Legacy Articles

These are the legacy articles that I moved over from my old homepage.

Articles are sorted by date of first publication. Newer ones are at the top.

Software Design

Large-Scale Physical C++ Design (Presentation; Oct 27, 2003)
The HTML presentation for a talk I gave at my company on physical software design. An introduction to physical design for improving software quality, achieving maintainability, and facilitating code reuse. (To be viewed full-screen with large fonts.)

DirectX

Triangulating and Extruding Arbitrary Polygons (May 7, 2001)
This is a tutorial on polygon triangulation and extrusion. The article discusses how you can use OpenGL services to produce a 3D text mesh for use in a Direct3D 8 application. There’s also some interesting information about calculating vertex normals for producing smooth edges.

Taking Screenshots with Direct3D 8 (Feb 24, 2001)
This article walks you through the code of a Screenshot function which you can use in your Direct3D 8 applications to store a rendered scene to a Windows bitmap file.

Building a Direct3D Particle Engine (Aug 16, 2000)
This tutorial will show you how you can spice up your game by using particle engines for special effects. It covers everything from Direct3D-specifics to engine architecture, and comes with readily usable source code.

Getting Started with IDirectDrawSurface::Lock (Jul 15, 2000)
This article explains how to access the DirectDraw frame buffer directly, using IDirectDrawSurface::Lock, lpSurface, lPitch, DDPIXELFORMAT, etc. As a demo, we are going to write a fast animated flag effect (compilable source code included).

Fast Bitmap Fonts for DirectDraw – Converting from TrueType Fonts (Jun 20, 2000)
This tutorial presents a method to render fonts faster than the GDI. The complete source code of the font engine is included, as well as a utility to convert any TrueType font to the proprietary DirectDraw font file format.

Using the GDI to Take DirectDraw Screenshots (Jun 2, 2000)
This tutorial explains how you can save the contents of DiectDraw surfaces to standard bitmap files. The article contains the complete source code of a one-call Screenshot function which supports all possible pixel formats.

C++Builder

Note: The DirectX Borland LIBs have moved to the Projects page.

Compiling the DirectX 8 SDK Samples with C++Builder (Nov 21, 2000)
Last update: June 8, 2001
This article is a work in progress about making the DirectX 8 SDK Samples compile with C++Builder. Click the link above to read the current version of the article.

Using DirectX with C++Builder (Aug 17, 2000)
This article covers everything you need to know to successfully use DirectX with C++Builder–with or without the VCL. A complete C++Builder Project is included.