Hi, I''m about half way through chapter 8 and a question keeps pounding me in the head... Why are we going through how to make a line using pixels, then how to manually clip a line, then how to make a polygon using our line function, then how to make a filled shape and etc.? Doesn''t DirectX have it''s own line,triangle,poly drawing functions? Is he going through this to make 3d seem easier later? or does directX really not have functions for these things? Any help with this would be great. Thanks BC

DirectX does have functions to draw lines and triangles. The only problem is that they''re all 3D-only functions, and LaMothe is only teaching you the 2D realm of DirectX. If you''re interested, there were articles on Gamedev and Gamasutra on how to do 2D graphics using Direct3D (or rather, 2D graphics in a 3D drawing mode). Direct3D is quite a bit more advanced though. You''d probably want to stick with LaMothe''s teachings for now ... it''s important to know how it all works.