What should I focus on learning (and if you have any specific good resources for it, what are they?) for getting better at Roblox scripting (probably math and physics related)?
I don’t really want to learn what I will learn in the next years of high school (physics (the non electric version) and calculus next year and senior year multi variable calculus) because I feel like it would be a waste because I’m going to be forced to go through the material all over again in school. Or is this reasoning flawed and should I learn this stuff?
From my experience, you don’t do much actual calculus in programming. Same with advanced algebra (although basic algebra is still used of course).
In 3D game programming, most of the math is either around vectors or angles. Sometimes distances and graphs too, but not really.
Some of those get taught, others don’t (or at least, it will take you a while to get there through the school system, I think).
I think learning stuff yourself (especially in the context of programming) is often really useful. You often skip a lot of the crap in school (not to mention being able to learn at your own pace). You get right to the practical uses instead of wading around in the mire of theory (which will come in handy eventually, because the result is easiest bit to learn so I personally like to start with that).
It’s harder to learn on your own, but it’s also healthier (teaching yourself to learn if you don’t have that skill already/practising with the skill, learning in your personal style). It also feels great walking into class and seeing everyone else is struggling on stuff you taught yourself a couple of years ago.
Finally, it’ll just be easier (that is, if learning now won’t stress you out too much). You won’t need to be under pressure to learn something in a school environment. You can either slack off or make your test project or whatever it is you are doing to be tested as good as you can.
If you’re still aren’t convinced you should start now, it all comes down to this (since you are being very cautious): Will your school let you skip the learning stage of things if you already know them?
If not, don’t bother. If yes, then learn them now.
Linear algebra isn’t difficult to pick up but sure you should know how to do that. Quaternions are very valuable to learn if you can get your head around them.
This might be off topic so its ok if you don’t want to answer it (since it isn’t what you signed up for XD) (and if you don’t ill just search it up) but why are quaternions valuable?
@EmeraldSlash alright, I’ll do some research to make sure I have the prerequisites for it
Quaternions are used to represent rotations. If you can grasp manipulating quaternions well then it can make for some really awesome smooth rotations.
Traditionally people will use Euler angles for rotation which can encounter an issue called gimble lock. This is where the object cannot be rotated anymore so effectively flips upside down. You can prevent this by manipulating quaternions manually. Although the don’t take quaternions lightly, they are near impossible to try and visualize, it takes some reading and practice.
There’s a nice article on the Roblox Wiki explaining it in more detail.
I read the roblox article a while ago and briefly researched quaternions (and I know what gimbal lock is too) but I still don’t see the use versus using rotation matrices and simply cframe:lerp()
Vouching for opplo here, quaternions are a really good thing to learn. I messed with them in Roblox for the first time a few months back and they’re probably one of my favorite things that I’ve ever fiddled with.
To be completely honest I didn’t actually make too much with it (although there are plenty of use-cases), it was just a good break from working with data, which I had been doing for an extended period of time.
I see your issue with not wanting to relearn specific subjects, however I feel that if you can create a brief understanding of such subjects then you can both utilize that knowledge in both the classes and your work on the roblox platform! That’s just my opinon.