Learning graphics development, rendering and all the maths behind is an overwhelming task. Fortunately you are not alone in the endeavor. Over the years multiple people have written and compiled resources aimed at helping newcomers learn the necessary concepts to become graphics programmers. Now that the landscape is changing it is definitely useful to have a full belt of tools to learn faster.

The most up to date document I could find for beginners is the following. It goes over almost everything someone starting out might need, from theory to practice:

• (2024)3D Computer Graphics Resources

Official Resources:

• NVidia’s GPU Gems One of the best starting points for researching novel techniques in graphics. They started publishing them before the 2000’s and thus go over a lot of techniques that are used to this day.
• DirectX 12 Graphics Education Youtube channel from DirectX, used to help graphics developers in their journeys.
• DirectX Graphics Samples Coding samples to pair with the videos.
• AMD’s GPU Open Initiative a broad range of free articles teaching you how to go from Hello World to a full rendering engine. There is also a great starting article on how to become a graphics programmer
• SIGGRAPH’s Advances in Real Time Rendering details all the recents advancements, useful as inspiration for what to learn next.
• Siggraph’s 2025 Shading Course A more technical course on how to use Physically Based Shading with a modern approach.
• REAC’s Website A Conference focusing on Real Time Rendering Engine Architecture. All talks are published online.
• Khronos’ Slang Tutorials Teach how to use their novel shading language, Slang for different use cases.

Online Resources:

• Scratch A Pixel A website with a plethora of different learning resources that cover OpenGL, Vulkan and also shading concepts.
• Hüseyin’s Blog has a series on going from 0 to rendering the Cornell Box.
• Adrian Courrèges’ Blog Great aggregation of frame analyses.
• Hexaquo.at A collection of different shader programming guides for Godot.
• Daniel Ilett’s Website A collection of Unity Shader programming tutorials.
• PBR Book A book that will teach the theory and practice of rendering using Physically Based Rendering. (It is not meant for real time though.)
• Learning Modern Graphics Programming An absolute ton of resources for learning the history and the technicals of different aspects of graphics programming.
• Tamats A very complete course on realtime graphics.
• Jakub Boksansky’s Blog CG Researcher at AMD, focuses on Ray tracing techniques and neural rendering.
• Jason Booth’s Blog Graphics programmer writing about shader programming mostly.

Github Repositories:

• tiny-renderer One of the best entry points into graphics programming.
• Build Your Own X has a section on 3D renderers that is great for starting out.
• Graphics Programming’s Github The github from the titular community. They offer a lot of gathered resources around the web and blog posts from community members.
• GPU Optimization for GameDev A huge repository of low level inofrmation aiding in understanding the architecture of GPU’s and how to best leverage it.
• Book list for Computer Graphics An almost infinite list of useful books for learning Computer Graphics
• Graphics Developer Roadmap The roadmap for going from 0 to landing a job as a graphics developer.
• Awesome Computer Graphics A repository with different resources, articles and papers for aspiring graphics programmers. (Unfortunately some links are dead today but can retrieved through Wayback Machine).

Youtube Channels and Playlists:

• OGLDEV (+ Website) Youtube channel covering engine development from OpenGL to Vulkan. Great tutorials overall.
• Ben Cloward Senior Technical Artist at Unity, he goes often in depth on how to build and optimize shaders in both Unreal Engine and Unity.
• TU Wien’s Ray Tracing Course the needed theory for getting started with ray tracing.

Newsletters:

• Jendrik Illner’s Newsletter A newsletter covering all the recent advancements in graphics as well as new learning resources. Extremely useful to stay up to date.

Socials:

• GameDev Mastodon