Great addition to basic game programming knowledge!

books:


	• Advanced 2D Game Development Jonathan S. Harbour Course Technology PTR, 2008 - 315 pages average customer review:based on 5 reviews view larger image
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Best title on the subject to date

This is a fabulous addition to the Beginning Game Programming, Second Edition by the same Author. The main reason why I purchased this new book was because of his fantastic teaching style and the speed at which I progressed. Most books are so dry that you need to dip them in water or literally smack yourself with them to stay interested. In the end, you are left with gaps in your knowledge and most of the time cant get out of your own way. Which leaves you more often than not back looking for another text.

After finishing the first book, I had the complete confidence to create a couple of 2D games on my own and a better picture of how to use the API . It was definitely money well spent the first time around. This second title ups the ante and is now the spring board for developing a complete and powerful 2D engine from scratch with the focus being engine design & architecture. By the end of the read your confidence and ability to create just about any 2D game of choice should easily be within your reach.

Being that this is an advanced title, I would suggest getting the Beginner companion to this text mentioned above as this makes for an excellent reference and starts off at a joggers pace if your a beginner. Intermediates can still benefit from the text because good 2D information and techniques are hard to come by.

Jonathan seems definitely dedicated to the genre and the results of both books reflect best of breed IMO. Going from beginner to intermediate/advanced very quickly is highly likely armed with both at your side. Highly recommended.

Lastly, as a bonus the author is totally accessible and is fully immersed within the game development community with his own forum. This is not a forum just for the book but a fully dedicated community for game programming in general. Having access to the author along with updates and tips to the engine developed within the book makes the price a steal.

Why are you still reading this? Buy it already.

As for the negative reviews, game programming isn't for everyone or maybe your just too advanced? Although, it would help if "someone" actually "read" the book and not skimmed through it.

So if your looking for an "Easy Button" you might want to try Staples.

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Understand the premise of this book before you buy

The book is not for beginners. Someone who enjoys C++ and is interested in developing a 2D game engine from scratch will like this book because it skips the basics, gets right to the point. This book is about building a game engine from scratch in C++ and DirectX 9.0c. The engine supports 2D and 3D rendering, with more emphasis on the 2D features. Each chapter covers one major piece of a game engine project, like 3D rendering (for special effects), 2D rendering, and animation. The two complete game examples in the final chapter demonstrate how to use the engine to create 2D games. If you casually flip through this book, you will not understand it. If you just open and run the examples on the CD, you will miss the point.

You WILL learn to use 2D matrix transforms to manipulate sprites in the same manner used for mesh objects, with translation, rotation, scaling, and timed animation support.

You won't be wading through huge code listings because each chapter focuses on a single topic. Example programs demonstrate Direct3D rendering, Lua scripting, FMOD audio, multi-threading, vectors, linear velocity, targeting, collision detection, all wrapped into a core engine class that uses the standard library to build an entity manager. This entity manager is event driven and completely encapsulates the Windows and DirectX code. In the end, you will write a game with the engine, rather than with DirectX functions.

The CD-ROM includes a free compiler and third-party DirectX plug-in. Everything needed to compile and run the examples is on the CD. There's no need to download and install Visual C++ or the huge DirectX SDK.

* FMOD audio system from Firelight Technologies
* Multi-threading library
* Lua scripting library
* Dev-C++ compiler from Bloodshed Software
* DirectX 9.0c DevPak for Dev-C++
* Two complete games: Blocks and Alien Invaders

This may be the first book of it's kind that teaches DirectX programming in C++ without requiring Microsoft Visual C++ or the DirectX SDK. 32-bit artwork and runtime alpha manipulation is used to produce special effects such as a particle system capable of producing smoke trails. The sprite entity system is capable of rendering tens of thousands of sprites at a time with animation, scaling, and rotation in degrees or radians. Much time is spent on important math topics like linear velocity and targeting, which are the most important topics needed in 2D games.

I'm sorry to those who expected this book to cover 3D matrix and quaternion math, but this is not titled "Advanced 3D" after all.

The engine features an entity management system that makes it possible to "fire and forget" game entities whose properties will determine how they behave in the game. Throughout the engine's development, emphasis is put on optimization and performance, with frequent discussions of screen and core refresh rates--with a drop-down console used to display performance data.

The Advanced2D engine was not built just for this book, nor will it end here. The engine was developed over an entire year and fine tuned through two senior-level game engine courses at UAT, and continues to see improvement. The next phase of the engine will be a tile-based scroller class with support for multiple layers. All future updates to the engine will be posted on the author's website forum.

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Great addition to basic game programming knowledge!

Great book if you've already read begining game programming 2nd edition. It goes into more advanced topics compared to the first book, and gives you some better structure to get your games developed quicker, with reusable code.

The book even includes a surprise bonus- a chapter on adding some 3d models and different types of rendering to your 2d games!! One great reason for this is that 2d is 3d in directX- looking straight down at the 2d plane. DirectDraw was taken out years ago, and many books don't explain this as well as this one.

The game takes you through developing a complete 2d engine with audio, input, animation and scripting! Using the engine you should have a much easier, and quicker time creating 2d games, since all the basic stuff is done in the engine.

I would definitely recommend this to someone trying to learn better techniques after learning the basics from the first book(or web). Since most people want to go 3d as well, he does include code to import 3d models, set up camera and lighting, so you could use this as a starting point to develop further in 3d, or just add some 3d effects into your 2d game.

Author doesn't spend much time horsing around with a lot of code, but explains the new stuff as it is added. He also has his own forum which is very helpful- And as is normal for a forum, research your questions first.
Great book to be able to re-use code and develop games quicker if you haven't built many/any engines before!

Since there is no Table of contents listed here, here it is:
1. Building a 2D game Engine
2. 3D rendering
3. 2d Rendering
4. Animation
5. Input
6. Audio
7. Entities
8. Fonts
9. Physics
10. Math
11. Threading
12. Scripting (using Lua)
13. Games

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Get ready to build a complete, professional-quality 2D game engine from start to finish! "Advanced 2D Game Development" is your comprehensive guide to 2D game development using DirectX in the C++ programming language. Each chapter of the book covers one major component of the game engine, including 2D and 3D rendering, DirectInput, FMOD audio, game math, multi-threading, Lua scripting, and more, and the game engine is built upon chapter by chapter. Through the creation of the game engine, you?ll learn step by step how to write solid code for multiple compilers, adding to the code as you work through each chapter. And every chapter includes an example game that illustrates the new techniques being taught. Perfect for game programming students and professionals alike, this book is your ultimate guide to awesome 2D game development.

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