Newbie question: Cocoa and Carbon - which for what and how to get started?

[BliTz]

Hey!
This is my first post here. I'm a computer science student and would like to get started on how to develop games. I have always been interested in that, but I can't basically draw so I was always hesitating in making the big jump. A friend of mine told me, because I'm really good at calculus (3d, vectorial) that I should be thinking about that. But again, I can't draw; my imagination is bad :-( But I would love to develop a game and apply my 3d maths skills :D

So, here are my skills: I can code in C and Java (I did a tic-tac-toe game and a little command-line videostore program where you rent movies, search for titles...) and understand the fundamentals of C++ and Objective-C. I was wondering, from a game developer point of view, which of Carbon or Cocoa is the best to learn? I think, correct me if I'm wrong, but Carbon can be used with C++, and Cocoa with Objective-C.

I would also like to know how I can get started. In order to build a graphical game, I'll have to learn OpenGL I guess. Which of Carbon or Cocoa offers the best support? I'm a poor student so I don't have a lot of money to spend. I quickly browsed the NeHe tutorials and I can't figure out what goes wrong at lesson 1 :S So I'm a bit lost :( I would like to know where I should be spending my time: Cocoa, Carbon, OpenGL? And how, what kind of project should I be trying to do?

Thanks!!

[OneSadCookie]

I'd suggest neither Carbon nor Cocoa, from where you are. GLUT will get you up and running quickly, though you'll need to switch away later. SDL is good for longer, but harder to get started in. Either way, you'll need to learn OpenGL.

http://onesadcookie.com/Tutorials (intro to GLUT, written for an older version of Xcode but most is still the same).

[BliTz]

What are the advantages/inconvenients of GLUT ? You're tutorial is really good! I was able to run some OpenGL/GLUT for the first time :-) Where else can I find some more tutorials? How can I make the NeHe tutorial works on a Mac? Right now, it only seems I need Win32 API, which I obviously do not have.

Thanks!

[OneSadCookie]

There are Mac ports of all the NeHe tutorials (look near the bottom of each tutorial page if he hasn't changed the layout since I was there last). The Mac ports are a bit crappy though; if the GLUT ports work they'd be a better resource.

GLUT is fine for quite a while, but there's no way to change its menus (particularly the preferences) and it has some lack of flexibility in detecting key input which make it a poor choice for some games (no way to tell if ctrl-a is pressed, for example).

Personally, my recommendation is to start working in GLUT ('cos it's easy) and then move on to SDL or <shameless plug>GameShell (http://onesadcookie.com/svn/repos/GameShell)</shameless plug> once you're happy working with OpenGL, and in Xcode.