C

camera

A Direct3DRMFrame object used by the viewport to define the viewing position and direction. The viewport renders only what is visible along the positive z-axis of the camera frame, with the up direction in the direction of the positive y-axis.

camera space

The frame of reference in which the viewer is at the origin, looking in the direction of the positive z-axis. Objects are transformed from world space to camera space by using the view transformation.

client/server session

A Microsoft� DirectPlay� session in which only the server stores the session's complete state, and each client has only a subset of the session's state. Each client receives only the information that is relevant to that computer from the server. When one computer changes something, it propagates the change to the server. The server then determines which clients it must inform of the change. See also peer-to-peer session.

clip list

A series of rectangles that describes the visible areas of the surface. The clip list cannot be set if a window handle is already associated with the DirectDrawClipper object.

clipper

A DirectDrawClipper object.

codec

Represents the phrase "compressor and decompressor."

collision detection

The process of determining if any pixels for two images share the same location on the screen. See also hit detection.

color key

A value indicating the color to be used for transparent or translucent effects. For example, when using a hardware blitter, all the pixels of a rectangular area are blitted, except the value that was set as the color key; this creates nonrectangular sprites on a surface.

color space

A model for representing color as three or more coordinates. Color-space models map color components onto a Cartesian coordinate system in three or more dimensions. A color space may use any of several types of color encoding and visualizing. The two most common types of color space models are RGB and YUV.

color-space conversion

A technique for converting a color in one color space to another color space. Typically, this conversion is from YUV colors from a video source to RGB for display.

color table

An array of n color values (normally RGB triples).

complex surface

The collective term for several DirectDrawSurface objects, all of which are attached to a root surface. The complex-surface structure can be destroyed only by destroying the root.

control segment

Musical segment that controls certain aspects of playback. Normally it is the primary segment, but a secondary segment can be designated as the control segment.

culling

Skipping a back face of a 3-D primitive during the rendering process.

curve

In Microsoft� DirectMusic�, a continuous series of events with a start and end value, such as volume fade.