I was browsing through Barnes and Noble today and I found a seemingly wonderful new book. It's called Advanced Visual Effects with Direct3D and it is by author Peter Walsh. I was a bit hesitant to buy it so I came here to see what reviews I could find on it. But lo and behold, this book seems to be missing from the book list. So I went back to Barnes and Noble and read through the first, maybe 4 or 5 chapters, to see what it was all about. The 'seemingly wonderful' from above becomes 'actually wonderful'. This book is clearly laid out and breaks everything down into very easy to swallow chunks. Let's take the particle system chapter for example. Any time I tried to read about particle systems, I usually drowned in a sea of terminology and hard to read code. But not this time, this time the concept was explained simply and then the terminolgy and easy to read code was presented. As soon as I aquire adequate funding I am definitely purchasing this book. I guess the main purpose of this thread is to let people know about this book since it's not on the GameDev list (shame on you GameDev [smile]), give my review, and see if we can get it on the list so that those who rely on the GameDev book list for their books reviews (like me) can have every opportunity to see this book. Thanks for your time and happy coding. -AJ P.S. I hate natural keyboards. I'm always one letter off on the right side if I don't make a concious effort to hit the right one. Such is life.... champagne?

Thanks for the reccomendation, I have been considering buying this for a while now :)

I have this book and it does a good job explaining the topics it covers. It would really be nice if the companion website would surface. There is a memory leak in the x file animation code where not all the textures are being released. Also the only code is the example “engine” at the end of the book and not all the examples discussed throughout the book. The book does not come with a CD even though it cost the same as those that do. I bought the book the very first day I saw it in the book store and I was hesitant about the absence of a CD. Now I know to check the website first before buying anything that tells you the code will all be on the website. I’ve sent several messages to the author that never got answered. The memory leak is any easy fix a website of errata or updated code would be nice. I called the publisher a couple of times too, they seem to be happy with the supplied code even though the book advertises a companion website. The books not bad, it would be better if it was as advertised!