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.

To complete the recipes in this book, it is necessary that you have a graphics card that supports a minimum of DirectX 11.1.

It is recommended that you have the following software:

Other resources and libraries are indicated in individual recipes.

For those running Windows 7 or Windows 8, you will require a minimum of the following software. Please note that although some portions of Chapter 11, Integrating Direct3D with XAML and Windows 8.1, can be adapted to Windows 8, you will not be able to complete the final chapter in its entirety as it is specific to Windows 8.1.

Other resources and libraries as indicated in individual recipes.

Direct3D Rendering Cookbook is for C# .NET developers who want to learn the advanced rendering techniques made possible with DirectX 11.1 and 11.2. It is expected that the reader has at least a cursory knowledge of graphics programming, and although some knowledge of Direct3D 10+ is helpful, it is not necessary. An understanding of vector and matrix algebra is recommended.

In this book, you will find a number of styles of text that distinguish between different kinds of information. Here are some examples of these styles, and an explanation of their meaning.

Code words in text are shown as follows: A command list is represented by the ID3D11CommandList interface in unmanaged C++ and the Direct3D11.CommandList class in managed C# with SharpDX.

A block of code is set as follows:

            SharpDX.Direct3D.FeatureLevel.Level_11_1,
            SharpDX.Direct3D.FeatureLevel.Level_11_0,
            SharpDX.Direct3D.FeatureLevel.Level_10_1,
            SharpDX.Direct3D.FeatureLevel.Level_10_0,

When we wish to draw your attention to a particular part of a code block, the relevant lines or items are set in bold:

    // Create the device and swapchain
    Device.CreateWithSwapChain(
        SharpDX.Direct3D.DriverType.Hardware,
        DeviceCreationFlags.None,

New terms and important words are shown in bold. Words that you see on the screen, in menus or dialog boxes for example, appear in the text like this: "These are accessible by navigating to the DEBUG/Graphics menu".

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