like Johan :P

In closing, I agree with Rob .. All in all, GOod Tutorial. . ;)

re: Beginning Game Development: Part IV - DirectInput

Mike — Sat, 17 Nov 2007 16:56:43 GMT

Dude... I wanna have your babies! I dont know what all these bad comments are about. These tutorials are amazing!! Just made my first little game moving a shuttlecraft around in space, thats right... im a loser, but i bloody love it!

re: Beginning Game Development: Part IV - DirectInput

Jerry aka 10pups — Mon, 03 Dec 2007 22:55:35 GMT

Does anybody just sit down and type out an app or game and poof it works?

I am just a beginner but I understand this.

Summary

Once again I find myself running out of space before being able to cover all of the items I wanted, but I hope there is enough stuff here to let you experiment on your own. We are going to continuously refine the game in each iteration rather than trying to get it perfect the first time; that is the sprit of Agile development.

re: Beginning Game Development: Part IV - DirectInput

Verry LongBottom — Thu, 27 Dec 2007 21:24:03 GMT

it builds fine but when i try to debug it says line 273 in skybox textureloader is invaliddataexception

re: Beginning Game Development: Part IV - DirectInput

Jonas — Wed, 09 Jan 2008 16:17:43 GMT

The tutorial it self is very good and i really appreciate it. The problem is when a lot of stuff is taked for granted, because in the 3 first parts everything was "do this and that because". Now suddenly we have new classes that merely is introduced at all. And the code is of course not that easy to interpret at novice level. But i decided to just copy the skybox and do the other work "manually". I guess you learn better if everything had been explained but still a good tutorial so far!

Thanks

Jonas

re: Beginning Game Development: Part IV - DirectInput

Jake — Sat, 12 Jan 2008 23:03:37 GMT

I get an error in the public Device device; line it says:

'Device' is an ambiguous reference between 'Microsoft.DirectX.Direct3D.Device' and 'Microsoft.DirectX.DirectInput.Device' (CS0104)

Why is the 'Device' class in both these namespaces?

re: Beginning Game Development: Part IV - DirectInput

akaim — Sun, 20 Jan 2008 00:37:32 GMT

I can't download the source file nor write it myself. Can someone help me (have the copy)?

re: Beginning Game Development: Part IV - DirectInput

Coding4Fun — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 17:33:31 GMT

@akaim: Download links are at the top of the page, I just tried them and they work.

Beginning Game Development: Part II - Introduction to DirectX

Coding4Fun — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 23:31:20 GMT

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

Beginning Game Development: Part I – Introduction

Coding4Fun — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 23:40:27 GMT

This is Part 1 of an introductory series on game programming using the Microsoft .NET Framework and managed

Coding4Fun : Beginning Game Development: Part IV - DirectInput

Coding4Fun : Beginning Game Development: Part IV - DirectInput — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 23:41:26 GMT

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

Coding4Fun : Beginning Game Development: Part VI - Lights, Materials and Terrain

Coding4Fun : Beginning Game Development: Part VI - Lights, Materials and Terrain — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 23:47:19 GMT

PingBack from http://blogs.msdn.com/coding4fun/archive/2006/11/09/1044115.aspx

re: Beginning Game Development: Part IV - DirectInput

Sun, 11 Jan 2009 15:29:56 GMT

on my first look at tut4, I also agreed with Carl. It looked very intimidating. But then i thought... what the heck. give it a go. Took me a while, but i managed to get it to work (customising my code from the first three tuts to be the same as tut4).

My advice to you: take ur time and read the code cleanup section slowly and thouroughly. Its not that cryptic as it looks. Dont give up. and try to understand what the code does. not just copy and paste :)

re: Beginning Game Development: Part IV - DirectInput

Edward — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 15:25:24 GMT

I agree with Carl, but the tutorial is quite useful anyways.

I am new to DirectX as most of you and also programming in general. I am trying to follow the series with November2008DirectXSDK which does not support managed environment as before as I discovered. However, it is still possible to follow the tutorial, untill now I had trouble only with timer and I wished to share how I was able to get over it. The code is working just the same as the downloaded one - as some say it is impossible to follow the tutorial in this 4th part without dowloading the code.

Hope it helps:

using System;

using System.Collections.Generic;

using System.Linq;

using System.Text;

//ForStopwatch class add:

using System.Diagnostics;

namespace BattleTank2008

{

class Timer

{

/*"Stopwatch.Frequency" is managed equivalent of unmanaged "QueryPerformanceFrequency"

*"Stopwatch.GetTimestamp ( )" is managed equivalent of unmanaged "QueryPerformanceCounter"

*I hope I was able to apply them correctly

*deltaTime=1000000000d/Stopwatch.Frequency*FrameworkTimer.ElapsedTicks;

*time=1000000000d/Stopwatch.GetTimestamp ( )*FrameworkTimer.ElapsedTicks;

#region Fields

private static bool isTimerStopped;

private static double ticksPerSecond;

private static double stopTime;

private static double lastElapsedTime;

private static double baseTime;

#endregion

static Stopwatch FrameworkTimer = new Stopwatch();

private Timer() { }//No creation

static Timer()

{

isTimerStopped = true;

ticksPerSecond = 0;

stopTime = 0;

lastElapsedTime = 0;

baseTime = 0;

ticksPerSecond = Stopwatch.Frequency;

}

//Returns true if timer stopped

public static bool IsStopped { get { return isTimerStopped; } }

//Advance the timer a tenth of a second

public static void Advance()

{

if (Stopwatch.Frequency <= 0) return;

stopTime += ticksPerSecond / 10;

}

//Get the absolute system time

public static double GetAbsoluteTime()

{

if (Stopwatch.Frequency <= 0) return -1.0;

//Get either the current time or stop time

double time = 0;

if (stopTime != 0) time = stopTime;

else time = 1000000000d / Stopwatch.GetTimestamp() * FrameworkTimer.ElapsedTicks;

return time / ticksPerSecond;

}

//Get the time that elapsed between GetElapsedTime() calls

public static double GetElapsedTime()

{

if (Stopwatch.Frequency <= 0) return -1.0;//Nothing to do

//Get either the current time or stop time

double time = 0;

if (stopTime != 0) time = stopTime;

else time = 1000000000d / Stopwatch.GetTimestamp() * FrameworkTimer.ElapsedTicks;

double elapsedTime = (time - lastElapsedTime) / ticksPerSecond;

lastElapsedTime = time;

return elapsedTime;

}

//Get the current time

public static double GetTime()

{

if (Stopwatch.Frequency <= 0) return -1.0;

//Get either the current time or stop time

double time = 0;

if (stopTime != 0) time = stopTime;

else time = 1000000000d / Stopwatch.GetTimestamp() * FrameworkTimer.ElapsedTicks;

return (time - baseTime) / ticksPerSecond;

}

//Reset the timer

public static void Reset()

{

if (Stopwatch.Frequency <= 0) return;//Nothing to do

//Get either the current time or stop time

double time = 0;

if (stopTime != 0) time = stopTime;

else time = 1000000000d / Stopwatch.GetTimestamp() * FrameworkTimer.ElapsedTicks;

baseTime = time;

lastElapsedTime = time;

stopTime = 0;

isTimerStopped = false;

}

//Start the timer

public static void Start()

{

if (Stopwatch.Frequency <= 0) return;

//Get either the current time or stop time

double time = 0;

if (stopTime != 0) time = stopTime;

else time = 1000000000d / Stopwatch.GetTimestamp() * FrameworkTimer.ElapsedTicks;

if (isTimerStopped) baseTime += time - stopTime;

stopTime = 0;

lastElapsedTime = time;

isTimerStopped = false;

}

//Stop or pause the timer

public static void Stop()

{

if (Stopwatch.Frequency <= 0) return;

if (!isTimerStopped)

{

//Get either the current time or stop time

double time = 0;

if (stopTime != 0) time = stopTime;

else time = 1000000000d / Stopwatch.GetTimestamp() * FrameworkTimer.ElapsedTicks;

stopTime = time;

lastElapsedTime = time;

isTimerStopped = true;

}

re: Beginning Game Development: Part IV - DirectInput

Mike — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 18:30:42 GMT

Carl

I would have to agree with you. Part I, II, and III were good. Good explanations, good explaining what the code does and where it goes and more, But when I hit part four I was thrown way off.

In the download sample there's classes we never made and in the tutorial it never went over any off it. Also it give code snippets but don't explain where it goes.

The tutorial just went down hill fast. I am not new to developing web or desktop apps but I am new to game development and direct X. So I would like a more clearer explanation of how this all works and ties in together.

re: Beginning Game Development: Part IV - DirectInput

Dave — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 22:24:17 GMT

This is actually pretty sweet how it takes those 6 simple images and blends them all together. Pain in the butt with these ambiguous names spaces in the DirectX libraries but I figured it out. Saaaawweeeet! On to part 5! The tutorial is pretty good actually but you definately need some experience with debugging to find the problems. I'm still using the August 2007 SDK with visual studio 2003 and everything seems to work. It's still really complicated to grasp how the actual functions work with all the coordinates that have to be manually added. Might be a good idea to memorize what each of these variables are. Also, what is the point to using an underscore (_) at the beginning of all these objects?

_frontFaceVertex(0).X = -100.0F

_frontFaceVertex(0).Y = 100.0F

_frontFaceVertex(0).Z = 100.0F

_frontFaceVertex(0).Tu = 0.0F

_frontFaceVertex(0).Tv = 0.0F

_frontFaceVertex(0).Nx = 0.0F

_frontFaceVertex(0).Ny = 0.0F

_frontFaceVertex(0).Nz = -1.0F