ScriptTD is a project I have been working on for the past year now, although we officially launched a couple of months ago, I’m still working on v2.0. The goal was to create a Tower Defense game engine for Windows Phone 7, allowing people with no coding knowledge to change the data files and art/sounds to create their own Tower Defense game. This was an interesting challenge to work on, and I’m reasonably happy with the first result, however there is still plenty to add and refine.

You can get the source code for the project at http://scripttd.codeplex.com/ and there is quite a bit of information about what each XML file does. I also wrote an article which is located at http://channel9.msdn.com/coding4fun/articles/ScriptTD-Tower-Defense-Made-Easy and covers how to extend the code (C#) to create a new weapon type.

For those interested in trying out the game on their Windows Phone 7 devices, you can get it from the following marketplace link:

http://www.windowsphone.com/en-GB/apps/ee836335-27a7-e011-986b-78e7d1fa76f8

Be aware: it is quite challenging, but free for everyone. The game is compiled for WP7.0, so you don’t have to have Mango to run it.

MSDN suggests that if you are going to be using the device a lot, and already have some place holding the D3D10 device, you keep a pointer to it, so I will assume you have such a class.

First you must create the Direct3D 10 device as you normally would, however you must use the D3DX10CreateDevice() method instead (see below), this is outlined in the SDK and multiple tutorials online. I may write up how to do this at a later point, however it is outside the scope of this little article.

Once the device has been successfully created, we can try and get a Direct3D 10.1 device from it. To do this, we will be using the following methods:

• HRESULT D3DX10CreateDevice( IDXGIAdapter*, D3D10_DRIVER_TYPE, HMODULE, UINT, ID3D10Device** ); [This will create the D3D10 device, and makes it easier to do so and then create the 10.1 device.]
• HRESULT D3DX10GetFeatureLevel1( ID3D10Device*, ID3D10Device1** ); [This will create the 10.1 device.]

The second method will take the current D3D10 device and create a 10.1 device from that if possible.

After we have our D3D10 device using D3DX10CreateDevice(), we can then call D3DX10GetFeatureLevel1, passing in the pointer to the device we just created, and a pointer-to-the-pointer to our D3D 10.1 device. This method returns a HRESULT indicating if the operation was a success.

If so, we now have a D3D10.1 device we can use for the extra functionality. I personally also keep a BOOL inside my Graphics class to allow me to easily check if I have 10.1 support.

Now you can take advantage of the new features in Direct3D 10.1, and SM4.1!