OpenGl:Not worth it? Thread

People must be tired of this post all the time but I need help.
I'm a very good c++ programer. I am looking to start work on my own game and I was thinking about using SLD/Opengl. Lots of code experience, just no game making experience. I am looking to start with simple games (2d rpg or shoot'em up, nothing 3d or with a strong physics engine). I will have another coder working with me on this project.

I learning Opengl worth it, or will I just end up spinning my wheels?

Should I use a game engine instead?

What path will help me avoid "burning out"?

Thanks people!

Edited by: RACC00N

Yea it's worth it

I want to use more devices use OGL vs DX (Windows, Linux, Mac, pad's, phones, etc?) but I'm not sure, but I'd say more games use DX vs OGL (XBox & 90% of all PC games use DX)

Serious Sam3, Rage and Outerra (from top of my head) basically any game that went to Apple are all OpenGL.

Blog.wolfire.com

It's largely irrelevant whether you choose to start with OpenGL versus DirectX, since most implementations are theoretically portable between the two with a little knowledge of the two platforms.

Start small and work your way up. There are some great OpenGL graphics programming tutorials out there.

So it is do-able?

I think it depends on what you want to initially get out of your foray into game development? Do you want to write a game or do you want to write an engine?
If you are interested in implementing a gameplay idea you have, use an engine.
If you are interested in studying what it takes to make a game happen, roll your own and dive into OpenGL or DirectX (like ambershee said, the principles of one translate well to the other; the syntax is just different).

Learning OpenGL (or any aspect of programming or game development) will never result in spinning your wheels if you're approaching it wisely. To know what would prevent you from getting burnt out, we'd have to know you better... I'd argue that only you could answer that question after spending some time with both options.

He says he doesn:t want to burn out. Doing something from scratch is a very good way to do that.

Maybe try an abstracted renderer. Irrilict is a great c0++ engine that has an opengl, directX and various software renderers. Give it a try

Irrlicht.sourceforge.net

I have looked into things, and have picked the LOVE engine.

Edited by: RACC00N

Oh sorry I was under the impression you wanted to use c++

You've picked up LOVE? I wrote an isometric demo in LOVE. It's really quite a powerful little game library/engine primitive. And it's easy to transfer knowledge of C/++ to Lua (not to mention Lua's a very speedy language).

In short, if you know your way around a stack operations, you can't go wrong with it (knowing how to manage a sprite drawing stack will be very helpful indeed).

I use SDL+OpenGL, it works fine. Finding documentation on doing 2D stuff with OpenGL was more difficult than I expected, however.

If you're interested in Open GL, there's a great site with tutorials: Opengl-tutorial.org

I work on platforms other than Windows, so it's a decision that's a no-brainer for me.