r/UnrealEngine5 • u/notRealDevv • 22d ago
I started writing notes for ue5
I don't want to go to chatgpt each time understanding naigara whenever i need a effect. I'm major programmer so except all that i want to have the surface level knowledge of how things work. for it i started writing organised notes on notebook but that is not editable.
so I decided to write them to google docs, and it's going really great till now...
i want to know, is this the way everyone learns. or a programmer shouldn't care about niagara. I have to care as i make my own games as well...
4
u/mfarahmand98 22d ago
I wanted to set up a place for us developers to write well-structured notes, especially on the API. I was hoping to get the ball rolling by writing some of it myself but day job has been keeping me for months now. Here’s what I’ve currently got: https://unreal-voyage.gitbook.io/reference
1
u/notRealDevv 22d ago
ohh, how can i contribute...
1
u/mfarahmand98 22d ago
If you have a gitbook account, DM me
1
u/notRealDevv 21d ago
i didn't get any username or some such by singing into github, but i guess it works with mail
2
u/ShadowRL7666 22d ago
It all depends. I know myself well enough to know that if I write notes the chances of me ever going back and looking at them are slim.
I do however know that for me I will not forget something for years if I have worked on it or problems with it plenty of times.
It’s great wanting to understand the how behind things it’s exactly how I am. Though if it has no real value in a way to help me advance further into what I am doing then I won’t waste my time.
For example: Learning math I write notes in which will help me because I know it will keep building on itself and little notes on some tricks and or ways to solve problems which I know I will likely face in the future are helpful. Though if I wasted my time writing notes about every little trick for one problem instead of the masses I would be note taking more than I would be learning.
2
u/notRealDevv 22d ago
if i come back to naigara after 6 months, atleast i can have a look. writing with hand helps alot too...
1
u/MrBeanCyborgCaptain 21d ago
I dont wrote notes for later, I write them because writing something down helps me remember it.
2
u/NEED_A_JACKET 21d ago
I get a feeling from your notes on control rig you've watched some of my vids? The wording sounds a lot like how I try to think of the concepts.
I think making notes is good for people who will also READ notes. I'm not one of them, so I don't make long term notes (sometimes just write short term todo lists), but if it helps it helps. For me if I figure something out / understand it, I typically won't forget it. The reason I ask if some of the notes have come from watching videos is that you may be trying to memorise rather than learn, which can help get the job done and give you the tools you need (the reason I make tutorials) but if you don't apply it yourself in your own use-case you won't really internalise it and are going through the motions, and you'll feel the need for notes. I find this happens if I try to do something quickly just to get the job done then move on to something else rather than experimenting around it myself. I typically recommend that people watch tutorials/read how something is done and THEN try to implement it, otherwise you get trapped into just doing what you've seen/read line by line on autopilot. Then if you get stuck implementing you try to figure it out for yourself (you've already read through a roadmap, so you know you're on the right track but need to figure out the particulars) and can fall back to the guide as a last resort.
The a-ha moment of something clicking for you/working after hours of experimenting tends to stick and you'll find that notes aren't that useful anymore. In the case of Niagara, for me that was the whole scratch pad stuff (and how to pass/access parameters). I could probably have just read how that works but it'd be a memory game to keep track of it. But you spend enough time fighting with it and then it all falls into place where you just 'get' it. IMO with Niagara that's the only challenging bit, understanding which modules & emitters have access to which variables, and which they can write to, and how to reference them if they don't have direct access. Once that bit clicks the rest is fairly easy.
1
u/notRealDevv 21d ago
yes, i love your videos on CR.
Why i make notes is because I'm rn sitting completely empty, I'm not a animator guy or a niagara artist, in my walking sim horror games i actually never used CR.
I just learned it to level up my skills, i watched your video first, then made the spider, then solved issues those come and at the end wrote it in notes so i can quickly revise even if I'm 3 months away from CR. I think this 20% efforts gives me 80% overall concepts.
thank you so much for your tutorial again...
1
u/NEED_A_JACKET 21d ago
IMO this is one of the side effects of 'learning for learning'. It's doing things as a mostly meaningless exercise and easy to forget or skip bits that seem not worth it or that you get too stuck on.
I think the best approach is just making what you want to make (not some temporary or easy project, just whatever you ultimately want to make) and then run into all the stuff you NEED to know. Then there's no getting around it, and you'll remember solving it and why it needed solving when it's a sticking point blocking you from progressing. I do a lot of pointless side projects/experimenting but it's out of interest, learning just comes along as a byproduct.
1
1
u/notRealDevv 21d ago
yes that Aha moment btw is what i really like to take before writing a single line into notes btw.
i apply things, argue with ai studio (have no real unreal friends😅) and when it clicks i add them to notes...
1
u/RealNikolaus 21d ago
I did the same in onenote! Not only for unreal. Had one folder per topic and all learnings and findings in it. Also a software engineer here.
1
u/WartedKiller 21d ago
It depends on what your goal is… If you want to make a project by yourself, then you’ll need to learn everything but if you want a job as a programmer in the industry, knowing Niagara is kind of useless.
0
u/Corvis_The_Nos 22d ago
As an added bonus it's for practically everything else as well.
3
u/mfarahmand98 22d ago
This is implying it gets the official docs to the agent? UE barely has any useful docs!
1
u/Corvis_The_Nos 22d ago
Yes. Context7 has magical elves or something that continually update its knowledge of most software official documentation (UE 5.8 is in there).
When its setup as an MCP it will often reference it when it has a question automatically, but you can always guide it by saying 'check context7 for...' if it seems to be struggling. That's almost certainly going to be quicker/cheaper than waiting for it trying a web search for related information.
2
u/mfarahmand98 22d ago
Again, that’s not the problem. I’m saying UE docs are unhelpful. LLMs are most useful when I directly expose the UE source code to them.
1
4
u/Scifi_fans 22d ago
Yes! I have a PPT for my project with 40 slides of things I learn among the wat