Almost every single time I look something up in the documentation it seems to have just an overview of the settings in the engine. Rarely solves any problems, and I always end up coming here for the answer…which definitely makes me thankful for this forum.
So how are the people here getting their in depth knowledge of what the settings do?
For Example, today I’m looking for information about mipMapping, what each setting means, what it does, what situations it’s good for…typical stuff that would be in documentation, however when I look it up this is what i get:
Here MipMapValueMode is explained as → “Selects how to customize the sample’s mip-level or derivatives from the default hardware computed. Affects the look and performance.”
No expanation of what the modes do at all, not even a list of what they are, nothing. The only reason I have any idea what this does is because of the wonderful ppl on this forum.
Soooo many examples like this. It’s maddening. Does anyone have a solution or any other way of looking up settings in the engine and finding out what they do? Should I give up and just guess what some of these things mean until someone tells me?
If its important you can usually look it up on the source code which is slightly better commented.
Other than that, the documentation has pretty much always been a mess.
I think they axed the team they had 2 years ago fixing it up.
Many times whoever is making the pages has no idea about web design. Mobile vs Desktop always breaks and such, and there is no such thing as versions. The docs are usually merged/clumped and cover ue3, ue4 or ue5.
So no, you aren’t crazy.
It’s just how Epic likes to work, claiming that they are way too busy to provide accurate documentation for end users because the engine is “ever-changing”.
In reality, it’s all BS.
Far as I can tell, in the last 3 years they haven’t touched pages unless specifically provided with paragraphs to add/delete. And even then, they tend to paraphrase and get it wrong.
They do send out “surveys” asking how much the docs suck though (2 plus years ago), just to make you think they care.
They absolutely do not. The survey results were also never made public or it would cost them end users…
As far as solutions go, aside from source code. Google Fu to get to a youtube video of Wadstein explaining the function
How sad is it that we have to resort to videos? Very…
Thanks all for the replies, definitely makes me feel a bit better to know I’m not going crazy. I would honestly rather have Lumen and need to do a bit of extra experimentation to arrive at the finish line. I’m also finding a few bits of information on a specific window spread out into different sections, soI’m thinking a full read of the docs may be necessary at some point.
I also found this little pile of info has a nice perspective …more someone on the outside trying to learn, rather than the dev speaking directly: https://unrealartoptimization.github.io/book/
Speaking of.
Recently I had a look at a couple google searches for age old stuff that used to once be documented - with each option being explained.
They deleted all that content.
So the answer to the doc question is “Don’t even google. just read the source”.
I wonder if they also removed all the Hair/Skin/DigitalHuman stuff now that it 100% conflicts with that metahuman s*it they are peddling…
