Godot 4.0 has already been released and these are its most important changes

godot-4-0

Godot 4.0 sets sail: all aboard for new horizons

After four years of development, the release of the “Godot 4.0” game engine was announced, suitable for creating 2D and 3D games. The Godot 4.0 branch includes some 12.000 changes and 7.000 bug fixes. Some 1500 people were involved in developing the engine and writing the documentation.

The engine supports an easy-to-learn game logic framework, a graphical game design environment, a one-click game deployment system, rich physics and animation simulation capabilities, an integrated debugger, and a build system. performance bottleneck detection.

Main new features of Godot 4.0

In this newly released version of Godot 4.0, two new rendering backends are proposed (clustered and mobile) based on the Vulkan graphics API, which have replaced the rendering backends via OpenGL ES and OpenGL.

For older and low-end devices, an OpenGL-based compatibility backend has been integrated using the new rendering architecture. For dynamic rendering at lower resolutions, use supersampling technology AMDFSR (FidelityFX Super Resolution), which uses spatial scaling and detail reconstruction algorithms to reduce loss of image quality when scaling and converting to a higher resolution. A Direct3D 12-based rendering engine has been implemented, which will improve support for Windows and Xbox platforms.

Another change that stands out is that GI Probe, used to fill the scene with reflected light, replaced with VoxelGI node, which is optimal for real-time lighting processing in scenes with small to medium-sized room interiors. For low-power hardware, the ability to pre-render highlights and shadows using lightmaps, which is now used by the GPU to speed up rendering, has been left.

In addition to that, also new rendering optimization techniques have been implemented, as well as that se added automatic occlusion selection that detects and dynamically removes models hidden behind other surfaces to improve rendering performance and reduce CPU and GPU load.

Added SSIL mode (Screen Space Indirect Lighting) to improve rendering quality on hardware high performance by improving the management of dark areas and indirect lighting. In addition, additional settings are provided to simulate diffuse indirect lighting using the SSAO (Screen Space Ambient Occlusion) technique, such as choosing the influence level of direct light.

Realistic lighting units are proposed, that let you adjust the intensity of the light and use standard camera settings such as aperture, shutter speed, and ISO to control the brightness of the final scene.

Also added new level editing tools for 2D games, A radical change has been made to the 2D game development process and a new tile map editor has also been added, supporting layers, landscape auto-completion, random placement of plants, stones and various objects, flexible selection of objects.

Of the other changes that stand out:

  • Unified work with tile maps and fragment sets for the construction of a map (tileset).
  • Fragments in a set are automatically expanded to remove spaces between adjacent fragments.
  • A new function for placing objects on the stage has been added which, for example, can be used to add characters to tiles grid cells.
  • Improved work with lights and shadows in 2D games.
  • Significantly improved performance when using multiple light sources.
  • Added the ability to simulate three-dimensionality by changing the lighting level on normal maps, as well as creating visual effects such as long shadows, halos, and sharp outlines.
  • Added a volumetric fog effect that uses a temporal projection technique for a realistic look and high performance.
  • Added cloud shaders to dynamically generate clouds that change in real time.
  • Implemented support for "decals", a method of projecting material onto a surface.
  • Added particle effects throughout the game space that use the GPU and support attractors, collisions, trails, and emitters.
  • Added the ability to work with the interface in multi-window mode (several panels and parts of the interface can be separated as separate windows).
  • Added a new UI editor and a new visual layout widget.
  • Added a new theme editor.
  • The lighting and shadow management system has been completely rewritten to use real-time SDFGI (Signed Distance Field Global Illumination) technology.
  • Shadow rendering quality has been significantly improved.

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.

The game engine code, game development environment, and related development tools (physics engine, sound server, 2D/3D rendering backends, etc.) are distributed under the MIT license.


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