Is there any good sources or books that can help go into depth or explain Unreal Engines style of scripting in C++. I have been seeking sources for a while now, I have scanned Unreal Engines Documentation. It was kind of bland in terms of understanding each one’s functionality for unreals naming conventions for creating functions within unreal. I am currently creating game art to try and create a game, I am having issues finding anything that goes deeply in depth explaining the coding style. If anyone can help it’d be greatly appreciated, I am lost finding needed information to learn unreals scripting.
the style and syntax guide is:
for the naming conventions within the Engines code:
A = derives from Actor
T = is a Template
I = Interface so will need to implement it fully (they will often still have the now redundant “interface” on the end as well, but I just thank C# standards for that)
F = struct (all structs are stack allocated along with anything coming from TArray, an Engine struct might still be a template, but if you are starting out don’t worry to much about templated structs)
E = enumeration
U = everything else (really "derives from UObject)
b = bool (Sweeney really liked visual basic, which is probably why Verse is so influenced by Visual Basic)
if you are not exposing the type to reflection then you don’t need to follow this, but when inheriting you should know where it comes from. the naming does allow for more specific naming like
if (AActor* Actor = GetActor())
instead of tempActor and things like that making the code harder to read.
C++ is not a “scripting language” it is a strongly typed and compiled language, what you type is directly converted into processor instructions at compile time. In Software Engineering a scripting language is more loosely typed (you don’t have to follow syntax as rigidly) and and is probably runtime compiled if your type is ever fully compiled, often times treating “errors” more kindly, or trying to coerce the type to make things work.
that might be why you are having trouble finding information because you are including “scripting” or “script” in your searches.
besides that:
you can write standard C++, which is a sniper rifle that will not stop you from shooting at your own feet.
the engine code prefers Camel Case with leading capital (you technically only need to follow this is you want a job at Epic)
taking a look into “memory alignment” and “data marshalling” can often have bigger performance gains then changing up your algorithm, logic flow.
Tick() is not Evil, just easily over used, and in C++ an infinite looping Delay() is Tick() with extra steps. (when a Delay triggers it is inserted into the Tick() queue, which the same can be achieved by setting a limiter on Tick and disabling Tick when it isn’t needed)
float is only ever an exact value on Tuesday’s at 3:48pm in a random city in Europe.