There are a couple of approaches you can take, depending on your learning style.

The first is that you could start really easy by creating a 1d engine, and then once you've gotten that mastered keep adding more dimensions until you get to 3d.

The second is that you could skip all the way to creating a 4d engine, and once you've gotten that mastered just chip off one dimension and bam you now have a 3d engine.