Niagara prefixes

[drichardson]

Niagara has more asset types than Cascade. Whereas Cascade had Particle System, Niagara has:

• Emitter
• System
• Module
• Function Script (similar to module, both implemented by UNiagaraScript)

I'd like to see these added to the style guide. I don't have a strong opinion about any of the following proposals, just using them to start the conversation.

Proposal 1

Separate prefix for each type, suffix for 1 variation (function script, which is almost the same as a module under the hood).

Asset Type	Prefix	Suffix	Notes
Niagara Emitter	NE_
Niagara Module	NM_
Niagara Function Script	NM_	_S
Niagara System	NS_

Proposal 2

Same prefix, different suffix for each type.

Asset Type	Prefix	Suffix	Notes
Niagara Emitter	N_	_E
Niagara Module	N_	_M
Niagara Function Script	N_	_F
Niagara System	N_	_S

Proposal 3

Reuse current ParticleSystem prefix and add suffixes for each type.

Asset Type	Prefix	Suffix	Notes
Niagara Emitter	PS_	_E
Niagara Module	PS_	_M
Niagara Function Script	PS_	_F
Niagara System	PS_	_S

[Allar]

I'm a fan of both 1 and 3, but I have zero Niagara experience. Would like input from those that do.

[drichardson]

I have about 5 minutes more experience than you do. You saw I pinged a couple of Niagara devs on twitter for their input, hopefully they respond.

[drichardson]

I put a post in the UE4 rendering forum to try to elicit more feedback.

[drichardson]

I'm using Niagara for a project now, so I'll try living on option 3 and see how it goes.

[lucastucious]

I will try option 1 and return here for more feedback

[nlongchamps]

I spent last year working in Niagara and had a working naming convention. Ill try to dig it up.

One thing i did is prefix Niagara Systems as VFX_ as this is the placeable/useable asset to be instanced in levels or blueprints. EM_ for emittors. Note i was using niagara exclusively so i had no conflicts with cascade. I would discourage prefixing everything with N unless your project is mixing cascade+niagara vfx pipelines.

[drichardson]

There are two more types to add to this list:

• Niagara Parameter Collection
• Niagara Parameter Collection Instance

[drichardson]

Epic mentioned the naming convention they are using for Fortnight in How Epic is integrating Niagara into Fortnite.

They used NS_ for Niagara Systems and FN_ for both modules and emitters.

You may be wondering why we landed on FN_ for multiple asset types. This helps our artists know what are Fortnite-approved assets when searching within the tool. It provides an easier at-a-glance understanding when looking at a list of assets. Since you are largely adding these assets from menus within the tool and not dragging from the Content Browser, we didn’t need to add redundant prefixes to differentiate Emitters from modules, for example.

While I think using FN_ isn't a great choice because it is Fornight specific, perhaps consolidating modules and emitters is a good idea.

[zaha]

With the Niagara production release right around the corner in 4.25 I was wondering if you people ever came to any conclusion on this?

I was watching an UE4 livestream recently about Niagara and noticed that Epic itself seems to use the prefix "FXS_" for Niagara Systems.

Since I'm using a forked variant of this style guide that changed all prefixes to suffixes (don't like having the assets grouped by type through the prefix, I like to preserve the "natural" grouping by asset name), I would prefer proposal 1 since that also works well as suffixes. :)

Really like this style guide btw 👍

[lucastucious]

In production we use NS_ for system, NE_ for emitter and NF_ for module, with _S suffix for script.

To avoid mistake with the NPC, we use NP for Niagara parameter collection and NPI for instance but I don't like the way that NPI has 3 letter.

Maybe use a suffix. Like NP_Name_I