If you want fun miniproject may I suggest Peter Shirley's excellent mini-raytracing bookseries: Ray Tracing In One Weekend, Ray tracing the next week, and Ray Tracing, the Rest of Your Life:
https://www.amazon.com/Ray-Tracing-Weekend-Minibooks-Book-eb...
If you get interested on rendering Matt Pharr & Co's Oscar winning "Physically based rendering" is a didactic masterpiece. https://www.amazon.com/Physically-Based-Rendering-Third-Impl...
The book is one of the best examples of how to combine high quality code and academic exposition together.
[1a, 1b, 1c] Computer Graphics, Principles and Practice Series [2] Physically Based Rendering [3] Real Time Rendering
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[1a] https://www.amazon.com/Computer-Graphics-Principles-James-Fo... [1b] https://www.amazon.com/Computer-Graphics-Principles-Practice... [1c] https://www.amazon.com/Computer-Graphics-Principles-Practice... [2] https://www.amazon.com/Physically-Based-Rendering-Theory-Imp... [3] https://www.amazon.com/Real-Time-Rendering-Third-Tomas-Akeni...
If you get interested on rendering Matt Pharr & Co's Oscar winning "Physically based rendering" is a didactic masterpiece. https://www.amazon.com/Physically-Based-Rendering-Third-Impl...
The book is one of the best examples of how to combine high quality code and academic exposition together.
https://www.amazon.com/WebGL-Programming-Guide-Interactive-G...
Historically, C++ has definitely been THE language for doing graphics but if you are starting these these, you would have to have really compelling reasons to start with C++ and not JavaScript and WebGL. And that's coming from someone who actually likes C++ and used to write it professionally.
# Book of Shaders
https://www.amazon.com/Game-Programming-Patterns-Robert-Nyst...
HN's own @munificent wrote a book discussing the most important design patterns in game design. Good book applicable beyond games.
# Game engine architecture
https://www.amazon.com/Engine-Architecture-Second-Jason-Greg...
# Computer graphics: Principles and Practice
https://www.amazon.com/Computer-Graphics-Principles-Practice...
This is more of college textbook if you'd prefer that but the WebGL one is more accessible and less dry.
# Physically Based Rendering & Real-Time Rendering
These discuss some state of the art techniques in computer graphics. I'm not going to claim to have really read them but from what I've seen they are very solid.
https://www.amazon.com/Computer-Graphics-Principles-Practice...
https://www.amazon.com/Physically-Based-Rendering-Third-Impl...
An extremely thorough guide to ray tracing.
https://www.amazon.com/Physically-Based-Rendering-Third-Impl...