Godot Engine to get various improvements thanks to the Google Summer of Code program

The open source Godot game engine is a really amazing project that’s quickly becoming even more amazing. Development continues unabated and, thanks to dedicated programmers, there’s plenty to look forward to in the works.

The free, open source and cross-platform game engine Godot has been steadily improving for quite some time. The upcoming 4.0 version already promises neat new features such as Vulkan support and real-time global illumination. Now, thanks to Google’s Summer of Code program, a few student developers have been focusing on improving several areas of the engine and editor.

All six of the projects are good improvements and generally add to the available tools but a few caught my attention more than others. Particularly the inclusion of document generation for Godot’s own scripting language as well as improvements to localization tools. Yes, I know, they may not be as obviously pleasing as better animation support or modelling improvements but solid documentation and the ability to painlessly edit a sprawling project is something that’s often sadly overlooked in the development world. Making an engine or editor more accessible is always a noble goal.

That said, there are also improvement to how the engine deals with inverse kinematics—a common use of which can be bones in models and their movement. There’s a lot to these disparate projects and these improvements are set to be integrated into the 4.0 release of Godot. A lot of this code can already be found in the main development branch so things are on track for an exciting release. Hopefully we’ll see even more improvements before the summer is over.

Additionally, the second release candidate for Godot 3.2.3 has also been made available. This follows on from 3.2.2’s release last month and is mostly focused on fixing on the bugs and regressions that slipped through the cracks. There’s a solid amount of fixes there and, if no other major issues are discovered, the final version of 3.2.3 ought to be out sometime this week.