I have gone through a few tutorials on UE4/5 with YT/Udemy/GameDevTV. I want to improve my UE C++ skills, but I’m finding the documentation very limited. Much more limited than if you were to look up a built in function in another language. For example this (FMath::VInterpConstantTo | Unreal Engine Documentation)
Am I looking in the right spot for information? Is there a place where I can get more information and usage of these function? I won’t say it’s poorly documented because at least something is there… well it’s like a dictionary without definitions, just a list of words. The word exists and I can use it, but chances are I’m not using it right…
Any directions to more detailed information or recommendations of tutorials/courses that cover UE Cpp in depth would be greatly appreciated!
Best thing to do is to learn the absolute basics first from youtube, channels like matthew wadstein and freya holmer. Learn about the libraries which are used in Blueprint and C++. Learn about subsystems. Learn how to make plugins. The engine is so huge you are usually required to mess around with visual studio’s debugger attached to figure things out. A lot of engine code is overcomplicated spaghetti too, which makes it hard to write proper documentation for. There are more ifs and elses than direct methods in it.
ahem to explain why it is not self documenting, prepare for pasta + sauce:
I’d recommend anything that you are personally really interested in. Because there is plenty to do and getting good at one thing takes a lot of time. The engine can be extremely stressful at times as well when it doesn’t do exactly what you want it to do, some code is just not OK / buggy. Stay away from blueprints if you can for exactly that reason.
If you enjoy creating logic for animation blending, or like creating visual effects, like to visually create shaders then those are things I think this engine provides really good editors for.
Many code related tasks are a pain at first but once you get to know the engine programming is actually really smooth especially implementing new modules, working with arrays etc all the standard stuff more difficult in pure c++ is just easy in unreal. The exception is that some parts such as the widget system are pure garbage code and you might as well spend a month on something you’d do in a day with html + css. It is outrageous.
If you want to do math or shaders, check Freya Holmer on youtube. If you want to learn the blueprint / kismet basics, check Matthew Wadstein. If you want to get started with programming just start anywhere really but dump blueprints as soon as you can for c++.
I have to agree… I also find the documentation in the current state very limited. Most good posts I find by coincidence not on purpose. I find it very difficult to navigate threw the headers and end up somewhere you actually wanted to.
I personally just try to look up stuff or type keyterms into the search function of the documentation. Personally I am very dissappointed in the current state of it, since I konw there are many great posts hidden in the depths of this impossible to navigate website.
Nope. The API ‘documentation’ is auto generated from the code so its next to useless.
The place to get more information is the c++ code itself.
Once you get proficient at reading c++ code then the fastest way to answer “what does this do or what is this for” is to examine the code.
For me actual documentation needs to show example usages and explain INTENT. Any ‘documentation’ that does not do that is next to worthless. As when examining code sometimes the trickiest thing is to figure out the intent (if you looking at not great code written by a confused person).
Also the comments in the code range from worthless to cannot be trusted. Unreal has a history of having comments that are just flat out wrong with the most likely reason being that the code was modified and the original comment was never updated.
