Hello all, im a new comer to this forum, I need help. Im a gamer and am passionate about making a game eversince i played my frist game on the intellivision. When i was in high school i made pong,pac man,tetris and other simple games with a program language called Turing and OOT(object Oriented Turing)..i have also done programming in college. Programming microproccessors to control robot vehicle with a programming language called PBasic. However, now i want to get in to something 3d, and i am completely ignorant and im looking for knowledge wherever i can find it. I would like to be able to make a 1st person or 3rd person shooter, YES i do know that im going to need a foundation of knowledge of coding and that is where i need the veteran users of this forum to help me out. I would like to know which is the best programming language or most powerful one to achieve what i'am trying to accomplish and what tutorials or even books i should look into reading to best help me out. I sincerely apoligize for such a long message but i want to start on the right foot because befor i learn to walk im gonna have to crawl Thank you for being so patient wit me

C++ is probably the most commonly used programming language for making games (someone correct me if that's ... incorrect). Since you have some previous programming experience, even some with OOP it appears, I would definitely recommend C++. The book I would recommend to you as someone who at least has some grasp on programming concepts is The C++ Programming Language by Bjarne Stroustroup (spelling?) who is widely regarded as the father of C++.

The book is very well written and appeals to those who have had prior programming experience and would like to learn C++.

I know that this isnt exactly what you asked, but you will also need a graphics API or an engine to render things to the screen. I prefer OpenGL but there is also DirectX. Ogre (in my opinion) is a very good Graphics engine if you want to go that route. It pretty much gives you everything you need to render a model or whatever to the screen as well as a BSP loader. Then finally you could get a pre-built game engine like Torque.

You will still need to do a lot of programming whatever route you take (as im sure you know).

Thanks for the helpful advice i'll look into that stuff,

does anyone know of any books mainly for game programming..like process engine to compiler to graphics that sort of thing ? As i said im completely ignorant to 3d programming so im gonna ned alot more info any help you guys can give me is greatly appriciated in the mean time i will take your advice fellas good lookin out!

As far as languages go C++ or C# are your best bet. I personally prefer C++ as i find it more flexible, and less restrictive.

If you really want to get into 3d there are other things you have to learn besides a language. For instance you will need to learn about vectors and matrices and nested coronate systems. These are pretty much essential to 3d environments, and IMO harder to fully grasp than a programming language. There are plenty of books out there on this subject although I wont recommend one because all the ones I've personally read have been awful. You can try looking through the books section here at Gamedev.

Then as mentioned above you may need to learn a graphics API such as OpenGL or DirectX, although it IS possible to get by without them by using a pre-existing engine. but then you’ll have to learn the engines API.

Finally you’ll want to look into things like spatial partitioning, collision detection, and physics. That is assuming you haven’t chosen to use an engine that handles that stuff for you.

Thanks dude! I can't tell all of yaz how much i appriciate your advice. I will do some research..is there any kind of software you think i should get into to get my feet wet?