Learning to create animations in C++

Question

does anyone know where I can learn to create and manipulate animations in c++ for the purpose of game development?

Answer 1

GameDev.net would probably be a good place to start, they have links to plenty of tutorials for both DirectX and OpenGL. The NeHe OpenGL tutorials are a pretty good introduction. Microsoft alos has quite a few tutorials and sample applications that come with the DirectX SDK.

Answer 2

You'll want to use a library to display and manipulate 3D models. As Kevin suggested, OpenGL and Direct3D (DirectX) are the industry standard libraries - DirectX if you're target platform is Windows-only, OpenGL otherwise.

Is there a reason why you must learn this in C++? C++ is my favourite language, but the XNA Toolset (C#) is phenomenal and will have you up and running in no time:

http://creators.xna.com/en-US/ (windows only, but can compile to Zune/360 very easily)

Another great way to start learning about game development is to build some mods - Half-Life 2 and Unreal Tournament 3 would be my suggestions to start with; Half-Life 2 uses C++ and is very easy to work with (I have no experience with UT3).