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I'm pursuing a career in game development. I have intermediate knowledge in C++ and therefore am somewhat competent but I don't know where to begin with graphics. Which language should I get into first? OpenGL? Once I get into a language what program do I have to have to begin using it? I'm more interested in OpenGL than anything else since I've seen what it can do, but can you guys lead me in a good direction?
If you are just beginning graphics programming, I would say going openGL imidiatelly is a bit hardcore, and non productive.
If you like c++, I would recomend SFML(wich actually does use openGL)
http://www.sfml-dev.org/
And also, join a game making community, I myself lurks on
http://www.wikicomplete.info/
I like DirectX, but that assumes you're programming for Windows.
There are plenty of tutorials out there, and the documentation has examples you can borrow to get started. If you're an intermediate programmer (as I am), you can probably do a fair bit just with DirectX. I'd recommend 9.0 so all your XP friends can play your awesome Pong game or whatever :)
Be prepared to live in the docs for a couple weeks though.
OpenGL is not language. It's graphics API.
I recommend you to go with OpenGL. I started with OpenGL by first looking for some examples on the internet. I started changing code to see how it works.
Then i started looking for some info how and why it all works.
Later i started writing my own tiny apps using OpenGL. And i can say for sure that i learned OpenGL by just experimenting with things.
I have messed with OpenGL over 1,5 years now and i have learned and still learn OpenGL at the same time i work on my main project: map editor
I have learned alot by just coding this tool.
I repeat i learned OpenGL when i was coding this one. It's done with OpenGL.
And now you can see how far i am.
OpenGL is easy and does alot of complicated stuff for you.
And i don't recommend DirectX. It's too hard, at least for beginners.
I started with OpenGL and i love it.