It’s not often I have a lot of trouble trying to motivate myself to program. But I’m at a stage where my lack of math knowledge is really affecting the kind of games I can make. I have a beginning algebra book that I still haven’t managed to work my way through.
How old are you?
- Why?
Oh were you thinking I was so young that I hadn’t got to algebra in school yet? Nope just so old I’ve forgotten it all!
when you have a running project, try to leave some “fun” stuff on the TODO list, something that is easy to implement or has some instant cool feedback.
When you have a block or no motivation, you can choose to work on this rather than boring GUI or Refactoring stuff.
I would hesitantly suggest Geometric Tools For Computer Graphics. It’s more of a reference book but it’s got tons of useful info in it.
Haha yup 
Thanks I’ll check it out. I think the main reason I have trouble motivating myself to do maths is because the maths i’m doing at the moment (adding polynomials) doesn’t really seem to be any use in what I’m doing, and I know with my memory I will forget how to do it two weeks after learning it. But at the same time when ever I see an explanation of something mathmatical it usually has a formula that is complicated and I don’t know what it all means, so it will probably be best I finish my algebra book. It’s well written and I’m not finding it hard, but it’s not as much fun as programming. I’ve added the book you suggested to my wishlist on amazon.
Damocles’s advice is really good. You should save up the fun part later so you will gain more will to open IDE. That fun part is relative.
knowing polynomials and basically algebraic expressions is an essential skill for creating formulas/algorithms for your programs/games. knowing the math will save you a lot of time on certain aspects and make your program more efficient.
If you ever need any help with any of it, send me a message, I’m a college student working towards engineering major and computer science minor so I’m loaded with math, plus its what I’m best at academically ;D
think about minecraft 
and you’ll be scraed on how to do it.
Don’t work alone - I stay more motivated when i am working in a group. Although I also don’t like people messing with my code.
Also, why is everyone using Eclipse? IntelliJ is god’s gift to programmers. No wonder you are not motivated.
Heretic! Burn him! ;D
I do this as well. I like to go for long walks and I mull over what I’m going to do next. By the time I get back I usually know exactly what my next 3 digestible tasks are after opening the IDE.
I get motivated in some kind of subjective way, like writing cool ideas that i’ve seen on TV, Shows and stuff; Working on art when you don’t feel like coding, working with sounds when you dont feel like doing something else…
Also i am a bit of a perfectionist, so i feel more confortable when i know i am the only one messing with my code.
So my conclusion is that everyone has their own way to get motivated.
Seriously, though, I get myself motivated by planning out/imagining the game or application I’m going to make.
Oh my god…this was 6 months ago yet I’m still in the same dilemma…
shoots himself
Go implement a perfect deferred rendering pipeline! Create your own 2D physics engine! Come up with an algorithm for doing burns to get from one orbit to another! Plan out what kind of missiles your next space game will have! Create a volumetric lighting shader which doesn’t explode when ray-casting outside the shadow map! Create a perfect 3D particle renderer using transform feedback which supports Fourier occlusion maps and GPU depth sorting and are rendered with a geometry shader! Everything just to be able to brag on JGO!
What?! That only works for me?! 
Seriously though, I’m sure you have something you want to program/research. Just do it as a mini project that you can finish in a day or so, and see what it leads to. When I get fed up with making GUIs with TWL I pick something random from my endless list of graphics effects I want to implement and just do it. Simply working on something might inspire you in some way, and even if it doesn’t give you any good results, you’ll have learned something new. Besides, if you get bored enough with your side project you might find it easier to move back to your main project again. =S
I tried to implement Depth of Field once only to realize that it’s impossible to accurately create a blurred scene from a sharp image. Even Metro 2033 which has an advanced OpenCL based DoF effect couldn’t get it right. Notice the sharp edge of the out of focus gun: http://img190.imageshack.us/img190/2319/baddof.png. Still, I learned a lot about shader performance, especially how expensive branching was. I later came up with a potential way to hide that sharp artifact, and it’s now back on my to-do list again. =S
TL;DR: Do something fun!
Many remarks and questions…
How in the hell do you do all that stuff?! I mean, where do you learn about it?
Yes ;D
My list of “Want to Program” is about 0. I do have dream games but they feel so far away and impossible.
I think this stems from a certain problem: my creativity level is -9001.
:o I’m simply nodding and smiling 
TL;DR: Reddit has ruined me.