DirectX Essentials LiveLessons Access Code Card

5+ Hours of Video Instruction

 

Real-time graphics programming is often considered a dark art, full of complex mathematics and esoteric tools. Even experienced programmers can find the material difficult to absorb. Furthermore, the rapid pace of advancement makes modern graphics programming a moving target, and establishing a foothold can be difficult. Quality educational material is a necessity for newcomers to the field.

DirectX Essentials LiveLessons introduces viewers to graphics programming through a moderately deep-dive into shader programming and the Direct3D API. Dr. Paul Varcholik guides viewers with a practical, hands-on approach to modern DirectX application development. While these videos are geared towards programmers, no prior knowledge of graphics programming or 3D math is required. The lessons begin with “Hello, World!” style rendering (drawing a single point and triangle) and extend into introductory lighting models including ambient and diffuse lighting, specular highlights, point lights, and spotlights. The videos also cover texture mapping, environment mapping, normal mapping, and color blending and introduce viewers to 3D math in a straight-forward, stress-free fashion.

 

About the Author

Dr. Paul Varcholik is a twenty-year veteran of the software development industry and has spent the past ten years writing video games. He was a lead software engineer at Electronic Arts working on titles including Madden NFL Football and Superman Returns. He is currently a programming instructor at the Florida Interactive Entertainment Academy (FIEA)—a graduate degree program in game development at the University of Central Florida. Paul is also the author of Real-Time 3D Rendering with DirectX and HLSL: A Practical Guide to Graphics Programming.

 

Skill Level



All Levels

What You Will Learn



DirectX 11 API essentials
How to write shaders using High Level Shading Language (HLSL)
The 3D mathematics behind 3D graphics
How to load and render 3D models
Mapping textures to 3D objects
Ambient and diffuse lighting, specular highlights, point lights, and spotlights
Environment mapping, fog, normal mapping, and color blending
Survey additional topics in modern rendering, including post processing, shadow mapping, skeletal animation, geometry and tessellation shaders, deferred rendering, global illumination, and compute shaders

Who Should Take This Course



Developers looking for a practical introduction to 3D rendering and modern Direct3D

Course Requirements



Familiarity with the C++ programming language

Table of Contents

Lesson 1: Introducing DirectX
Lesson 1 walks viewers through creating their first DirectX application. It begins with a discussion of project setup, library dependencies, and a C++ rendering framework to support application development. In this lesson, viewers write their first HLSL shaders and render simple geometry to the screen. The lesson concludes with a survey of the Direct3D graphics pipeline.

Lesson 2: Understanding 3D Math
Lesson 2 introduces viewers to the mathematics behind 3D graphics. The material is presented in a straight-forward, practical manner intended to reduce math anxiety. The lesson covers vectors, matrices, transformations, and the various coordinate systems encountered in 3D graphics.

Lesson 3: Providing Shader Input
Lesson 3 extends the work from Lesson 1 and applies the mathematics learned in Lesson 2 through a number of hands-on demonstrations. In particular, viewers learn about Direct3D buffers, providing input to HLSL shaders, and passing data between shader stages. Additionally, the lesson covers loading and rendering 3D models.

Lesson 4: Mapping Textures to 3D Objects
Lesson 4 covers loading textures and sampling them within HLSL shaders. The lesson also discusses texture addressing modes useful, for example, for tiling a texture across large geometry. The lesson ends with a discussion of texture filtering modes used to improve the visual quality of textured objects.

Lesson 5: Lighting 3D Objects
Lesson 5 introduces viewers to a number of lighting models including ambient and diffuse lighting, specular highlights, point lights, and spotlights. Throughout the lesson, viewers extend their knowledge of HLSL and the Direct3D API.

Lesson 6: Discovering Additional Rendering Techniques
In this final lesson, viewers implement more advanced rendering techniques, including environment mapping, fog, normal mapping, and color blending. The lesson concludes with a survey of post processing, shadow mapping, skeletal animation, geometry and tessellation shaders, deferred shading, global illumination, and compute shaders.

About LiveLessons Video Training

LiveLessons Video Training series publishes hundreds of hands-on, expert-led video tutorials covering a wide selection of technology topics designed to teach you the skills you need to succeed. This professional and personal technology video series features world-leading author instructors published by your trusted technology brands: Addison-Wesley, Cisco Press, IBM Press, Pearson IT Certification, Prentice Hall, Sams, and Que. Topics include: IT Certification, Programming, Web Development, Mobile Development, Home and Office Technologies, Business and Management, and more. View all LiveLessons on InformIT at: http://www.informit.com/livelessons