22

Im on windows i would like to have a .exe file which is a 3d viewer, similar to blender.
Which language do i code it?
Which libraries would i need to use?
Note: when i mean creating my own 3d engine i mean that i would do myself the maths, i dont want a prebuild one Thanks

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[-] HelloRoot@lemy.lol 22 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

Which language do i code it?

doesn't matter. If you wanna go far, pick the one you're best at. That way you have one less hurdle.

Which libraries would i need to use?

I thought you wanted to do it from scratch? The standard libs will probably have all the math functions you need. + Something for keyboard and mouse input handling.

Where to start?

By reading something about 3d rendering. Triangle math. Projections. Lighting. Shaders. etc. You can look at university courses that publish their materials online. Or a book. Or blog guides. Or yt videos. Or stackoverflow. Or reddit posts. (quality drops aproximately in the order i've written it)

[-] mspencer712@programming.dev 9 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

This, 100%. Use whatever language you’re fast and fluent with. If you don’t have any of those yet, C is a good choice. Get books and tutorials from the 90s or 2000s and OpenGL is a great place to start.

The most limited resource that you have to manage would be your own energy and passion. Don’t go out and seek that dopamine hit of validation from others until you’ve built something. “I want to build something” is OK, but “I’ve started building something, it runs somewhat, here’s a repo, I’m stuck, HAAAALP!” is way more compelling.

this post was submitted on 11 Jan 2026
22 points (78.9% liked)

Programming

24394 readers
312 users here now

Welcome to the main community in programming.dev! Feel free to post anything relating to programming here!

Cross posting is strongly encouraged in the instance. If you feel your post or another person's post makes sense in another community cross post into it.

Hope you enjoy the instance!

Rules

Rules

  • Follow the programming.dev instance rules
  • Keep content related to programming in some way
  • If you're posting long videos try to add in some form of tldr for those who don't want to watch videos

Wormhole

Follow the wormhole through a path of communities !webdev@programming.dev



founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS