I started with MDX about a month ago, working through the documentation to first get a feel for the architecture of Direct 3D. I don't need ultra high 3D performance, so using C# and managed code would theoretically pay off in the long run. My programming partner is not an experience C++ programmer either and comes from a visual languages background on the Mac, but we did work on a big Actionscript 2 project, so he's familiar with OOP. C# should feel familiar.

Anyway, here's what I got started doing:

• Installing Visual Studio 2005 - this is going to be our dev platform for the entire project

• Installing DirectX SDK from August 2007, the last stable release version with the MDX 1.1 stuff still in it.

• Compiled the sample code to see if it worked.

• Created a simple model in Modo, exported to .X format.

• Tried to add mesh loading code to EmptyProject sample code, to test if I understood it correctly. It did not work.

• Tried loading my .X mesh using a modifed version of "Enhanced Mesh" sample code. This did work.

Currently, I am trying to figure out what I did wrong in importing Mesh loading code from "Enhanced Mesh". I am missing something.

I didn't know that XNA Game Studio 2.0 had come out on December 14th, and now supports Visual Studio 2005 directly. Woot! I installed it, compiled the first example, and the workflow looks VASTLY IMPROVED over MDX. I am totally canning the MDX site of things. It's still C#, but it's much more framework-y. I am about to start reading through the XNA Framework documents now.

Bye bye, MDX :)