Need more technical stuff!

Good morning!

Sorry for the caps guys… :slight_smile:

I wasn’t sure whether it should have the [Learning Resources] prefix or the [Community] prefix. I was recently watching some really old streams from the Unreal Twitch broadcast archive, in particular this one and this one. And I suddenly realized that these old videos had something special which was unfortunately lost in more recent streams and learning videos:

  1. They are quite informative.

The guys give you a lot of info, they are actually just speaking during the whole video. While it may seem boring, in my opinion this is not necessarily a bad thing. :slight_smile:

  1. Instead of telling you what to do they explain how stuff works.

Seriously, this is really important and I am not the only person telling this because I read this on forums some time ago. But please don’t read it as “Don’t do what-to-do videos” because practical stuff is really important and fun too. I liked your recent C++ videos and being primarily a C++ programmer I always watch 's blueprint videos just because how cool he is and how fun and awesome is what he does. :smiley:

But currently there’s serious lack of fundamental information about how things work, what they are and why they were made in this way and not in the other.

  1. Experienced Programmers speak to Experienced Programmers.

Well maybe it is not quite it, but it feels, especially in the rendering video, that the guys really speak to people who know what they are talking about. This is something completely absent among recent learning videos. Most of stuff we see today is either:

  • Artists speak to Artists
  • Programmers speak to Artists
  • Experienced Programmers speak to Newbie Programmers

Well, I realize that this all is very important and there are lots of artists and people who want to learn programming from scratch. But there are also some of us who already learned the difference between . and -> in C++, got used to Unreal’s class declaration syntax, know what PIXELFORMATDESCRIPTOR is and are even able (at least in theory :D) to write our own small game engines. Some of us would really like to hear about how the Unreal Engine was designed, what it is able to do and what it is not able to do. Where and how to extend it and when not to extend it because maybe there’s already a system that can do what we need.

  1. They give you background information.

Well, that’s something cool :slight_smile:
I liked when the guys were telling a bit of historical background and told how they were making UE4 from UE3. This is a nice addition that helps to understand why things are like they are.

  1. I like how excited and enthusiastic Fricker is about everything they made in the engine.

That’s cool, need more of him on the streams!

Well, sorry for my English! I didn’t sleep well and my English is as messy as my mind is. If there’s something wrong please don’t hesitate to ask “WTF?” :wink:

And no pressure! I realize that the developers have job to do and making videos is not their primary task! I just wanted to give you some ideas.

Thank you and happy weekend!

Robert.

PS. Is it just me or are all of your old Twitch videos are now titled “New Cinematic Lighting & Rendering Features Used in the Paragon Trailers + Game Jam Results! - LIVE from Epic HQ #gamedev”? :confused: As I said my mind doesn’t work very well right now…

Agree and I will throw in your opinion that we need more stuff about networking besides upcoming long awaited tutorials from here: https://forums.unrealengine.com/showthread.php?89149-Steam-Multiplayer-Tutorial-Series Hope these topics will be covered :smiley:

Yep. I am particularly interested in networking too because I need to implement a TCP-based networking instead of UDP-based for a turn-based strategy game.

Hey Robert! Thanks so much for all your fantastic feedback :smiley:

I can see what you mean by this. We could definitely do more to focus on depth instead of breadth when discussing new features. If I’m understanding you correctly, you would rather watch a stream where we completely break down one feature; how to use it, why you use it this way, how we came to this conclusion and where it will be going in the future. I think that as 4.11 starts to go live, this will be a lot easier for us, as it will have several new features that we can deep-dive and have the creator of the feature thoroughly show off.

I think the streams changing as I previously mentioned will also address this, as going in deep on these subjects will require our developers to change what kind of audience they are addressing.

This seems like an easy win, I’ll see about getting more background info in the upcoming streams. There are a lot of significant software milestones being hit during UE4’s development, so we should talk about where everything got started and how we got where we are.

I agree! More ! He’s always swamped with all kinds of work (GDC, VR Editor, etc) but he’s the heart of our UE4 development team and loves to come on the streams to talk to. Due to his schedule he’s not always available, but you can expect to see him in future streams where we’ll be talking about 4.11.

I’m seeing it too. I assume Twitch is bugging out on us again (we have occasional problems with it), but I’ll make sure it gets looked into.

Let me know if you ever have any notes for the streams! I really like seeing all these ideas and suggestions :smiley:

Hey ,

Thanks for reading through!

That’s correct. I also would like to hear more information about features from programming perspective e.g. implementation details, ways to extend etc. Everything that can help to extend or modify it. Another important aspect is, as you correctly noticed, design-related information: what problem does the feature solve, why it was implemented etc. This is helpful to figure out how to use and how not to use the feature.

Thanks, I would love to hear that info. Along with the fact that it is just interesting, this is also very helpful for understanding the engine as a whole. In the video I provided link to in my first post mentioned UE4 design philosophy. I would like to hear more about that because this is the root of all decisions that was made. I have another good example of what I mean by saying “understanding the engine as a whole”: this page contains some cool presentations by Gerke Preussner about the engine and its systems: with cats, C++ etc. This is very useful information, but brief. I would like to hear or read more information like that. Technology is made by people, to understand the technology you need to understand people who made it. :slight_smile:

As you see, this is not the kind of information that gives direct advice: it’s like saying “hey take your map and find what you need” instead of saying “walk five blocks north and then turn left…”, this is why I mentioned “how-it-works” and “what-to-do” videos.

(I think I am now talking about learning resources in general, not specifically about the streams)

Another thing that I would like to be better covered is the information for non-gameplay programmers. There are already some examples: this section about graphics programming is a good start, I would like to see it expanded and see similar information about other systems of the engine. I would also like to say that this article about Actor life cycle is quite good. In fact, it is gameplay-related, but I just wanted to mention how useful it is: diagram is particularly helpful. Need more diagrams! :smiley:

Okay, that’s a long post again… :slight_smile:

I usually think at the same time as I write so please consider this a draft and don’t hesitate to ask if you need me to clarify something!

Robert.

Oh thanks! For a second I thought I have a problem… :smiley:

Yep more advanced c++ would be great, i know you said next time is on you will be doing that, that’s good news!

Yeah, I’d really like “how and why things work that way” for C++ and BP vs “follow the tutorial”-only approach. Don’t get me wrong, both are valid approaches, and following tutorial first (and seeing the end result) accompanied by explanation why it was done that way and how it works, is the best approach.

[MENTION=8] [/MENTION]
Hey thanks for mentioning this on the stream! :smiley:

2All:
Great stream with useful information on networking, server/client traveling and some info on engine programming in general:
/v/30628866

An idea: is it possible to organize old streams by categories so that streams covering specific topics can be easily found?

If we could have all training streams like Zak’s recent blueprint communication that would be amazing. He does a great job of laying out the details in slides and then presents them in action. EXCELLENT FORMAT and should be considered for all future training videos. Thanks!

Just a heads up, the C++ stream got delayed due to some schedule conflicts, but it will be in a couple weeks. We’ll be doing more of these low-level programming streams in the future as well.

Edit: We’ll be replacing next Tuesday’s stream with a mid-level programming training stream, so I think it’ll be something you’ll find is worth watching

I agree with Robert Khalikov, streams which break down certain features of the engine are very useful. Same goes for streams that discuss the techniques used in Paragon for example :smiley: