After 6 months of development the release of the new version of the free game engine Godot 3.4 was announced, and in this new version a series of improvements have been implemented, among which we can find improvements in the editor, greater support and more.
For those who are unfamiliar with this engine, they should know that It is suitable for creating 2D and 3D games. The engine supports easy language of learning to define the logic of the game, a graphical environment to design games, a one-click game deployment system, extensive physics simulation and animation capabilities, a built-in debugger, and a system for identifying performance bottlenecks.
The game engine code, game design environment, and related development tools (physics engine, sound server, 2D / 3D rendering backends, etc.) are distributed under license from MIT.
Main new features of Godot 3.4
In this new version of the engine, one of the main novelties that stands out is added support for chip-based systems Apple Silicon (M1) for the macOS platform.
While for the HTML5 platform, the ability to install in the form of applications PWA (Progressive Web Apps), added a JavaScriptObject interface for interaction between Godot and JavaScript (for example, you can call JavaScript methods from Godot scripts) and for multi-threaded builds, AudioWorklet support has been implemented.
Also editor improvements have been made to improve usability, for added fast resource loading function in inspection mode, the creation of a node in an arbitrary position has been added, a new interface for exporting templates has been added and additional operations have been implemented with gizmo (bounding box system) and the animation editor based on Bezier curves has been improved .
In the physics simulation engine, performance has been significantly improved of the generation of convex objects from meshes and the collision tracking mode in the inspection interface has been redesigned. For the 2D physics engine, support has been added for the BVH (Bounding Volume Hierarchy) structure for dynamic spatial separation. The 3D physics engine now supports the HeightMapShapeSW function and adds synchronization with KinematicBody3D.
Added initial support to the rendering engine to stop rendering objects that are in the focus of the camera, but are not visible due to the overlap of other objects (for example, those behind a wall). Bitmap overlay cropping (pixel level) will only be implemented on the Godot 4 branch, while Godot 3 includes some geometric methods for cropping overlapping objects and support for portal slabs.
A change rollback mode has been added, which allows to immediately undo all scene changes caused by the animation application through AnimationPlayer, instead of canceling the change of each property individually.
An option has been added to the settings to change the zoom level of the 2D view, which, for example, can be used to enlarge or reduce 2D elements, regardless of the current stretch mode.
Of the other changes thate stand out from this new version:
- The Files API has added the ability to work with files (including PCK), which are larger than 2GB.
- Changes were made to improve rendering fluency by calculating frame changes without being tied to the system timer and to resolve issues with output timing when using vsync.
- Support has been added to the InputEvents input processing system for linking scan codes that reflect the physical location of the keys on the keyboard, regardless of the active layout.
- AESContext and HMACContext interfaces have been added to access AES-ECB, AES-CBC and HMAC encryption algorithms from scripts. Also added the ability to save and read public RSA keys to generate and verify digital signatures.
- A new toning method, ACES Fitted, has been added which allows for greater realism and physical precision by increasing the contrast of bright objects.
- Added support for hollow cylinder or ring shaped 3D particle emission shape.
Finally, if you want to know more about it, you can check the details In the following link.
Get Godot
Godot is available for download at this page for Windows, Mac OS and Linux. You can also find it at Steam y itch.io.