As most of you can tell by my recent posts, I am new here, and new to game developing. I have completed an introduction to programming design using C++, and programming C++. I''ve read several books about C++, and started on one about OpenGL. I have no idea how to work with matrices, vectors, normals, and the physics stuff. Should I now start taking advanced mathematics classes in addition to my programming classes to be a productive game programmer? Do I need to know this stuff to be able to modify an existing game engine to suit my needs? How do I go about changing an engine? What I need to know is, what now? Do I keep on taking progressively more advanced C++ courses? Do I need to take a data structure class?

Hi,

In my opinion programming is only a tool to get the result you require... therefor it would be a wise descision to learn something about complex 2D/3D math (and the like). I have been programming for several years now and only recently I learned about complex math stuff... in my opinion math helps very well with programming games.

That is my advice... learn
1: Math
2: Programming
3: Software engineering