Alright for years I feel like I've been an amateur (if you can all it that) programmer in that I've practiced with some languages in as much of a practical way as possible.

I have many many wonderful game idea's inspired by alot of the games I've played and alot of the movies I've seen.

Yet I do not know any C++ at all.

I did dabble in C# enough with visual studio to make a calculator but only with a tutorial.

So... Here's what I want to do (eventually)

I want to use C++ (or LUA) with a 3D graphics engine (Preferably OpenGL only if DirectX isn't easier) which will involve guns, vehicles, and general FPS themes. Also in the course of learning I need to be able to practically see my results. (That is... when I change the code, I need to be able to test it, and see if the changes had an effect)

I've worked a little with LUA, Actionscript, C#, and a "SMIDGE" of JAVA. However only to the point that I understand some of their most basic functions. LUA is the only language I actually produced a program in from scratch without help (It was a battle cruiser for an old game I used to play).

I would like to know what programs I can use to facilitate my learning of C++ and any other languages (like OpenGL) I may need to learn in order to finally produce or at least start my game.

At this point and time I have no compilers, no graphics engines, and no clue what to get. I've thought about working with the Unreal Development Kit (UDK) using C++ as a means to get used to the code. Would that be beneficial or negligable?

Thanks in advance for any assistance.

So after you build a calculator i bet you have the knowledge of building somekind of math game, otherwise you should do basic tutorials untill you can. That should be your next goal. Then you might want to do somekind of simple text based battle game in the console. Now you pretty much have the basics of C# and can start learning about direcX or take a shortcut and install XNA.

You don't want to use C++ right off the bat, it's a hard and unforgiving language. It will most likely make you hate programming and never do it again.

-edit-
Get MS visual studio express for C# (free).

Thanks for the replies so far, MS Visual Studio Express should behelpful, but why not start learning C++? If its so hard doesn't that mean I should begin learning it sooner rather than later if I intend to use it?

When you start C++ with none or little prior knowledge of programming chances are big that you get stuck and dislike programming because you won't see much progress at all. It's a hard and unforgiving language that hands you riddles about what is wrong with your code.

C# is much user friendly and thus you can see more progress in a shorter time period which is fun and rewarding. By learning C# you will get familiar with all the programming concepts and once you feel comfortable with C# the leap to C++ is much smaller. Chances are you stick with C# for at least a long time since you can do pretty much anything you want with it.

Ok so you've all convinced me to use C# (I'm familiar with it at least hahaha) what would be a good program to use with it (For game programming purposes)

I tried it with MS-Visual Studio but I never got past just making a little window that could be used for Text-Based-Games. Is there any program I could use with C# to make... say... A game like mario for instance? (only because 3d is much more graphically intensive and my art-skills are pretty weak right now)