The ZBuffer : Managed DirectX Tutorials and Sample Code

ZMan is just an amateur Managed DirectX enthusiast. He spends his time working on some top secret DirectX projects and keeping The ZBuffer up to date. You can find him in the managed DirectX newsgroups answering questions about mesh intersection for the 200th time.

In the real world ZMan used to work for Microsoft in a job that has nothing to do with managed code or DirectX. In July 2005, he quit Microsoft and gave up the great health benefits and 401k's to run The ZBuffer full time and to retrain for a job in the game industry - you can read all about the career change at IndieGameGuy.

He writes a regular column on MSDN's Coding4Fun portal answering questions about Managed DirectX.

Tutorials

"Ask The ZMan" on Coding4Fun and the channel 9 discussion regarding the articles
- Texturing Mesh.Cube() Part 1 and Part 2 and Spherical Texture mapping
- Managed DirectX Screen Saver - Basic setup, Scene graphs and matrix stacks, basic animation

Sample Code

SDK Tutorial conversions in VB.Net, J#
SDK Sample conversions (partial) in VB.Net
Detecting which DirectInput devices are also XInput devices in managed code

1/13/06: Added normal map sample

Finally, someone with code that *isn't* how to create a device from scratch^*. Pieter's website and blog have several advanced tutorials and code samples. He's working on a managed DirectX engine called Xilath, and has some cool screen shots: shader support, shadows and reflections. In addition Pieter did a talk on Managed DirectX and you can download the presentation.

^* I lied slightly, he has those tutorials too.

Tutorials

Sample Code

Fixed all the old links, added some new ones including Shadows in 2d

Mykre is a regular in the MSDN forums and has been an MVP for (Managed) DirectX for a year or so. his blog is mostly XNA/Managed DirectX with some art/modelling stuff and the occasion gaming post thrown in for good measure.

Tutorials

1/11/06: Chad updates UI widgets sample for managed directx beta

A nice set of tutorials from a guy named Chad over at C-Unit.com. There really is very little information about who Chad is and why he has Managed DirectX tutorials but I did find a picture of him painted green and he has a cute dog so now you know as much as I do.

Tutorials

--Index-- including the usual getting started tutorials.
Dynamic Buffers - very useful and efficient for particles, 2-d tiles and mesh animation where you need to update vertices on each frame.
Texture mapping
Lighting - normally I would include lighting in with the getting started stuff but in this case he discusses why spotlights often don't look like you expect them to.
Finally a series of terrain rendering tutorials Rendering a height map, Moving a camera around and Adding detail with multitexturing
Frustum Culling - how to only draw items in the view frutum
2d sprites - uses the D3DX Sprite class
Building your own UI widgets using managed DirectX. Parts 1, 2, 3, 4. Update for Managed DirectX for .Net 2.0 beta.
Texture Compression, Filters, and Transformations
Offscreen Surfaces and Screenshots
Tetris with Managed DirectX

Picking sample, Managed D3D10, Video Textures and another full game with source. Great set of updates in the last month from MDXInfo.

MDXInfo is a Managed DirectX tutorial and sample code site by Pieter Germishuys and Rim van Wersch. They have decided to try to collect sample code and tutorials in a single place rather than on their respective web sites and they are looking for submissions from others to add to the collection.

Tutorials

--Index-- Click for full list
Picking - otherwise known as selecting a 3d object with a mouse. Finally someone has done what I've been meaning to do for years and translated the C++ sample to C#
Animation using hardware vertex morphing
Hardware instancing
A series of HLSL tutorials
Reflection, normal mapping and water simulation.

Sample Code

--Index-- Click for full list
Managed wrapper for D3D10
Creating a video texture from a webcam
Brainball - full game with source
Using C# for game scripting
Dissecting ShipHo - full game with source
XInput wrapper for use without MDX2.0
Samples for occlusion queries, blur, normal mapping, bloom, shadows and HDR
Splitting mesh subsets and rendering gradient backgrounds

Updated - lots more tutorials since January

Drunken Hyena has been providing quality DirectX tutorials for quite a long time and has a pretty good reputation as a result. Now he has converted most of his tutorials to Managed DirectX using C# and VB.Net

--Index-- including the usual starter tutorials
3d Concepts - a nice descriptions of concepts and keywords you hear when doing 3D programming
Drawing Lines
Using a Custom Vertex Format

5/31/06: Shader WebCast **TODAY** 10am PST. Added link to download source if you want to follow along.

ZMan goes primetime... Tomorrow, May 31st 10am-11am PST. Introduction to Shaders with Managed DirectX. Downloads: Source

On demand webcasts:

2006: 3d game programming

Benjamin Nitschke presents a series of 3 webcasts Rocket Commander webcasts. Supporting material is avaiable on his blog.

Part 1 - 9am PST, Tuesday May 16th
Part 2 - 9am PST, Wednesday May 17th
Part 3 - 9am PST, Friday May 19th

Following on from the 2D series last year we now have a 3D series. The class is presented by Doug Heimer a senior at Digipen who has been involved in a couple of games that you can download and check out - Geo Warfare and Resonation.The bio says he's taught game development and C#. Several people asked about C# and Digipen at the first webcast and Doug said that though there is a C# class taught it's not used extensively in other classes and C++ is what almost all projects are done in.

Supporting material is available on the digipen webcast page.

2005: 2d game programming

This MSDN webcast is presented by an instructor from Digipen. They are building a 2D top down shooter using sprites.

The source code and PDF documentation can be found on the digipen companion site

11/5/2005: Reformatted, added links to new tutorials

Mike over at The ramblings of a hazy mind has a series of tutorials describing a managed DirectX game engine he is building.

Tutorials

--Index-- including Device and window setup, simple sprites, vertices and full textured meshes.
Timers - includes an explanation of the timer code from the sample framework
Picking - how to click on and find a 3d object
Skybox - including fixing the skybox to the camera so it never appears to move

Saq has converted his 2d tile based engine to the XNA framework. Source code and demo apps are provided.

Download Saq2D for XNA

3/22/07: Added whole bunch of MDX and XNA samples

The Code Project has several projects with sample Managed DirectX code. Be aware that some if it is quite old and may not compile against the current SDKs

XNA Framework Sample Code

Reading a joystick using XInput - nice winforms output window

Managed DirectX Sample Code

Reading a joystick
Volume meter - note that the rendering is done using GDI. Managed DirectX is used for the sound capture.
Small wrapper for ManagedDirectShow
Creating a mirror - like a rear view mirror in a driving game
Sound experiments in Managed DirectX - never enough DirectSound samples out there
Odyssey GUI system
Terrain Rendering parts 1, 2, 3, 4, 5?, 6?, 7, 8
Rendering Text
Mixing WInforms controls with Managed DirectX
Managed DirectX screen saver template - works with .Net 1.1 and 2.0 and handles multi mon.
Managed Metroid Basic device setup and 2d sprite animation
Creating a 3D clock
Multiplayer Snake in 3D
C# managed DirectX HexEngine - Part 1 - Isometric hexagonal tile engine
DX Game Utility Class Library - a simple 2d game library using DirectDraw
Invasion - a space invaders type game using DirectDraw
The ultimate Managed DirectSound 9 Tutorial Part 1 - Playback, part 2 - 3D
How to implement the built in effects of DirectX.DirectSound
Rendering terrains with Managed DirectX
3D Terrain Visualisation
Rendering Textures with Alpha Channels and Color Key Transparency using a MatrixStack
Ogg Vorbis Player using Direct Sound
Airplane War
Tetris3D - the only Managed C++ DirectX code out there ? (unless you know otherwise!)

Retinex is a sample scene graph implementation using Managed DirectX. Looks like at the moment it's a one man project by Tommi Laukkanen.

As Tommi says:

The source consists of few classes and should be good basis for writing your own scene graph based application or game. However it is not complete 3d engine. I recommend trying it out as next step after looking at the SDK tutorials.

He has made the source code available under the BSD license.

I took a quick look at the code and its a fairly standard scene graph implementation. The only problem I had was that you will have to install NUnit or modify the code to get it to compile. There is only one example of how to use it and its very simple. There's currently no other documentation and the XML comments in the code are too sporadic to be of use. But its a great start if you are wondering what a scene graph is and to see how to architect one.

1/4/06: Added overlay sample and installer guide

Muhammed is a DirectX MVP and Gamedev forum administrator.

Articles

Distributing DirectX applications

Sample Code

Aaron's main claim to fame is that he's the only person I have heard of who wrote a game (in Managed DirectX) for his girlfriend. We have never heard what the response from his girlfriend was but he moved to Tokyo to be with her so I think we can assume she wasn't disappointed :-)

Other than Texas Quest, it looks like he has some isometric wargame type thing (more) under way.

Tutorials

Texas Quest - 2D rendering in a side scroller, Game design

Sample Code

Texas Quest - complete source code for a 2d scroller game

Thanks to Mykre for pointing out Aarons updates, my blog reader apparantly had given up on the blog. Resubscribed....

The Adventures of Source Fource is part of MSDNs marketing campaign where you can collect the limited edition 'action' figures for attending MSDN events. The game is based on the 2d game from last years webcast, any you can of course watch this years 3D webcast to earn the figures (provided you are reading this before May 2006).

Sample Code

The full game source is available

via Mykre

Sky has a couple of nice sample programs written using managed DirectX (and a few more games that don't so check out all of the programs). Just to annoy old folk like me, Sky is doing all of this at the early age of 13. Nice work Sky.

Sample Code

Beginning Game Development is a series of tutorials that is creating a BattleZone type game using Managed DirectX and C#. There is a thread on Channel9 to discuss the series.

Tutorials

Nerdkill is a rewrite of an Amiga game from the 1990s. Very simple to play - you kill the nerds by using various weapons.

Sample Code

Full source code provided

Source code available, fixed for the December 2005 SDK

Picture of the snowglobe breakout style game Snowglobe is a fast-paced arcade style 3D game in the same vein as the classic Breakout and Arkanoid games. Set inside a virtual snow globe with a castle in the middle, the player spins a paddle around the globe and tries to hit a ball to destroy the castle brick by brick. It was written by a group at the University of Columbia. There is a white paper, a PowerPoint slide deck and full source linked from the home page.

Sample Code

Download full source (fixed up for the December SDK by The ZMan)

via Tom

This is quite an old one from Channel 9, but Mykre reminded me I didn't have a link to it.

If you have seen any Avalon/WPF demos you will have seen a carousel control. Its a set of objects than spin around in 3D for you to browse and select. MinH has reproduced the look and feel in a windows forms control using Managed DirectX.

Sample Code

Carousel Windows Forms Control

Pong Frenzy is a version of pong wih much nicer graphics than the original from Phil Vaira. The ball is bigger too which is great for old folk like me. He's provided the full source code including examples of using D3DXSprite, DirectInput and DirectSound

Sample Code

Full source code provided

From Steve Lanuit

Sample Code

1/24/06: Added link to new Direct3D tutorials

Peter has a a set of tutorials implementing a 2D breakout game using both DirectDraw and Direct3D. Great for anyone who wants to learn how to convert between the two or how to do 2D graphics.

Tutorials

7 part tutorial using DirectDraw to implement a 2D game.
9 part tutorial using Direct3D to implement *the same* 2D game.

Riemer has a 9 part tutorial in c# showing how to create a 3d terrain. There is also one tutorial about reading the keyboard using DirectInput

Thobias has an introductory tutorial that runs quickly through the basics of device creation and basic drawing and ends with some basic shader code.

Craig has 16 tutorials in a wiki (so if you want to update them you can) which cover all of the basics including 2d and 3d fonts.

Frequently on the forums and discussion groups its obvious that a beginner is confused about 3D fundamentals. Dan has done an excellent job with his "3D for the Rest of Us" series (Part 1, Part 2) where he explains the various coordinate systems and how transformations work. Looks like he intends to write more. While this blog is really about the Avalon 3D API the concepts apply to Managed DirectX just as well.

Triple Buffer has some beginner tutorials for Managed DirectX. All updated to the October 2004 release - that’s nice to see. Unfortunately there's only a handful in managed code the rest are all C++.

RobyDX (Translated into English by Google) has a huge number of tutorials using managed DirectX on his website. They are all in VB.Net which is great to see since most other tutorials are in c#. For those of you who don't speak fluent Italian, google does a great job of translating. I expect some nuances are lost but its certainly good enough to find your way to the source code.

He has sample code for Direct3d, DirectDraw, DirectInput and DirectSound and topics from beginner to advanced shaders. A lot of hard work went into producing this many samples

c# home seems to be a fairly new c# web site. They currently have 4 managed DirectX tutorials:

Intro to DirectX 9. Device setup, matrix math and texture examples.
DirectX 9 Tutorial. Device setup and enumeration, determining caps
DirectX in c#. Covers COM interop to DirectX as well as managed code. Has some performance numbers too.
DXSound part 1. How to play 3d sound from managed code.

6/3/06: Big update to the code

Jeremy has a great sample of how to use DirectX in a Windows Forms control. Not only that but his control provides a library of useful functions to simplify writing DirectX applications.

New features in the latest release:

Multi-Threaded (rendering never blocks the UI thread)
Synchronizes to monitor refresh for tear free drawing
Fixed hibernation/logout bug
Fixed (very rare) DirectX setup bug

Sample Code

Windows Form Control - also includes alpha map creation and usage

Paul Stubbs has a wrapper and an example application for XInput (using Managed DirectX 2.0 beta) that shows the controller buttons lighting up.

Ryan is not a frequent Managed DirectX blogger but he has a post about getting Managed DirectX running in a Windows control that I'm sure some of you will find useful. There's a couple of samples there too. I had a few issues with rendering and resizing, but Ryan has fixed some of them. Even if its not perfect its a great start point.

Sample Code

Managed DirectX running in a Windows control

VBGamer is a site just for game programming in VB. Its not just VB.Net and Managed DirectX but they do have some tutorials and a forum which have relevant content.

ThePentiumGuy has a VB based game programming site called vbProgramming with several Managed DirectX tutorials. The usual device creation stuff, learn about transformations and some sprite code (including transparency).

Patrice Scribe is the guy who created the DirectX type libraries used by VB (and other) programmers from DirectX 3.0 through 6.0. He has a set of articles from 2003 about various aspects of Managed DirectX. The code is in VB.Net and there are short articles on Bounding volumes, scene graphs and others. Given the dates the code may not compile against the current SDK. Looks like Patrice hasn't updated the site in a while either.

I've been informed that Patrice is/was the owner of the yahoo group I mentioned the other day, I've tried getting hold of him through his website and the mailbox is full. So Patrice if you read this drop me an email.

Johan has made the slides from the Swedish MSDN workshop online - find out the details at his blog.

Nick Swan had the beginnings of a managed directX website before real life got in the way. He has a couple of tutorials.

Tech Head Brothers is a French .Net site which has (currently) 4 Managed DirectX tutorials. They are in French but you can of course use the google language tools to translate them.

MonkeyCMonkeyDo is a c# game programming site by 2 'blokes' from England. Right now they have the beginnings of a DirectDraw tutorial for a game which they have already completed with promises of much more.

Riccardo Riedl has a development blog with a series of tutorials about Managed DirectX. The text is in German so you can use the excellent google translators if you do not speak the language.

11/25/2005: Added forums

GPWiki is a wiki devoted to general game development that also has some Managed DirectX content.

Tutorials

VB.Net tutorials

Forums

.Net game development

Developez.com is a french language website for developers. They have a published article (English through google) introducing Managed DirectX.

There is also a tutorial on video playback (English)

Xblog.org has a couple of beginning tutorials up. So far we have the obligatory "How to set up the device" and the beginnings of one on playing samples. They have promises of higher level tutorials such as terrain rendering. Of interest is the fact they are using #Develop as their IDE.

I came across a short tutorial from the department of Acoustics, Audio and Video at the University of Salford in England.

Tutorials

Virtual Environments with 3D graphics and 3D audio. 3 simple sections on getting graphics to the screen, playing normal and 3d sounds and capturing audio using Managed DirectX. Source code is provided and I would recommend downloading that rather than following the dangerous instructions on making your computer trust the entire domain.

Stephen Gower has 2 samples called Liquid Brain and Bucky Balls. They are from 2003 so the source was designed to run against an earlier version of the framework.

C Sharp corner requires free registration to get the source. If that bothers you you can find one of the samples here

Fixing the Code:
To compile the code against the current version of the framework you need to add 'null' as an additional 1st parameter in the font.DrawText call and change the light.enable() to light.update()

CreatedByX has a whole set of sample code and resources including a lot of code in VB.Net. I gather the rumours of a switch to OpenGL are overrated and DirectX is still his API of choice.

Sample Code

--Index--
Motion blur using fading and multiple rendering
Orthographic projections
Using viewports

9/30/05: New version of DXGfx availalbe.

Eteractions is currently a work in progress from Guillaume Randon. It has the beginnings of a world editor and a physics simulator wrapped around a reusable graphics library. Whilst its not complete right now Guillaume has made the source available as sample managed DirectX code. The code has been updated to require .Net 2.0 and has some new features such as a QuadTree and multi texturing.

Daniel now has a Jukebox sample, a Media Conversion sample and how to implement a filter in c#.

The Mail Owl Scrolls, may think he is not as worthy as some, but he has quite a good set of sample code himself. Sadly its just the code, no tutorial text alongside, but there are some rarely seen topics in addition to the usual set of beginner code.

Sample Code

--Index--
Alpha blending with Vertices and Materials
Picking/Selecting 3d objects
Bounding Sphere

8/29/05 v1.1 released

As you may know, the managed interfaces to DirectShow are rather lacking. David from Lime Green Socks began a project to provide a more complete set. The project, DirectShow.Net, is now hosted on sourceforge.

Yes I know that technically DirectShow is deprecated in DirectX, it has in fact moved to the platform SDK but there is still plenty of demand and questions regarding it in the managed DirectX space.

Dominique Louis from delphigamer.com has converted the Managed DirectX samples to Delphi and posted them on the Borland Developer Network. You need to create a free account to download the samples.

FredM has a post on Channel9 regarding some sample Managed DirectX code that generates and renders a nebula. Looks very nice. Code runs under VC# express 2005 and as an added bonus it renders to a panel on a winform which is an FAQ from the newsgroups.

Thanks Mykre

Something a little unusual for any programming language enthusiasts. Don Syme wrote a blog entry about using F# with DirectX. F# is a functional language from Microsoft research similar to ML however F# compiles to MSIL just like every other .Net language and can therefore call all of the same APIs as you can call from C# or VB.Net. The tutorials are linked from his blog and can be found at Jack Palevich's space

A couple of Managed DirectX projects I came across on codeproject.com

7/12/06: New class date, updated locations and site sponsorship

Surely it must be a good indication of general interest in a technology when a large training company like DevelopMentor has a 3 day managed directx training course. There's some nice screen shots of the course samples on the website including a Roller Coaster simulator which looks fun. There is also a video to preview some of the course samples.

The instructor is Dave Remba who, as you can see from his bio, has extensive graphics and programming experience.

Right now there is only one future date showing, October 4th in Torrance, CA, USA at a cost of $2795 but DevelopMentor also has sites in London and Boston and they will also do onsite courses at your location. So if other locations are of interest to you, or you have any questions about the class then please contact DevelopMentor directly or email me and I will pass your requests on. (Note that I have not seen the course content so I cannot answer questions regarding that myself)

Those of you viewing this on the website will probably notice that DevelopMentor is our 1st site sponsor for the next few months for which The ZMan is very grateful.

Vectiva died sometime after February 2005 and has been replaced by a site full of ads. Mail me if anyone has a mirror, or it has a new location.

Vectiva has a set of tutorials covering the basics and some stuff on DirectInput. Each tutorial has a nice accompanying text so its not just source code you have to look at. Looks like they are working on a series so check back often.

Waybackmachine mirror (though no real content): Physics, DirectX

\Managed DirectX Tutorials and Sample Code