[vieinfernale]

I am still a novice in this world of graphics programming. Not exactly only graphics, but VFX and digital sculpting.

Is not OpenGL a good starting point if you want to transition to Metal or Vulkan later on?

If not, should I seek out the "new flavor" to learn graphics?

[mellinoe]

If your goal is to learn Metal, then just start with Metal. It's a significantly better-designed API. On top of that, if you're developing on an Apple device then you'll have a decent debugging experience with Metal, as opposed to OpenGL where you'll get... nothing last I checked (but it's been a while).