A site with some DirectX tutorials can be found here. Also, you can check out some of the books about DirectX. Andre LaMothe has some good books on DirectX, you should check them out.

Scott Simontis
e-mail:ageofscott@NOSPAM.comcast.net
AIM:ssimontis

[edited by - sSimontis on March 27, 2004 1:56:14 PM]

Here's a good starting point:

http://www.gamedev.net/reference/articles/article1943.asp

It shows you, step by step, how to set up a window and initialize Direct3D.

[edited by - red_sodium on March 27, 2004 2:03:49 PM]

When you installed the SDK, you had the option of installing the MSDEV class wizard for DirectX. If you install it, you can say "new project" and choose "DirectX Project" (in the Win32 / native windows section) and answer a few questions; out pops a project that creates a window / fullscreen device and renders a teapot.

I agree with hplus0603. I''m just starting to learn DirectX and the DirectX wizard has been very helpful to me. Use it to make a simple project, then take some time to study the program flow. The wizard creates very readable, well commented code.

After you have a feel for what is going on, you can start modifying the code and experimenting. If you mess it up, you always know that you can go back to the wizard and start over. Also, check out the tutorials that came with the DirectX SDK.

One last suggestion. I''ve found Andre LaMothe''s books to be extremely helpful. I have "Tricks of the 3D Game Programming Gurus" and "Special Effects Game Programming with DirectX". They are both very well written. The tricks book is not very DirectX specific, but it will give you a good understanding of how various graphics techniques work. He actually shows how to build a 3D engine from scratch. A lot of the stuff he teaches in the book can be handled automatically by DirectX, but seeing how all of the concepts fit together really helped me understand more about what DirectX is doing internally.