Hello everyone,

I just recently joined this amazing community!

So I have been programming games for the past 2 years or so. I am still learning, learning and learning new things everyday!

So my question is what should I focus on now? I have established a solid base in game programming. I have worked with the Unreal engine and built my own game with it. I am pretty good with Unity. Already have 7-8 prototypes established. I am currently delving deep into c++, working with libraries like glfw, SDL and making some games. I am a Masters student and current taking electives in data structures and algorithms. I am also working on a big web game project using javascript, jquery etc

After all this I still feel that there is so much to learn in terms of game development. I am still just a beginner in opengl graphics. I have no clue how network multiplayer games work. But eventually I think I will get there.

So now you have an idea about my background a bit. Coming back to the point of this topic. Last month my college sponsored us to visit several game development firms in the west coast of US. We visited big companies like Riot games, Blizzard, Treyarch, Sony, Naughty Dog, Insomniac games, Zynga to name a few. After talking to the big shots from the industry it was clear that c++ is a must know. I asked one of the senior game developer at Blizzard as to how should one improve his/her c++ programming skills? He replied saying dig into open source libraries, read code from existing open source games, try creating your own mods. Try creating your own level editor. He gave quake3 source code as an example to follow. Then I asked one other senior developers from Naughty Dog. He said the same thing but he also said that the quake3 source code is old, very very old. He is pretty sure that the existing c++ standards in AAA companies are way different from the code that was written few years back. Back in those days, everything was single threaded. Games today run on multi threads. So referring to the old code base does not make much sense. So I asked him what should be a good resource or reference to a modern open source library that uses modern c++ code but he wasn't sure about that.

So my question is where and how do I gain super good c++ skills, what are the good open source codes out there that I can refer to? Where do I exactly start looking to slowly move on to make my own simple mods.

Don't discount old engines so quickly, architecture doesn't change that fast. Quake 3 for example was way ahead of it's time. Back in 1999 it had a shader system (built over the fixed function pipeline) that resembles modern shader systems to a surprising degree, and even a multithreaded queued renderer that looks very, very close to what most engines use today! It also has a (simple) JIT-compiling VM for scripting! There is surprisingly little about that codebase that is particularly dated.

As for modern c++, I enjoy looking at the http://www.heliumproject.org for an example of commercial-grade code with some interesting design ideas, and https://github.com/mosra/magnum for inspiration on the application of C++11.

So my question is where and how do I gain super good c++ skills, what are the good open source codes out there that I can refer to? Where do I exactly start looking to slowly move on to make my own simple mods.

Where: your desk. No, really. That's where your companions to your learning journey are: your computer, your scratchpad, your books, and your coffee mug.

How: read good books, answer all exercises, write a lot of code, make a lot of mistakes and fix every single one of them, figure out cryptic compiler error messages, and learn to debug and profile. Read the source code and understand the architecture of some AAA games. Ask questions here!

Well Quake 3 uses BSP trees which no one uses anymore - not sure about other aspects of the code like physics and collision detection.

If you're talking about rendering, it might be better to start from the ground up. I am currently learning DirectX using Frank Lunas book and some of the tutorials.

The C++ FQA http://yosefk.com/c++fqa/ is also a good reference for another take on C++. But after reading it, realize you have to use C++ despite its defects, because aside from plain old C which makes, its necessary to get the high systems-level performance you need for a competiive 3D game.

Download the UDK, CryEngine 3, Unity3D, Ogre3D , Panda3D and start looking at how they work. Some will come with source, some will just be a pipeline exposing some scripting or bridge language, but it will give you some insight into modern engines and how they are designed.

Game development have become so large that people usually specialize these days. Architect, Network, Game, Graphics, Physics, Audio, Animation, Tools etc.. those are the usual "big" fields people specialize in. You can try to do all but truth is companies are not looking for people who can do "it all", they are looking for experts who are the "best" in one or 2 fields. This is for large companies of course, smaller companies might have different priorities. Focus on what you like to do and become an "expert" in that field, learn good programming practices and expand your mind, stay curious.

Good Luck!

-ddn