After going through 11 beta builds and 3 release candidates, Godot 3.1 is officially out with tons of new features.
This open source game engine continues to impress and this latest release might be quite enticing to game developers. Godot 3.1 comes in little over a year after Godot 3.0 and to say it's a big release would be a huge understatement. When looking over what they've done, I'm shocked at just how many features have been put in.
You can expect to find greatly improved C# integration, a return of the OpenGL ES 2.0 / OpenGL 2.1 renderer for older devices, a revamped 2D editor, a brand new TileSet editor, an improved 3D editor, support for WebSockets, support for UPnP, support for soft bodies (so cloth simulation is possible), the visual shader editor has returned and it's better than ever, support for 2D meshes and the list just goes on.
To celebrate, they've put together an overview video:
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When looking at what they have planned for future versions of Godot, it's also rather impressive.
For Godot 4.0, they're looking to get Vulkan support in to get truly top-notch 3D rendering like other major game engines can do. The 4.0 release is currently scheduled for around one year from now.
Even before that though, Godot 3.2 will be due sometime in the second half of this year which will hopefully include even more improved networking (dedicated servers and modern protocols being mentioned), support for running the Godot editor in a web browser, mobile platform improvements, FBX support and more.
See the official news post here. If you wish to support them, you can do so on Patreon.
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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16 comments
Awesome! Really seems to be upgrading at high speed.
Definitely looking forward to Vulkan support.
Anyone have any idea just how competitive Godot is at this point with other engines?
Definitely looking forward to Vulkan support.
Anyone have any idea just how competitive Godot is at this point with other engines?
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Quoting: Purple Library GuyAnyone have any idea just how competitive Godot is at this point with other engines?In 2D very, not so much in 3D. From what I read it lacks occlusion culling (= low fps in heavy scenes), many people miss FBX (common 3D format), some issues with physics (faster, but more buggy because of use of float instead of double), performance issues with high number of nodes, main language - GDScript - is very slow (it's unusable for e.g. voxel stuff, but you can use C# or C++; that said for majority of indie titles it is sufficient), support (docs, many bugs) of other languages is not great, no direct support for many platforms (e.g. Switch and other consoles). Oh, that's not only 3D stuff, but also general issues, sorry.
I would say that for small and medium (maybe even big) 2D games Godot is great, for some time was even top (not sure how it is now, probably on par), for a small 3D games it's alright.
I have high hopes for the Vulcan renderer and they are aware of those issue listed above, so I think in a year or two Godot will be much more viable alternative for small and medium pro teams.
PS: Take this with a grain of salt, I only work in Godot for a short time (over a month on half time).
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Quoting: Purple Library GuyAnyone have any idea just how competitive Godot is at this point with other engines?
For 2D is by many considered the best. The tools for designing a 2D game make much more sense in Godot than Unity and are less complicated to use.
The problem is if you want to make a game for various platforms. Until now, i only heard about one release of a game using Godot for consoles.
Also 3D support could improve, but it looks like most of people developing on Godot dont want to produce a game with full 3D graphics so theres that
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Kimyrielle Mar 13, 2019
Does anyone know if 4.0 will be breaking backwards compatibility with projects started in 3.x, like 3.0 did with 2.x projects?
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Kimyrielle Mar 13, 2019
Quoting: WJMazepasAlso 3D support could improve, but it looks like most of people developing on Godot dont want to produce a game with full 3D graphics so theres that
Could be a chicken/egg problem though. Godot has traditionally not been awesome for 3D games, so people did these in Unity or UE. Maybe people would totally use Godot for 3D if it would be on par with the big names? Hard to say, really. I guess Godot is mostly used by non-incorporated developers for smaller projects these days, and full 3D tends to be too complex for teams of 1-3 developers to tackle. I can totally imagine at least smaller studios giving Godot a look as it matures into a full-featured 3D engine.
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Does anyone know any linux title developed on it?
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I hope for some big companies to invest money on this project, so we could have some AAA games developed with godot in the future.
Of couse, it's vital to have a proper vulkan support first.
Of couse, it's vital to have a proper vulkan support first.
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Quoting: gustavoyaraujoDoes anyone know any linux title developed on it?
The most known probably is:
The Interactive Adventures of Dog Mendonça and Pizzaboy
It demonstrates that Godot is fine. I thought that The Journey Down was also in Godot but maybe I am wrong, the wikipedia only says: Adventure Game Studio.
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To the console matter - it is possible to release on consoles, just not through official Godot tools. There are several issues on side of console makers which Godot really can't do anything about (OS project is not a company, NDA on provided code and tools from console maker). In Godot docs there is a link to http://www.lonewolftechnology.com/ who do porting, so it is possible, but I have no clue on how much does it cost...
I would be interested in how to port to Switch, but I don't think I would pay a third party to port my game (if I ever finish it).
I would be interested in how to port to Switch, but I don't think I would pay a third party to port my game (if I ever finish it).
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Quoting: KimyrielleDoes anyone know if 4.0 will be breaking backwards compatibility with projects started in 3.x, like 3.0 did with 2.x projects?
Hard to say if it will because they dont talked a lot about Godot 4.
Probably they still have to decide this down the road
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Quoting: gustavoyaraujoDoes anyone know any linux title developed on it?
Recently GOL showed a game development sim game that is being developed on Godot 3 on Linux. Cant remember the name thought
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Awesome, with this release out, I can start prototyping some algorithm ideas I'm working on.
Well.. once I'm finished working on the theory. So maybe 3.2 will be out by that time ;)
I just wish they wouldn't have messed the trailer up with dubstep of all things.
Had to turn down the volume to keep sane...
Backwards compatibility is a chore that hinders advancement, refactoring, improvements, patches, ...
However, 3.1 does have a tool that ports old projects to 3.1. Used that on an old project of mine. It may not work 100%, but it does do a lot of the work for you.
Last edited by TheSHEEEP on 14 March 2019 at 10:14 am UTC
Well.. once I'm finished working on the theory. So maybe 3.2 will be out by that time ;)
I just wish they wouldn't have messed the trailer up with dubstep of all things.
Had to turn down the volume to keep sane...
Quoting: KimyrielleDoes anyone know if 4.0 will be breaking backwards compatibility with projects started in 3.x, like 3.0 did with 2.x projects?I certainly hope so.
Backwards compatibility is a chore that hinders advancement, refactoring, improvements, patches, ...
However, 3.1 does have a tool that ports old projects to 3.1. Used that on an old project of mine. It may not work 100%, but it does do a lot of the work for you.
Quoting: gustavoyaraujoDoes anyone know any linux title developed on it?The one I played last was Deep Sixed.
Last edited by TheSHEEEP on 14 March 2019 at 10:14 am UTC
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Quoting: gustavoyaraujoDoes anyone know any linux title developed on it?
There are lots of Linux games developed with Godot in this thread:
https://steamcommunity.com/app/404790/discussions/0/412448792354265655/
The most notable ones probably being:
- Dog Mendonça & Pizzaboy
- A Game of Changes
- RPG in a Box (software)
- Satellite Repairman
- Deep Sixed
- RivenTails: Defense (WIP)
- City Game Studio
Additionally, Tanks of Freedom was also developed with Godot.
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Doc Angelo Mar 14, 2019
Just something I thought to add: They intent to improve the general render engine as a goal for Godot 4, and they want to implement Vulkan. It's two good things planned for the same release, though they don't depend on each other. OpenGL and OpenGL ES will still be available, and those will also benefit from the improved render engine.
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Quoting: TheSHEEEPIf they follow semver standard, bumping the major version implies breaking backward compatibility. But it's necessary in the software dev world, at least to remove the obsolete functions for instance. But also because decisions taken a few years ago might have turned out as very bad ideas in the future and need to be weeded out of the source code.Quoting: KimyrielleDoes anyone know if 4.0 will be breaking backwards compatibility with projects started in 3.x, like 3.0 did with 2.x projects?I certainly hope so.
Backwards compatibility is a chore that hinders advancement, refactoring, improvements, patches, ...
However, 3.1 does have a tool that ports old projects to 3.1. Used that on an old project of mine. It may not work 100%, but it does do a lot of the work for you.
That being said, breaking backward compatibility doesn't mean that your have to rewrite everything. There could be tools to help you migrate your project to a newer version, and also it is up to the Godot devs not to break _everything_ all the time, sometime the function is bad, but keeping it for a few major versions doesn't have a bad impact on the engine, it's just a matter of letting the users the time to know that they should use this or that instead.
Last edited by Creak on 15 March 2019 at 1:51 pm UTC
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