Conclusion

There are plenty of programmers who jump into 3D without ever fully understanding some of the critical 2D concepts. They think 2D is pass . They're wrong. I hope you see the light now—all three of them. I can teach someone how to take the square root of a number with a calculator. I could teach someone else how to derive the square root themselves. The difference between these two people is that one knows how to push a button and the other knows what that button does behind the scenes. By looking under the hood, they probably will also figure out how most of the other buttons work as well.

After reading this chapter you'll know how to create textures with a color key or an alpha channel. You'll now know that even in 2D you must avoid pixel overdraw at all costs to keep your framerate high. Since 3D textures are very similar to 2D surfaces, you also know how to create a texture with dynamic text; perhaps you'll use it to draw a texture for a computer screen or a book. You'll know how to animate something in real time. After all there's not much difference between the concept of a sprite's current frame and the next keyframe of an animating 3D object.

It is better to know how things work instead of which buttons to push, certainly if you have to make some buttons no one has ever made before.