3D engines etc..

[Muffinking]

I am going to start learning openGL this summer (along with Cocoa) and was wondering about the sort of math I would need to know for OpenGL?

i am currently in university, and I took Calculus in highschool and Linear Algebra.

I have a fairly good understanding of the use of matrices for rotations and translations. A fairly good grasp of direction vectors, components of vectors etc..

I have a fairly good grasp of entry level calculus. (Although here in ontario we have OAC which is grade 13 so I don't know what the difference is from that Calc and university calc, from what I am told grade 13 calc is what i am going to be doing in second year calc).

I just really want to know from the "pros of OGL" if math will be a roadblock for me if i try and do simple things in OpenGL, not necessarily an engine, but just little test apps, games.. etc..

I know this question is fairly open ended, but I just want to know if the math will be an issue early on in learning OGL..

any thoughts on this?

Hank-

[Bachus]

If you've taken trigonometry and calculus then you have all the math you need. Most all the math you need to know deals with triangles, vectors, matrices, and quaternions. Hell, calculus is practically overkill.

Good articles:

3-D Information for the Programmer (http://www.gamedev.net/reference/articles/article400.asp)
The Matrix and Quaternions FAQ (http://www.gamedev.net/reference/articles/article1691.asp)
Vectors and Matrices: A Primer (http://www.gamedev.net/reference/articles/article1832.asp)
Math and Physics articles at GameDev.net (http://www.gamedev.net/reference/list.asp?categoryid=28)

[kelvin]

Linear Algebra. IMO this will be by far the most usefull course you take when relating the math to 3D games.

[OneSadCookie]

Ya don't need to know anything :)

Any linear algebra you know will help, though. And if you've somehow managed to do a course that deals with quaternions, you've got a big head start on the rest of the world :)

[DoG]

Once you get down to optimiying things, especially stuff like collision detection and ray casts (not directly opengl related) you will need linear algebra like it was god and will wish it went to hell.