So you area basically creating a scene editor?

My first comment is , if you are creating that, you are not creating a engine, but rather a editor. The engine part should be already done and it would simplify most of those operations.

So my first bet is to actually create something that renders your objects with hardcoded positions to the screen.

Then your editor would only , create, translate and rotate them around using your "engine" methods.

The factory Design pattern could help you in creating your objects, but its is not needed. Start simple.Get things done, then improve with your experience.

Firstly ignore any advice you got related to patterns. That is general/overall advice and has nothing to do with getting started, nor anything to do with graphics. You can always find an excuse to use a pattern somewhere, but if and when you do it will be because you decided it was appropriate, not because someone told you do use a pattern and you went on a wild goose chase looking for where you can use them. They don’t work that way and it would be better to just forget about them and lighten your load for now.

How to start a graphics engine?

Create a window and a device.

Then create a 3D file format that allows you to load 3D objects.

Then create something that draws those objects.

Things get more open-ended around that point, so instead of continuing to list a step-by-step procedure it would be better if you came back with further questions at that time.

L. Spiro

At the moment yeah, I have a system where I am able to hard code objects to the screen, adding in the coords (X,Y,Z) manually into the code I am able to create a scene

So whats my next move, how am I able to get this code to be more flexible so anybody can use the application to create what they want without knowing C++ or DirectX

Ok, I have created a window, using hwnd, and Direct3D device aswell as a back buffer, what do you mean by a 3D File Format?

Your question is really open right now, what do you mean by creating all they want?

Well thats a big question because you can't make a generic editor that will be used by everyone and to everyone needs, you need some sort of requirements. From your first post your requirements where: Create Objects, Translate and Rotate them in the world.

So start with that. You will need some sort of Scene Structure, do you have that? This would be where all the information of your scene is detailed, objects, positions, translations.

After that, you will need to decided what features you need, if your objects are sorted in list, you would need some sort of uniqueID, Name to distinguish them in the world.

After you have that, selecting a object would be a matter of requesting by that ID/Name, after that you could change your positions via other methods.

As I said, start simple, then keep adding features as you need it.

Ok, I have created a window, using hwnd, and Direct3D device aswell as a back buffer, what do you mean by a 3D File Format?

If you want to load 3D objects, you will need to store the data inside of a file.
Make a file format that contains the 3D data for your models. Vertices, normals, materials, textures, etc.

An easy format to work with is Wavefront OBJ (.obj)

All 3D modeling softwares export to this format.

I've worked with it using OpenGL, but since there are many open-source loaders for this format out there, translating it to DirectX specifications should be straightforward.

It should be mentioned that you should never load directly from .OBJ, .DAE, .FBX, etc. into your run-time. These formats should be converted to your own custom formats and loaded into your run-time with your own custom loader.

L. Spiro