The opacity of an image defined by an alpha value per pixel interleaved with the color components (for example, ARGB), an alpha value per pixel stored in a separate alpha surface, or a constant alpha value for the entire surface.
The portion of a 32-bit color that determines its opacity. In this case, the alpha value per pixel is interleaved with the color components (for example, ARGB). Less commonly, this term can also refer to an image with an alpha value per pixel stored in a separate alpha surface.
A level of opacity (alpha value) applied to an entire surface.
A particular use of alpha blending (and alpha channel information) to reduce aliasing by blending edges based on pixel coverage information.
A light source that illuminates everything in a scene, regardless of the orientation, position, and surface characteristics of the objects in the scene. Because this illuminates a scene with equal strength everywhere, the position and orientation of the frame it is attached to are inconsequential. Multiple ambient light sources are combined within a scene.
A group of objects organized into an array. Array objects make it simpler to apply operations to the entire group. The COM interfaces that allow you to work with array objects contain the GetElement and GetSize methods. These methods retrieve a pointer to an element in the array and the size of the array, respectively.
To connect multiple DirectDrawSurface objects into complex structures, like those needed to support 3D page flipping with z-buffers. Attachment is not bidirectional, and a surface cannot be attached to itself. Emulated surfaces (in system memory) cannot be attached to nonemulated surfaces. Unless one surface is a texture map, the two attached surfaces must be the same size.
Sound data, mixed or unmixed. DirectSound mixes audio streams from each secondary sound buffer that is playing and writes the result to the primary sound buffer, which supplies the sound hardware with audio data.