A Visual Basic 6 code module containing several D3DX8 helper functions. Many D3DX functions do not provide the result of their operation in the return value. This module is simply a wrapper to return the function parameters as return values.

This sample demonstrates how to render text to a surface that can be mapped onto a quad in world space.

Demonstrates: D3DX.CreateRenderToSurface, D3DX.CreateTexture and D3DX.CreateFont.
 

Source code for a minimal well-behaved Direct3D8 application.

Source code for a minimal well-behaved Direct3D8 application, based on the DX 8.1 SDK framework.

Based on the minimal application above, this program computes a chaotic orbit in 2D and displays the orbit as color coded points. The chaotic nature of the orbit makes each painting of the window's client area slightly different, appearing animated. This can be a very simple way to experiment with an animated effect without coding timers. Drag the window size handles and watch.

The gingerbread man fractal enhanced with the DX 8.1 SDK framework. Unlike the 'minimal' style gingerbread man fractal above, this sample provides you with much more control over the rendering using the D3D framework: interactive device switching, a toggle from windowed mode to exclusive mode, start/stop and single-step the animation, FPS counter and other rendering statistics. Most of this comes from simply using the framework's implementation. Extending the framework to provide more GUI elements is as easy as adding some menu items and a command handler.

You can watch the chaotic orbit in the plane as diffuse points or textured points. The points are rendered with alpha blending to allow them to accumulate to a dense image. The standard color chooser dialog is augmented with an alpha channel edit control, letting you edit all the colors used in the sample. (See the COLORSEL.DLL sample below for more details.) On-screen help, bounding box toggle, view animation, status display toggle, foreground and background color editing.

Demonstrates: diffuse colored points, texture creation, 2D texture coordinate generation, textured points, single stage texture setup, RGBA color picker, accumulating renderings in the back buffer, locking and filling vertex buffers, world transformation, simple camera animation, Direct3DVertexBuffer8, DrawPrimitive, DrawPrimitiveUP, ValidateDevice.

Did you know that RGB(128, 128, 128) is not half as bright as RGB(255, 255, 255)? Surprise! Welcome to the world of CRT monitors and their non-linearities. LCD displays and printers also have non-linearities in their color response. For CRTs, the non-linearity can be modeled as a simple power function correlating intensity I with CRT voltage V to the gamma power. The use of gamma in this formula is why the process of compensating for the nonlinearity is called "gamma correction". Direct3D provides support for gamma correction directly in the GetGammaRamp and SetGammaRamp methods of the device.

You can model a CRT's gamma as a single value for all phosphors or you can measure separate values for the red, green and blue phosphors. SetGammaRamp allows both techniques to be used. This program lets you interactively measure the gamma characteristics of your monitor, both as a single gamma value and as separate gamma values for red, green and blue phosphors. It also provides a test rendering that you can use to visualize the effects of gamma correction.

Demonstrates: D3DGAMMARAMP, SetGammaRamp(), technique for interactively measuring a monitor's gamma value, when to gamma correct yourself or let Direct3D do it, gamma test rendering, single gamma model, RGB gammas model, manual gamma correction.

Sample based on the DX 8.1 framework, the boiler plate classes that Microsoft uses for their DirectX SDK sample programs. This sample was started by using the 'New Sample Apprentice' (vb_Apprentice) below to generate a blank sample and then add demonstrations of D3DX.CreateBox, D3DX.CreateCylinder, D3DX.CreateSphere, D3DX.CreateTeapot and D3DX.CreateTorus. Interactive control over the detail of the generated mesh is provided through the arrow keys on the keyboard.

Demonstrates: device initialization, simple viewing, simple lighting, Z buffering, D3DX.CreateBox, D3DX.CreateCylinder, D3DX.CreateSphere, D3DX.CreateTeapot, D3DX.CreateTorus, D3DXMatrixLookAtLH, D3DXMatrixOrthoLH, D3DXMesh, D3DXBuffer, D3DXMesh.OptimizeInPlace.

Demonstrates drawing text with D3DX. Screen-space text is drawn using D3DXFont. World space text is drawn as a mesh created as a 3D extruded character outline with D3DX.CreateText. The menus let you change what text is displayed each frame, alter the color of the displayed text, and select each method's font.

Demonstrates: D3DXFont, D3DX.CreateText.

Demonstrates drawing 2D sprites with D3DX. You can display a sprite tiling the entire surface of the window and a dynamically rotating collection of sprites. Use the arrow keys to increase or decrease the number of dynamically rotating sprites.

Use the menus to change the sprites that are displayed each frame, alter the color of the background, the sprite modulation color and the sprite texture's color key. You can also changing mirroring options for the tiled sprite.

Demonstrates: D3DXSprite, D3DX8.CreateTextureFromFileEx

Visualizes lighting and material parameters and render states: D3DLIGHT8, D3DMATERIAL8, RS Ambient, RS Color Vertex, RS Lighting, RS Local Viewer, RS Normalize Normals, RS Ambient Material Source, RS Diffuse Material Source, RS Specular Material Source, RS Ambient Material Source, RS Specular Enable, RS Shade Mode, and RS Fill Mode.

Simple dialogs let you change all the relevant material and light parameters and visualize their results on the Utah teapot.

Demonstrates: D3DXMatrixPerspectiveFovLH, D3DXMatrixOrthoLH, D3DX8.ComputeBoundingBoxFromMesh, D3DXMesh.OptimizeInPlace, D3DXMesh.CloneMeshFVF, D3DXMesh.GetVertexBuffer, D3DX8.TessellateNPatches, DXLockArray8, DXUnlockArray8, D3DLIGHT8, D3DMATERIAL8, Creating D3DX8 shapes, etc.

Visualizes frame buffer processing: alpha test, stencil/depth test, stencil masking, stencil stippling, alpha blending (including blend modes using destination alpha), multisample antialising, multisample motion blur, multisample depth of field, dithering, and color channel masking.

This sample makes use of destination alpha and stencil planes by default. Your hardware may not support these. If you're getting a dialog box saying that no suitable devices could be found and that the reference rasterizer will be used instead, then try running the program with the following command-line switches:

-nodest Don't use destination alpha.
-nostencil Don't use stencil planes.

Demonstrates: D3DRS_MULTISAMPLE_ANTIALIAS, D3DRS_MULTISAMPLE_MASK, D3DX8.CreateTorus, D3DX8.CreateTexture, Direct3DDevice.CreateImageSurface, D3DVertexBuffer8SetData, locking surfaces, matrix texture transforms, etc.

Demonstrates the rasterization related render states RS Last Pixel, RS Edge Antialias, and RS Line Pattern. A scene consisting of a screen-space grid and a world-space circle is rendered with lines.

To best observe the effect of RS Last Pixel, set the grid color to something less than fully opaque and use a pixel zoom utility to examine the intersections of the grid. The effect can also be seen where the lines forming the circle touch to complete the circle, but being only a single pixel it may be difficult to observe.

Demonstrates: Direct3DDevice.CreateVertexBuffer, D3DVertexBuffer8SetData, D3DVertexBuffer8GetData

What's an application apprentice? Well its a code generator that's not quite smart enough to be called an Application Wizard. The apprentice is a code generator, just like an AppWizard, but its just an extremely dumb code generator. All it knows how to do is make a new Direct3D sample from a template with your entered project name substituted in a few places.

This is a simple vbscript program called vb_NewSample.vbs that prompts you for the name of a new sample and creates a blank sample of that name. The generated sample does nothing but display some frame rate and device statistics. You can then modify the routines for creating device objects, rendering scenes, and so-on.

The template is based on the D3D framework, like all the other Direct3D SDK samples, so your new sample will be based on that as well. Please note that framework is not intended to be a bona-fide application framework. Feel free to customize it to suit your needs.

Note: This script presumes the presence of Windows Scripting Host on your computer. WSH is included with Windows 98/Me/2K/XP. Its available as a free download for Windows NT/95. See the readme.txt file included in the zip for more details on the VB script.

Similar to the above example, yet this apprentice allows you to create a minimal Win32 C++ application, a minimal C++ console application, and a C++ screen saver; in addition to a Visual Basic 6 application. Instead of using VBScript, this apprentice is an HTA (HTML Application, requires IE5 or later) that lets you choose the new sample type.

Note: Be sure to use a valid identifier for the project name (i.e. no spaces or other characters prohibited in identifiers) as the project name is substituted into pieces of code as an identifier in some instances. This sample can also be downloaded from Rich at http://www.xmission.com/~legalize/book/snippets/index.html#7.

Do you need an easy way to select a color, without having to use the .OCX included with Visual Basic? The common dialog color picker does not provide a way to specify an alpha value! Besides, it returns the color bits in the incorrect order for setting Direct3D color values.

Using our COLORSEL.DLL you can add a color picker to your application that has a text box where the alpha component can be specified. The color value usage is also compatible with Direct3D functions and methods.

Note the Alpha text box to the left of the Lum: Text box.