After seven months of development has been published the release of a free game engine Godot 4.4, suitable for creating 2D and 3D games. The engine supports an easy-to-learn scripting language for game logic, a graphical design environment, one-click game deployment, animation capabilities, and physics simulation, as well as a built-in debugger and performance bottleneck detection system. The code for the game engine, the game design environment, and associated development tools (physics engine, sound server, 2D/3D rendering backends, etc.) is distributed is licensed under the MIT License.
The source codes of the engine were opened in 2014 by the studio OKAM, after ten years of developing a proprietary professional-grade product that was used to create and publish many games for PCs, game consoles, and mobile devices. The engine supports all popular desktop and mobile platforms (Linux, Windows, macOS, Wii, Nintendo 3DS, PlayStation 3, PS Vita, Android, iOS, BBX), as well as web game development. Ready-to-run binary builds are created for Linux, Android, Windows, and macOS.
As a result of a serious conflict (more details: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10) in the community last year a fork was founded of the project — Redot. The fork was a response to the strict moderation policy in official communication channels and the developers' rejection of views that diverged from their own. The reasons for creating the fork include the desire to address community management issues and return to working for the benefit of the community, rather than corporate interests. The Redot project aims to build an inclusive community that accepts any personal beliefs of developers, rejects the politicization of the development process, and focuses primarily on game creation. Currently, the activity of the fork's development significantly lags behind the Godot engine..
The main changes in Godot 4.4:
- Official support has been added for using the Jolt library as an alternative physics simulation engine.
- On Linux, Windows, and Android platforms, it is now possible to embed the game directly into the editor window (without opening a separate window). The new mode allows interaction with the game just like with other parts of the editor, while the game continues to run in a separate process as before.
- An interactive mode for modifying a running or paused game has been added to the editor. For example, you can now change the camera's position on the fly or make changes to the scene.
- The editor version for the Android platform now includes support for the OpenXR standard and enables game editing in virtual reality mode. Currently, the editor supports 3D helmets like Meta Quest 3, Quest 3S, and Quest Pro.
- Support for ubershaders has been added, which are precompiled universal variations of each shader that encompass all the necessary features for rendering. Ubershaders are used as a fallback when a specialized shader has not yet been compiled, preventing stuttering that occurs while waiting for shader compilation to complete.
- Support for interpolation in simulating physical processes in 3D space has been added (in the previous version, interpolation was only available for 2D). Interpolation adds additional frames to render intermediate states between the current and next positions of an object, making output smoother on high-refresh-rate screens and low-powered devices.
- Support for the AgX tone mapping algorithm has been added, allowing for more realistic results in the presence of overexposed areas by bringing bright colors closer to white, similar to real cameras. Compared to the implementation in Blender, this algorithm has been simplified and optimized for real-time rendering.
- Support for typed dictionaries (associative arrays) has been added to the GDScript language: var typed_key_value: Dictionary[int, String] = { 1: "first value", 2: "second value", 3: "etc" } var typed_key: Dictionary[int, Variant] = { 0: "any value", 10: 3.14, 100: null } var typed_value: Dictionary[Variant, int] = { "any value": 0, 123: 456, null: -1 }
- Support for identifying resources by unique identifiers (UID) that are not tied to file paths has been added.
- The editor now implements the ability to snap 3D objects to other surfaces in the scene.
- A tab for calculating arbitrary expressions based on the state captured at the breakpoint has been added to the lower panel of the editor.
- The GDScript editor now includes tooltips with documentation information that appear when hovering over functions, variables, and classes.
- The state of the editor window is now remembered and restored after a restart.
- The Android version of the editor now supports the generation and export of APK packages and executables for other platforms.
- Webcam support has been implemented on the Linux platform.
- Support for on-the-fly uploading of WAV files has been added, similar to OGG Vorbis files.
- The integrated toolkit Betsy, used for packaging images into various texture formats, is now included.
Video review of the new features in Godot 4.4
Showcase of some of the latest games made with Godot 2024
Source: linux.org.ru
