How to Make a Video Game - Step Three : Learn Math

College is a rip off. Especially with all the great math resources online. You can learn what you need for free, and you'll feel really cool for knowing that you taught yourself.........

Or you can pay $40,000 for someone to read it to you and give you a grade.

If you want to make a cool 3D game, a couple things will sneak up on you and confuse you (me). Matrix and Quaternion Math. It's weird at first, but you definitely want to get yourself familiar with those concepts. Also, if you don't know geometry already, or are a little rusty, time to brush up.

euclideanspace.com - A big site that covers lots of topics related to 3d programming. Includes good lessons on Matrices and Quaternions along with a bunch of other interesting stuff.

The Matrix and Quaternions FAQ - One big text dump, so you can even read it from your phone (if you have a modern cell phone).

If you need to brush up on geometry and basic stuff ..... MathIsFun.com . It's designed for kids and because of that, it makes you feel extra stupid for not knowing that stuff if you're 27 (like me)....... that's the price you have to pay for being an adult and not knowing 8th grade math.

How to Make a Video Game - Step Two : Make a List

I'm starting my full time project, with some of the project already done. I made a list of MUST-HAVES for ANY 3d adventure game. There are even MUST-HAVES that i did not include on this list. All the things have to be programmed by just me of course. No big deal. Lots of stuff on the internet to help me. Here's my list in case you're interested.

The stuff i already have:

• Animated Models
• Multi-Instance drawing of Models
• Basic projectiles
• Basic Collision detection
• Basic Terrain manager

Stuff I NEED now:

• Sky Box
• Octree Implementation
• Particle Engine
• Post Processing System
• Controller Action Management
• Heads Up Display
• N.P.C. (none player characters)
• Frustum Culling
• Advanced Collision Handling
• Implement Sound Effects Game Component
• Billboard Component
• Pick Ups
• Mouse Picking
• Game State Management
• Menu System
• XML Data writing
• Game Process Saving
• Convert Project to XNA 3.1 (so far, every XNA update has been a little rough to install)

How to Make a Video Game - Step One: Quit your job

Quitting your job is an important first step to doing anything meaningful.

Also, if you can.... never go to college, and smoke about 30 lbs of weed inside 15 years.

These things will put you in the right place to start thinking like a winner, instead having a boss and being a loser.