Actually, most things in vidya's engine-tier ops are constrained to just a handful of types of operations. Matrix transforms, for example, being one of the most common. But using GLM is one good way to avoid having to be a maths wizard, yet still manage to create efficient, relatively simple to read/write code.
Here's a complete camera implementation in like 7 lines of code that will be as fast as they come, and will be compatible with just about every kind of system out there.
language: c++
#include <glm/vec3.hpp> // glm::vec3
#include <glm/vec4.hpp> // glm::vec4
#include <glm/mat4x4.hpp> // glm::mat4
#include <glm/ext/matrix_transform.hpp> // glm::translate, glm::rotate, glm::scale
#include <glm/ext/matrix_clip_space.hpp> // glm::perspective
#include <glm/ext/scalar_constants.hpp> // glm::pi
glm::mat4 camera(float Translate, glm::vec2 const& Rotate)
{
glm::mat4 Projection = glm::perspective(glm::pi<float>() * 0.25f, 4.0f / 3.0f, 0.1f, 100.f);
glm::mat4 View = glm::translate(glm::mat4(1.0f), glm::vec3(0.0f, 0.0f, -Translate));
View = glm::rotate(View, Rotate.y, glm::vec3(-1.0f, 0.0f, 0.0f));
View = glm::rotate(View, Rotate.x, glm::vec3(0.0f, 1.0f, 0.0f));
glm::mat4 Model = glm::scale(glm::mat4(1.0f), glm::vec3(0.5f));
return Projection * View * Model;
}
This isn't really all that hard to follow once you learn the basics of programming in C++ correctly. Just lay the groundwork you need anons, and learn to roll your own using OpenGL + GLM. My engine runs at 60fps on my 2-core potato box w/ integrated Intel graphics.