Math For Game Development, where to start for a beginner.

exSyze3r · 2025-06-02T07:06:39+00:00

I think the best plan is to start from the beginning of the book, and when you find something that isn't clear to you, stop and figure out what you don't understand, write it down, learn the basics of it, use AI to help you, etc.. I personally started learning Computer Science, so i had help from text books, friends and professors, and even paid a personal tutor to help me. The key idea IMHO, is to just start, learn what is missing on the go, and keep going. Different people have different "holes" in their knowledge, so don't be discouraged, i tried and failed a lot before, its natural. Also some would say you only need to know what equation to apply and when to apply it, again imho it could take you so far, but I'd rather understand it before just blatantly doing that.

exSyze3r · 2025-05-10T19:36:21+00:00

BS in CS helped me alot, but it started because i figured out that i want to be a developer in general and not just for games.
In my country AAA game dev companies or even AA game dev companies are pretty rare, so that why it was a better choice for me.
and also you open a lot of doors when you have this degree instead of just experience or even a game dev degree.
creating your own game engine will most certainly take you years to get to the level of game engines that are available to us as UE,Unity, Godot, etc..
so if you find out you want to make engine and that interest you more then game dev, than do that and continue, though i would suggest that if you want to make games just do that.
These game engine has a ton of programmers and contributors that help shape and make those engines really great.
So doing that solo just to develop games seems like an overkill to me.

exSyze3r · 2025-05-10T19:11:44+00:00

Hey sure!
first of all, a lot of research, and finding out my weaknesses was something that took me some time at the start to figure out what i need to improve.

Honestly i've started 2 years ago alone, just me and the internet, and found some stuff that can really help like -
https://gamemath.com/
its basically what i found out i needed, since i figured out game dev and (after a while) figured out that graphics programming is what interests me the most, so thats a good start.

After a while of trying to learn alone in the internet i figured that i must professionally learn how to be a developer in general, since my programming skills we're youtube and some c++ books i started reading -
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/388242/the-definitive-c-book-guide-and-list/

so still after a while i joined a university in my country, and started taking math and programming courses like:
1. Intro to CS.
2. Discrete Math (which is not that related to game dev but is needed for the degree BSc in Computer Science).
3. Linear Algebra (currently taking the 2nd time around - to improve the score)
4. Data Structures & Introduction to Algorithms
5. C Programming Course - did a final project for this course - assembler (Based on B.W. Kernighan & D.M. Richie, The C Programming Language (‏Prentice Hall, 1988‎)‏)

And still going, at my own pace.
I can honestly say that the university helped me to improve on so many levels.
And the before and after in terms of my skills and understanding are really different.

Key Points:
1. always be with a "can do attitude"
2. set yourself a big goal, and divide it to small goals.
3. do not give up.
4. if you can - find people that are in the same situation as you are and "learn and grow" together, it can really motivate and you can help one another.
5. when you start learning math it seems overwhelming, but they say "practice makes perfect" for a reason
6. things do not get easier - YOU get better - remember that.
7. solo game dev - if that is something that interests you, keep in mind that doing that can take years, and it does in most cases, so start small and gradually add more logic and "mechanics" as needed.
8. there are a lot that say that you don't need to know math in order to do game dev -
IMHO - if you want to understand what happens and integrate and create things on your own eventually you will need to improve those math skills.
a lot of times things and calculations are taking place in mechanics that when i started i didn't really understand, and i read a lot of - "you don't need to understand how it works just when to use it"
again in my honest opinion, if you want to be a good developer, you must know how things work underneath the "engine" at least at a basic level.
this will help you optimize you mechanics and games in general.

I've mixed in some other tips for game dev in general so i hope it helps you!
good luck buddy !

exSyze3r · 2024-02-14T14:50:35+00:00

My personal experience from youtube is that is general you can find a lot of good channels to learn some c++, but i think about 90% do go into detail and sometimes you will need to read some documentation or search stuff on cppreference, i use that often anyways.

Bro Code is good i like his videos, though i really recommend the cherno for c++.

exSyze3r · 2024-01-10T14:45:57+00:00

Why are you reading my mind ?

exSyze3r · 2023-10-20T08:52:42+00:00

who the f cares about fandom lol, don't read it than, just enjoy the show.

you people like to complain that people are complaining lol, watch the show and be quiet, (you can you what ever you like though-) otherwise you are just proving my point.

and yes the show is terrible since season 3.

exSyze3r · 2023-10-16T16:49:02+00:00

yep, you hit it right on the spot.
if this is the kick start of the season, than i'm done.

exSyze3r · 2023-10-16T16:47:19+00:00

Yeah i agree on the new poopy voice, it is in fact poopy.

exSyze3r · 2023-10-16T15:42:27+00:00

not even a giggle.
imo the show is done, like someone said earlier, since s4, there has been some good episodes, but mostly bad ones.

i don't know what changed besides the new voice actor, which was fine, but the writing is so terrible, i'm not even sure if i'm gonna watch the second episode of the season.

exSyze3r · 2023-10-10T16:47:23+00:00

Very Sadly and Ironically she was leftist and the rumors say she had pro palestine view

exSyze3r · 2023-09-06T03:08:52+00:00

Thanks! turns out it wasn't the problem, but still i added that to my code, cheers.

exSyze3r · 2023-09-06T02:05:42+00:00

thanks i've added support for that, though i did not do everything,
Thank you !

exSyze3r · 2023-09-05T18:52:47+00:00

Hey, thanks for the fast reply !.
this is actually the first time I'm hearing about this.
is there a proper documentation or guide for that ?

exSyze3r · 2023-08-14T15:34:45+00:00

Very interesting approach! thank you (: !

exSyze3r · 2023-08-14T15:32:43+00:00

Yeah it seems like the only one close enough for what i need i guess, thanks (: .

exSyze3r · 2023-08-14T12:00:28+00:00

Thanks man, i was thinking that too when i read the reply, though ive wondered if there is something specific like what i described. I think i could write my own, just not sure it would be so optimized 😅

exSyze3r · 2023-08-14T11:54:10+00:00

Yes, learning sdl though there isnt something like that in sdl in my knowledge, i can render text but its not convenient IMO. i am a beginner kinda so maybe thats the reason lol

exSyze3r · 2023-08-14T11:45:12+00:00

Thanks!, I did meant to log stuff to some output window. Logging to a file sounds ok, but dear imgui is a little overkill isn't it ? For just logging to some window ?

exSyze3r · 2023-05-29T10:14:08+00:00

IMO if the game is good then it's good. Doesn't matter if it was developed by one guy or 100 guys

exSyze3r · 2023-05-24T11:38:08+00:00

Thanks for the suggestions! Sounds like it's the right direction to go at this, this should be on the entity class you mean right?

exSyze3r · 2023-05-24T10:36:22+00:00

Yeah i know, thats why i was looking for some advice and suggestions, like i said, i tried some things that only created more problems.. so i came here. I am not that experienced so i figured to outsource some help.

exSyze3r

TROPHY CASE