Where to find programming recources, visual c++, direct x, open GL

#1

I’m currently a freelance graphics artist, my main tools are 3d studio max and Photoshop. Though I am also proficient in MAYA.
OK, Ill skip the rest of the introduction and try to keep this short.
I don’t want to just be an artist anymore :cry:
Don’t get me wrong, I love modeling, texturing, and animating. Its just that I want more, I want to be able to model animate and ‘code.
I want to see under the hood. mmm’ :drool: gamegoo…yum!
Can you help me?
I don’t have the finances to go back to school.
If you have any suggestions, such as online resources, books, or other wise that might help me learn to program games please let me know. I’m a bit overwhelmed.
(I read the book “3d game programming in direct X 8.1”, I found it very useful but lost it in my move from the US to the UK. Im hoping to replace it once i find a job but im currently broke)

Thanks for any help you can give
Kory

:bowdown: Praised be all who help me in my quest :bowdown:

#2

Well, for the programming language (C/C++) i’d go to a decent sized bookstore and just start looking through some relevant books until you find one which is pretty managable. Some of them will have a CD included which may have an evaluation version of Visual Studio bundled within, which I think is a lovely dev environment to work with (version 6 and up including the new .Net stuff).

For the 3d stuff, since you’re a 3d artist anyway, hopefully all the math and stuff will be quite intuitive. There’s loads of ways to learn how to do this stuff - the way that got it all stuck into my head was to grab myself a copy of the OpenGL programming manual (its available online at www.opengl.org in the books section as well), the glut libraries from the web, and just go through all the examples so that setting up matrix transforms and the like becomes second nature (well, kinda second nature - I have still have to use a piece of paper and a pencil on a regular basis :).

Other than that, the best thing to do is just read everything you can, even stuff that you might not fully grasp - its amazing how much stuff stays in your brain and returns to the surface when needed. At least, thats what really helped my learning.

For some more excellent beginner OpenGL tutorials I’d recommend http://nehe.gamedev.net. For D3D, there isn’t a single comprehensive site that I know of (but theres plenty of tutorials and stuff around), but the actual Direct X SDK help is pretty good.

Other useful sites (especially check out the articles/tutorial sections):


www.flipcode.com

And good luck!
stoo

#3

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