Code corner

I'm beginning to the get the hang of C++ now, and have been messing about with 3D graphics. I had to do quite a bit of work with Direct3D for my PhD, but of course I did it all in C# and Managed Direct3D. Now I've started using 'proper' Direct3D and found an excellent series of tutorials here http://www.two-kings.de/.

Furthermore, the first tutorial actually gives a pretty good intro to Win32 programming, certainly the best that I've seen, so it's doubly worth checking out.

My plan in the next few months is write a little game that I can put up on my website, along with my PhD stuff, as an example of my work. I've noticed that many jobs in computer programming (especially in graphics, which is where I'm thinking of moving towards) require samples of your work to be submitted with any application, so it will be good to have some well-written software ready for such an eventuality.

My current plan for the game is a hovercraft racing game, which might include some weapons that you can pick up, WipeOut style, around the track. Okay it might not sound like your first choice of genre when perusing for a new game down the high street, but I'm doing it really to show off my madskillz, and realistic hovercraft and weapon physics would be a good way of doing this. First things first though, I have to get my terrain rendered and a proper camera moving around. I'll let you know how it goes.