Chapter 6. First Contact: DirectDraw

"Are you sure you don't want to come upstairs?"

—John Milton, The Devil's Advocate

In this chapter you're going to take your first look at one of the most important components of DirectX: DirectDraw. This is perhaps the most enabling technology in DirectX because it's the conduit through which 2D graphics are performed and the frame buffer layer that Direct3D is built upon. And of course in DirectX version 8.0 DirectDraw is completely integrated into Direct3D. Furthermore, if you understand DirectDraw alone, you have more than enough power to create any kind of graphical application that you might have written under DOS16/32. DirectDraw is the key to understanding a number of concepts indigenous to DirectX, so listen up!

Here's your hit list for this chapter:

• The interfaces of DirectDraw

• Creating a DirectDraw object

• Cooperating with Windows

• Getting into the mode of things

• The subtleties of color

• Building a display surface