   todo list for beginners?
  hi, i'm interested in starting to program games with DirectX. but i'd like a list of things to do beforehand.i've been programming with blitz3d for a little over a year now, so i (think) kind of got at least a beginners grasp of how games flow, physics, particle effects, etc. i never really tried to make anything, i've just been making little test programs to try and understand everything before i put it all together into a game.i've always wanted to make games with DirectX but didn't really look into it, i knew i had to use a bigtime language like C++, but that's about it. it all seemed too complicated to even attempt to try.then i came to this site and looked around the forums for a while, and i found out that people actually do use Visual Studio .NET, and even C# to make games! that really interested me because C# was the first language i was ever exposed to, and the one i've really wanted to use, but because i was so interested in making games, not...typical programs, that i didn't really do a lot with it.so i started looking around for some tutorials about where to start with making a game with C#.NET, i found a few, but they were just chunks of code with minimal commenting.they compile and work fine and dandy, but it's not what i'm looking for. i'm looking for a massive breakdown of each step of how to do these "simple" things.so in short i guess i'm asking for a little list of the things i can read or look at to understand the very beginning / basics of developing games with C#.NET.   
  I can't speak from experience because I've never used C#, but a quick search on Amazon pulled up these. I can't vouch for either book, but maybe someone else can.   ;This page has a list of questions that many beginners ask and it answers them. Read that page if you're just starting out and want to know where to start.Good luck to you!   ;  i've been looking at some managed direct x tutorials, and i got to a part that doesn't work, i don't know if i'm supposed to add a reference or instantiate something, but it's not working for meusing System;using System.Drawing;using System.Collections;using System.ComponentModel;using System.Windows.Forms;using System.Data;using Microsoft.DirectX;using Microsoft.DirectX.Direct3D;namespace WindowsApplication2{/// <summary>/// Summary description for Form1./// </summary>public class Form1 : System.Windows.Forms.Form{private Microsoft.DirectX.Direct3D.Device dev;private Microsoft.DirectX.Direct3D.VertexBuffer verts; static void Main() {Form1 game = new Form1();game.initGfx();game.Show();while(game.Created){game.rend();}//game.Dispose();//Application.Run(new Form1());}protected bool initGfx(){Microsoft.DirectX.Direct3D.PresentParameters pres = new PresentParameters();pres.Windowed = true;pres.SwapEffect = Microsoft.DirectX.Direct3D.SwapEffect.Discard;dev = new Microsoft.DirectX.Direct3D.Device(0,Microsoft.DirectX.Direct3D.DeviceType.Hardware,this,Microsoft.DirectX.Direct3D.CreateFlags.SoftwareVertexProcessing,pres);return true; }protected void rend(){// clears the back bufferdev.Clear(Microsoft.DirectX.Direct3D.ClearFlags.Target,System.Drawing.Color.Orange,1.0F,0);// begin the D3D drawingdev.BeginScene();// draw the scene (3d rendering calls here) // tell D3D taht we're done drawingdev.EndScene();// copy (flip?) the back buffer to the displaydev.Present();}protected VertexBuffer createVBuffer(Device d){d.VertexFormat = Microsoft.DirectX.Direct3D.CustomVertex.Format;}}}it's the only statement in the createVBuffer method. it says almost exactly that in the tutorial, the only difference is that it doesn't have the "Microsoft.DirectX.Direct3D." in front of it.i know i don't have to put all of those in there because i added references and using statements in there, but i felt that i should to get used to the location of the things i'm calling.http://pluralsight.com/wiki/default.aspx/Craig.DirectX/CreateVertexBufferTutorial.htmlso umm, in short, it tells me to call CustomVertex.TransformedColored.Format. but it doesn't exist. when i hit the . after CustomVertex all i get is the Equals() and ReferenceEquals() methods.can anybody help me out here and tell me what's wrong?   