   DX questions
  Hiwhat's the diffrence between :1- Direct3D and D3DX ?2- texture and material ?3- LPDirect... and IDirect... ?1000 thanxx   
  1-Direct3D is the API for drawing 3D graphics.  D3DX is a helper library to do math, manipulate mesh data, etc.  D3DX uses pure C++ and calls to Direct3D to do everything it does.  D3DX has no access to the driver.  D3DX is optional.2-A texture is one or more images (png, jpg, dds, tga, etc).  Usually you only worry about the top image.  Each successive one usually the same image, scaled to half the size.  These are called mipmaps, and aid the graphics card give you a decent quality image in a decent amount of time.A material is 4 colors (diffuse, specular, emissive, ambient), and a power for specular.  Diffuse is direct lighting.  Specular the glossy bright spot you get when light reflects of an object.3-LP(TYPE) is a convenient typedef of a pointer to (TYPE).  You don't have to use the LP types if you don't want to.   ;  Closing the other thread, but here's tok_junior's reply from there:Quote:Original post by tok_juniorDirect3D is a 3d rendering API, while D3DX is a library of helper functions for Direct3D.A texture is an image, while a material describes light interaction.I think you need to spend a year or two learning the basics before you go for GI, that you asked for in your other post. It's a fairly advanced subject, and doing it in real-time is everything but easy.Cheers,Jack   