Do i have the mathskills?

You might want to consider taking the Gameinstitute.com maths course or picking up one of the many maths and physics books for games programmers. Either of these will put you on the right course

ukdm

You'll be able to answer your question yourself: just find a math book/website which explains linera algebra, read it, do the exercises, and test yourself. I believe 14 yo is a bit young (you might lack some important concepts before starting). The most important thing in math is the math language itself. If you can understand it, then you'll be able to read the definitions, theorems, proofs, and so on.

Be aware that math you do at the age of 14 is slightly different of the math you'll do later.

A good site to know: mathworld

HTH,

If you've done any programming at all, you've probably got what it takes to make simple 2D games. 2D isn't that difficult math-wise. If you're interrested in math, you can probably learn what's needed for 3D, though don't expect that to happen over night. NeHe's tutorials seem to be a good starting point to 3D programming. You can work out the more complex math later, when you're better equipped to handle it. Just start tweaking with stuff and worry about the details later. When working with 3D it's important to have an intuitive grasp of things, and you get that only by doing.

linear algebra... thats a course i have to take next year at the university of new brunswick! lol here is the prerequisite
Prerequisite: A minimum grade of 60% in New Brunswick Advanced Mathematics 120 or equivalent. (grade 12 math)
Rotation matrices, Quadratic forms, Matrix Algebra, Linear Independance
not to discourage you, bc i think that its great that your interested in getting into 3d fun-ness but you would have to be exceptionally good to get this without alot of work at your age.

I was doing some 3d work in opengl a while back. I was making progress in the math understanding, but I found myself doing only programming. I decided to work on a 2d game so I could think about game design not matrices. If you want to work in 3d, you can use an engine like panda3d or irrlicht.

OpenGL does alot with matricies. If you truly want to understand what goes on behind the api with matrix rotation, transformation, etc..... (which really makes it alot easier to use the entire OpenGL api) You should learn Discrete Structures Mathematics. However, with you only being 14 that is way over your head as it is a College level course. You have to have the concepts before you go into learning Discrete Structures Mathematics or you will be lost. Other than that you should have knowledge of Liniar Algebra due to the use of vectors and such. As far as Physics goes a entry level course would be just fine you just need to learn some concepts. Physics will really renforce you knowledge of vectors because it is really the basis of all motion description.

The simple answer is - look at some tutorials on stuff you want to program, make notes on everything you don't understand, and then learn it. :) What everyone says above is true but to be absolutely sure, you can do a little research and find out where your knowledge is lacking. Good luck!

Thank you vety much everyone, this site rocks!

There's a great book on this subject, it's something like Math & Physics for Game Progamming...something along those lines. Great book...really gets into everything you need to know, math and physics wise.

You should be fine doing 2D games, I never really needed much - maybe a bit of trigonometry, depending on what you're doing. As for 3D, yes you can do some really simple things with 8th grade math, but if you want to do something interesting you'll probably need more.

Here's a link to reviews of the Math and Physics books here at gamedev.net.

It has been my experience, if you have to ask that question, then the answer is NO.

Go for it. At worse you will see the stuff is over your head but will have given yourself some exposure to linear algerbra so when you do encounter it in school, you will know what its used for.

Personally I feel people overstate the amount of math required to make 3D games. Being able to think logically, like solving math problems, is important. Having a deep knowledge of calc and linear algerba of course helps, but isnt 100% necessary to make games at a hobbyist level.

But of course, you should always start small. You'll probably want to start with 2D games before doing 3D games (if you have no experience). But dont be afraid to try!

Dave