Updated for February 24, 2014 release

Readme.txt

@@ -4,7 +4,7 @@ DirectXTK - the DirectX Tool Kit
 
 Copyright (c) Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.
 
-January 24, 2014
+February 24, 2014
 
 This package contains the "DirectX Tool Kit", a collection of helper classes for 
 writing Direct3D 11 C++ code for Windows Store apps, Windows Phone 8 applications,
@@ -27,10 +27,11 @@ Inc\
 
     Audio.h - low-level audio API using XAudio2 (DirectXTK for Audio public header)
     CommonStates.h - factory providing commonly used D3D state objects
+    DirectXHelpers.h - misc C++ helpers for D3D programming
     DDSTextureLoader.h - light-weight DDS file texture loader
     Effects.h - set of built-in shaders for common rendering tasks
     GeometricPrimitive.h - draws basic shapes such as cubes and spheres
-    Model.h - draws rigid and skinned meshes loaded from .CMO or .SDKMESH files
+    Model.h - draws meshes loaded from .CMO or .SDKMESH files
     PrimitiveBatch.h - simple and efficient way to draw user primitives
     ScreenGrab.h - light-weight screen shot saver
     SimpleMath.h - simplified C++ wrapper for DirectXMath
@@ -202,6 +203,18 @@ Orientation:
 
     spriteBatch->SetRotation( m_deviceResources->ComputeDisplayRotation() );
 
+3D sprites:
+
+    As explained in this article, you can use SpriteBatch to render particles and billboard text in 3D as well
+    as the default 2D behavior.
+
+    http://blogs.msdn.com/b/shawnhar/archive/2011/01/12/spritebatch-billboards-in-a-3d-world.aspx
+
+    To simplify this application, you can set the rotation mode so that SpriteBatch doesn't apply a view transform
+    matrix internally and assumes the full transform is accomplished by Begin's matrix parameter.
+
+    spriteBatch->SetRotation( DXGI_MODE_ROTATION_UNSPECIFIED );
+
 Further reading:
 
     http://www.shawnhargreaves.com/blogindex.html#spritebatch
@@ -780,6 +793,39 @@ Available states:
 
 
 
+--------------
+DirectXHelpers
+--------------
+
+C++ helpers for writing D3D code.
+
+Exception-safe Direct3D 11 resource locking:
+
+    Modern C++ development strongly encourages use of the RAII pattern for exception-safe resource management, ensuring that resources
+    are properly cleaned up if C++ exceptions are thrown. Even without exception handling, it's generally cleaner code to use RAII and
+    rely on the C++ scope variables rules to handle cleanup. Most of these cases are handled by the STL classes such as std::unique_ptr,
+    std::shared_ptr, etc. and the recommended COM smart pointer Microsoft::WRL::ComPtr for Direct3D reference counted objects. One case
+    that isn't so easily managed with existing classes is when you are mapping staging/dynamic Direct3D 11 resources. MapGuard solves
+    this problem, and is modeled after std::lock_mutex.
+
+    MapGuard map( context.Get(), tex.Get(), 0, D3D11_MAP_WRITE, 0 );
+
+    for( size_t j = 0; j < 128; ++j )
+    {
+        auto ptr = map.scanline(j);
+        ...
+    }
+
+Debug object naming:
+
+   To help track down resource leaks, the Direct3D 11 debug layer allows you to provide ASCII debug names to Direct3D 11 objects. This
+   is done with a specific GUID and the SetPrivateData method. Since you typically want to exclude this for release builds, it can get
+   somewhat messy to add these to code. The SetDebugObjectName template greatly simplifies this for static debug name strings.
+
+   SetDebugObjectName( tex.Get(), "MyTexture" );
+
+
+
 -----------
 VertexTypes
 -----------
@@ -833,6 +879,12 @@ to trim off any mipmap levels larger than the minimum required size for the give
 device Feature Level and retry. Note this requires the .dds file contains mipmaps to
 retry with a smaller size.
 
+If a Direct3D 11 context is provided and a shader resource view is requested (i.e.
+textureView is non-null), then the texture will be created to support auto-generated
+mipmaps and will have GenerateMips called on it before returning. If no context is
+provided (i.e. d3dContext is null) or the pixel format is unsupported for auto-gen
+mips by the current device, then the resulting texture will have only a single level.
+
 DDSTextureLoader will load BGR 5:6:5 and BGRA 5:5:5:1 DDS files, but these formats will
 fail to create on a system with DirectX 11.0 Runtime. The DXGI 1.2 version of
 DDSTextureLoader will load BGRA 4:4:4:4 DDS files using DXGI_FORMAT_B4G4R4A4_UNORM.
@@ -1273,6 +1325,14 @@ Further reading:
 RELEASE HISTORY
 ---------------
 
+February 24, 2014
+    DirectXHelper: new utility header with MapGuard and public version of SetDebugObjectName template
+    DDSTextureLoader: Optional support for auto-gen mipmaps
+    DDSTextureLoader/ScreenGrab: support for Direct3D 11 video formats including legacy "YUY2" DDS files
+    GeometricPrimtive: Handedness fix for tetrahedron, octahedron, dodecahedron, and icosahedron
+    SpriteBatch::SetRotation(DXGI_MODE_ROTATION_UNSPECIFIED) to disable viewport matrix
+    XboxDDSTextureLoader: optional forceSRGB parameter
+
 January 24, 2014
     DirectXTK for Audio updated with voice management and optional mastering volume limiter
     Added orientation rotation support to SpriteBatch