Ok, I was very advance and skillful at maths when i was young, (hey i am still 18 thats young still) unfortunatly i was kicked out of school at the start of grade 10 (computer hacking, i learnt my lesson). I can admit I was stupid in thinking I didn''t need schooling, but I was always so far ahead of the class, that most times the teacher would tell me to do my own thing, and of course that lead to trouble. Anyway, to the point, I need to know the best option for me to learn maths to do 3d graphics, i would need to start at the basics of year 10 again just to kick start my memmory. I can easily pump out some nice 2d games with basic maths skills, no trig or pie or those advance pyhsics stuff. sin, cos, tan they are all foreign to me, I was looking at this online course (gameinstitute.com) for maths but its $90us which is a little expensive, considering I dont have any recommendations if the course is worth it or not. I dont mind paying for books either, but I dont want to sit through Tafe just to learn other usless things like history..... Anyway the point is, where should i start, what is the best bet for someone like me. Thanks for reading all the way through this long and boring post Jeremy.

Your best bet is to go down to the local college and talk to a guidance counselor. The first step is going to be to get your high school equivalence degree. Then go to college. It takes three things to be successful. Those are ability, ambition and opportunity. Ambition drives you to seize the opportunities available. College is the biggest opportunity you can create for yourself. The degree opens doors. It is as simple as that. So you made a few mistakes and perhaps they were big ones, but at this point you can easily recover from them.

You really need the math and physics courses that only a college/university can offer you. I''d say matrix algebra and linear algebra are particularly important. As LilBudyWizer suggested, go talk to a guidance counsellor and see what they can do for you.

I suppose its always an option to teach yourself... you could research some good books but I won''t suggest any here.

Also, $90US is really cheap for a course IMHO. Most of my university classes are about $200 CDN + price of books (which is usually $100 per class), and thats still cheap compared to many other institutes.

Thanks, I dont want to go to a college or anything like that. I am a person who can easily pick up books and better myself, I learn alot quicker than going to school as I did a TAFE course once (TAFE is below college for you americans) and found 99% of the people to be slow. I know people look at degrees when choosing jobs, but for me its just a waste of time, why spend hundreds or thousands when you can pick up a good book at learn it in your own time and most times quicker?

I dont want to sound like I am being a smart ass, but my family are all very intellgent, and I follow the same path. I am more intelligent than everyone I work with, and hang out with. I am very knowledgable in alot of science catagoeries, including light, Quantum, Space/Time... Though the one thing area that I suffer in is english, my native language is english, but unfortunatly all our family seem to fail in that area, while all our math skills excell. I am a quick learner when it comes to maths (i was always the A+ student doing the next year level work when it came to maths), but because I left in year 10 and due to lack of study, I have become rather lost in the more advance maths.

Sorry for the long post, I am not trying to be a smart ass saying I am better than you, just that I really just need to get some books and not look at schooling as much.

Whaddya wanna do ?
Hobby program ?
Job program ?

If its job, then grit your teeth and get a degree.
Otherwords you most likly can say goodbye to any chance of a job, from what I hear.

Hobby, you can do down to a used book store and pick up books cheap. Just work with them unti you get it.
You will need Algerbra 1&2.
Precalculus and Calculus.
Linear Algerbra.
Physics.

Frankly, you should go get a high school equivilency.
Yes, even if 99% of the people are slow.

And get a English class or two.

~V''lion

tagged84,

actually, i have a few questions for you.

if you don''t mind, what kind of hacking did you do? how did you get caught, and how easily did you pick it up? is it easy to pick up? did you do serious program hacking or just script kiddie stuff?

also, how do you understand light, quantum theory, and space/time without a mathematical basis? is it just that you are familiar with the concepts but not the mathematical proofs behind it?

a2k

If you are so smart then why are you not smart enough to recognize the easiest path to get to where you want to be? You could dig a ditch with a spoon, but why would you? It is all a game of probabilities. Anything can happen, but some things are more likely than others.

Well, learning 3D programming was my main motivation to re-discover math when I was a kid. By the time I was 13 I had re-invented 2D rotation formulas, Euler angles, perspective projection and the cosine rule for lighting, and I had a working 3D program written in basic for a Z-80 based computer that rendered a model of a plane with 28 polygons in 20 seconds (which is veeery slow, but it worked). Well, I didn''t re-invented matrix algebra or linescan algorithms..., but I think I did enough. If you can''t figure out how to make a working 3D program, I don''t know why you consider yourself so smart. Just kidding, you probably are very smart.

But even if I was pretty smart myself, I think the first year I took on Geometry ("Linear Algebra & Geometry") really opened my eyes, and the second year ("Projective Geometry") gave another twist to the subject, and now I really understand what vectors and matrices are, why the operations on them work as they do, and why they are so convinient. I had a great teacher (José Manuel Aroca), and that helped a lot. Vector spaces and linear operators are everywhere, and they are good not only for 3D programming, but also for signal processing, differential equations, number theory, physics... There is no better way to learn about them that going to college.

I didn''t learn anything useful in highschool either, but college is a totally different world. And if you put a lot of effort, you can get a lot from it. Go to college. Really, even if you are the smartest kid in the world, there is no way you will learn that much by yourself.

yeah,

to be honest, if you don''t know trig, then you probably haven''t had algebra either. that all amounts to a TON of math that you need to learn before you start getting into linear algebra, physics or 3D geometry. I''m certainly a believer in teaching yourself things and don''t doubt that you could do it. personally the structure of shool is the easiest way to progress through those courses.

however, the bigger question you should be thinking about is eventually having a job. there are still places that will hire accomplished and proven programmers who don''t have a college degree, but there isn''t a single one that i''ve heard of that will hire you without a high school degree. and within a couple years there probably won''t be many places that''ll hire you without a college degree.

people look for school degrees b/c they demonstrate that you can stick to something and finish it even if it''s not that interesting to you. if you don''t have the discipline to stay in school, most people assume you wouldn''t be very good at having a job either. whether that is a true assumption or not, it''s the way the world works.

at least get a high school degree if you want to be a professional programmer.

if you have no interest in being a professional programmer, then head to the library and learn geometry -> trig -> algebra -> calculus -> physics -> linear algebra (probably in that order).

-me

Thanks for the replys,

>if you don''t mind, what kind of hacking did you do? how did >you get caught, and how easily did you pick it up? is it easy >to pick up? did you do serious program hacking or just script >kiddie stuff?

I got a highlevel user/pass from a computer teacher (that didn''t know all too much about computers). Then I got info off the net and launched some progs on one of the main computers on the network (I asked to help fix computers). Then the day I had access to change some real data (they kept records of grades and days away on the computers, but Im sure they had paper backups), they called me up to the office. They said for the last year computers were breaking down etc.. They had hired some detectives and took them 2 months or so to track down who it was.

>also, how do you understand light, quantum theory, and >space/time without a mathematical basis? is it just that you >are familiar with the concepts but not the mathematical proofs >behind it?

I am just familiar with the concepts, I have the basics of maths and I am able to understand the general idea of the maths, just that I cant re-create it or anything like that.

I dont need to go back to highschool, there is an option here to sit a STAT test that will give me an OP. Not sure about you Americans, but an OP is an Overall Position, 1 being the best and I think it goes right up to 25, after that you just dont get an OP. It costs 300, but I figure its the best way rather than wasting a year.

Anyway, I will look at the university/college option, my mum has been bugging me to do something... At least that would please her

Thanks for all the help guys.