The latest 3D graphics cards bring us amazing visuals in the latest games, from Indie to AAA titles. This is made possible on Microsoft platforms including PC, Xbox consoles, and mobile devices thanks to Direct3D—a component of the DirectX API dedicated to exposing 3D graphics hardware to programmers. Microsoft DirectX is the graphics technology powering today's hottest games on Microsoft platforms. DirectX 11 features hardware tessellation for rich geometric detail, compute shaders for custom graphics effects, and improved multithreading for better hardware utilization. With it comes a number of fundamental game changing improvements to the way in which we render 3D graphics.
The last decade has also seen the rise of General-Purpose computation on Graphics Processing Units (GPGPU), exposing the massively parallel computing power of Graphics Processing Units (GPUs) to programmers for scientific or technical computing. Some uses include implementing Artificial Intelligence (AI), advanced postprocessing and physics within games, powering complex scientific modeling, or contributing to large scale distributed computing projects.
Direct3D and related DirectX graphics APIs continue to be an important part of the Microsoft technology stack. Remaining an integral part of their graphics strategy on all platforms, the library advances in leaps and bounds with each new release, opening further opportunities for developers to exploit. With the release of the third generation Xbox console—the Xbox One—and the latest games embracing the recent DirectX 11 changes in 11.1 and 11.2, we will continue to see Direct3D be a leading 3D graphics API.
Direct3D Rendering Cookbook is a practical, example-driven, technical cookbook with numerous Direct3D 11.1 and 11.2 rendering techniques supported by illustrations, example images, strong sample code, and concise explanations.
Chapter 1, Getting Started with Direct3D, reviews the components of Direct3D and the graphics pipeline, explores the latest features in DirectX 11.1 and 11.2, and looks at how to build and debug Direct3D applications with C# and SharpDX.
Chapter 2, Rendering with Direct3D, introduces a simple rendering framework, teaches how to render primitive shapes, and compiles HLSL shaders and use textures.
Chapter 3, Rendering Meshes, explores rendering more complex objects and demonstrates how to use the Visual Studio graphics content pipeline to compile and render 3D assets.
Chapter 4, Animating Meshes with Vertex Skinning, teaches how to implement vertex skinning for the animation of 3D models.
Chapter 5, Applying Hardware Tessellation, covers tessellating primitive shapes, parametric surfaces, mesh subdivision/refinement, and techniques for optimizing tessellation performance.
Chapter 6, Adding Surface Detail with Normal and Displacement Mapping, teaches how to combine tessellation with normal and displacement mapping to increase surface detail. Displacement decals are explored and then optimized for performance with displacement adaptive tessellation.
Chapter 7, Performing Image Processing Techniques, describes how to use compute shaders to implement a number of image-processing techniques often used within postprocessing.
Chapter 8, Incorporating Physics and Simulations, explores implementing physics, simulating ocean waves, and rendering particles.
Chapter 9, Rendering on Multiple Threads and Deferred Contexts, benchmarks multithreaded rendering and explores the impact of multithreading on two common environment-mapping techniques.
Chapter 10, Implementing Deferred Rendering, provides insight into the techniques necessary to implement deferred rendering solutions.
Chapter 11, Integrating Direct3D with XAML and Windows 8.1, covers how to implement Direct3D Windows Store apps and optionally integrate with XAML based UIs and effects. Loading and compiling resources within Windows 8.1 is also explored.
Appendix, Further Reading, includes all the references and papers that can be referred for gathering more details and information related to the topics covered in the book.