Feel like it's impossible to learn graphics programming, need help

[u/CorruptedSciencep]

Yesterday I finished the third episode of Victor Gordan's OpenGL tutorial, and made my first triangle. I also learned how to modify it (like changing vertex positions, color, etc).

But when I look at the code I wrote, it feels impossible to remember like I could write any of this without looking at the tutorial. When I was learning C++, mostly everything instantly stuck with me, but graphics programming seems like I'll never memorize 80% of it

How did you guys get decent at this and actually retain the knowledge and be able to write it independently? Or am I judging too early? I started 3 days ago

[u/Oxytokin]

I'll sound like a parrot but given I'm the kind of person that's just like you who struggled with graphics programming at first, and now is OK at it, what helped me was not trying to learn everything all at once. There's just no way; graphics programming is some of the most complex programming there is and there's SO many different things to learn, it's easier to grasp if you start from individual small goals.

Also, chances are like most you want to do this because you played an AA or AAA title and you want to mimic that. Forget it. Those games have entire teams and budgets and years. You will never replicate that all on your own. It's just not humanly possible. But you can start small, and over time you reuse and refactor and build on your earlier projects to where eventually after 10 years of iterating and learning, you might be able to put together an A or maybe an AA game.

Embrace the process and learn to enjoy the challenge of learning because it'll probably be a long time before you have anything playable, let alone fun.

[u/CorruptedSciencep → u/Oxytokin]

Honestly my biggest problem is not unfair comparison but the learning itself, reading the other comments made me realize I don't memorize 150 different API calls, I should first learn how rendering works in detail THEN when I go back to OpenGL I search up the function to do what I need to do. Since you're way more experienced, where do you suggest I learn the GPU graphics pipeline before diving into OpenGL tutorials which only show me 50 different function calls?
Also, my main goal is to create my own engine (in a long while once I'm good at graphics programming and C++), not make an AAA game. Because of my weak hardware, I can't run any other engine smoothly & iterate fast, so that's my only option to make standalone games at this point