26 minutes ago, rjhwinner03 said:
I do not like the programmable pipeline. I think it is stupid that you have to actually program a new shader and define all of that junk just to have a SQUARE on the screen. I feel it is utterly stupid.
Then stay far away from engine programming. I've spent most of my years programming engines and tool-kits, and if you think that doing this all from scratch is going to be less code than using an existing engine, you're sadly mistaken. You can only copy and paste code from books and tutorials for so long... and all of your skills are not even marketable because without those 3rd party resources you're essentially programming with a handicap that no team or employer would want.
What you're looking to do is have all the control at a low level with zero of the work which doesn't exist.
Regarding "shaders"... I would suggest using PBR:
https://docs.unrealengine.com/en-us/Engine/Rendering/Materials/PhysicallyBased
https://unity3d.com/learn/tutorials/modules/intermediate/graphics/substance/01-02-working-with-pbr-in-unity
It really cannot get any simpler... Reinventing the wheel without good reason doesn't make sense, and without experience you'll be wasting time you could spend actually making a game.
There are lot of videos and resources online regarding shaders in both engines.