Games

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By far the most popular use of Direct3D is for game development. Throughout this book, you've seen portions of the code for the RoadRage game included on the companion CD. This game provides dynamic loading and unloading of segments of the 3D world to provide the fastest rendering possible. RoadRage also provides multiple textures, DirectInput-based joystick and steering wheel input, DirectPlay-based network gaming, and animated 3D characters. An editor for building new worlds using a 2D map editor is also provided so that you can build custom 3D worlds.

With the RoadRage game as a basis for your development, you should be well on your way to developing a powerful 3D application. I'd greatly appreciate it if you kept me abreast of any games you produce based on the code from this book and its companion CD. Feel free to e-mail me anytime at [e-mail] or [e-mail] (the Web site for our game development company, Head Tapper Software). I'll be happy to post anything you want on the Web site www.headtappersoftware.com (such as code or 3D objects) to help everyone gain the most they can from the efforts of others in Direct3D development.

Most commercial games today at least provide support for Direct3D hardware acceleration. Many of the newer games have been developed using the Immediate Mode API. These games, which are among the top sellers in the industry, show off the capabilities of the Direct3D Immediate Mode API. With the integration of other Microsoft DirectX capabilities for network and input device support, these products offer some incredible game play! Using this book and the RoadRage code together with a new, imaginative storyline, you should be able to create a high-quality 3D game that competes quite well in this market.