7 ms·

Godot gets a brand new animation editor with cinematic support

260 points by doppp 8y ago

saintPirelli 8y ago
Godot is one of those open source projects where all the pieces fall into place. The developers are doing an amazing job, the lead is sensible to the wishes of the community. The community in return gets involved deep enough that substantial funding and a lively ecosystem emerge. Everyone involved in this project should be really proud, Godot, much like Blender, is a true gem of OSS.
- qz3 8y ago
  Yes, it really is. Although I had absolutely no intentions of creating a game, I tried it out a few months back just because it's such a well-made project with an active community.
- erlend_sh 8y ago
  Not to mention they have a pretty strong sustainability story: Massive success on Patreon combined with core developers who are able to sustain themselves with Godot contracting work. It's shaping up to be quite the open source success story!
- jedimastert 8y ago
  When I found it, my knee-jerk reaction was "it's like someone looked at Blender and said 'We should do that for Unity!'" I'm super glad it's looking to be that and more!
pietroglyph 8y ago
Godot has consistently impressed me. I tried something with it a year ago, but I got stalled because the only supported language (then) was a custom language called GDScript. Support for C# was added in October [0], and there are a bunch of other exciting changes in 3.0 [1] that have happened. I can't wait to give Godot another try. (If anyone is wondering how all this development is funded, Godot appears to get a lot of funding on Patreon, and the C# support was funded by Microsoft.) [0]: https://godotengine.org/article/introducing-csharp-godot https://godotengine.org/article/introducing-csharp-godot [1]: https://godotengine.org/article/godot-3-0-released https://godotengine.org/article/godot-3-0-released
- ElCapitanMarkla 8y ago
  I got caught up on that a few times too but GDScript is actually pretty good. I actually enjoy using that more than C#. Great during the quick prototyping phase at least.
- Hamcha 8y ago
  I tried C# in 3.0.2 and sadly it's not yet feature complete, which meant porting my GDscript was not possible, but I love what's in place right now and I can't wait for it to become more mature. On the other hand, GDscript itself has gotten a lot better, and it's getting types in 3.1! Technically speaking though, thanks to their C APIs (GDNative) you can use any language now, I've seen bindings for D, Rust, Go, Haskell and a bunch others!
- giancarlostoro 8y ago
  Note now it supports just about anything thanks to GDNative and related efforts. Including support for D, Rust and other languages (I only cared to look those two up but if those are supported I can only imagine what else is). Also people can make plugins that extend the editor altogether. Its amazing that without C# the installer is a tiny download. You download other game engines and you're in for 1GB+.
- baldfat 8y ago
  GDScript really is just a subset of Python and works really well. Remember Moonscript for Unity? Well GDScript is much better. GoDot FAQ: The short answer is, we'd rather a programmer does the small effort to learn GDScript so he or she later has a seamless experience, than attracting him or her with a familiar programming language that results in a worse experience. We are OK if you would rather not give Godot a chance because of this, but we strongly encourage you to try it and see the benefits yourself. The official [languages] for Godot are GDScript and C++. GDScript is designed to integrate from the ground to the way Godot works, more than any other language, and is very simple and easy to learn. Takes at much a day or two to get comfortable and it's very easy to see the benefits once you do. Please do the effort to learn GDScript, you will not regret it. Godot C++ API is also efficient and easy to use (the entire Godot editor is made with this API), and an excellent tool to optimize parts of a project, but trying to use it instead of GDScript for an entire game is, in most cases, a waste of time.
ehnto 8y ago
I am h̶a̶l̶f̶ ̶w̶a̶y̶, q̶u̶a̶r̶t̶e̶r̶ ̶w̶a̶y̶ I am part way through a game in UE4 after having switched from Unity, and every bone in my body wants to switch to Godot because it's so consistently impressive as a project. I will stick to my guns for now, else I will never release, but I am definitely giving it a go next project.
- bmer 8y ago
  Is your game 2D or 3D? How are you liking UE4 in terms of the engine's learning curve?
  - ehnto 8y ago
    It is First Person 3D (no shooting). The learning curve was individually quite straight forward for each component, especially if you already have familiarity with the concepts. Blueprints were easy because I can code, and node based shaders aere quick to get started with because I knew the pieces of the puzzle so to speak. There is just a lot of different concepts flying around so it's easy to get flustered at first. UE4 also has a lot of boilerplate around game modes and default world functionality. It's not hard to learn it's just arbitrary learning so not all that fun. After the first week I found it surprising how quickly everything started coming together, it was more up front but once I was sped up I was good to go. Unity was a bit more of a constant grind of learning little bits here and there. What I have found difficult and continue to find difficult is support for UE4. Someone has almost always asked the same question as you, it's just that no one has answered. I found there was always some level of discussion for Unity if not a solution. But for UE4 it just feels a bit baron, at least for the results Google offers me.
    - pjmlp 8y ago
      It also helps that many game development universities are focusing on Unity. When reading about university projects on Making Games (http://www.makinggames.biz/ http://www.makinggames.biz/), a German publication about game development, the vast majority of them were done in Unity.
chrisdevereux 8y ago
I've been waiting for this....
ckok 8y ago
Does anyone know if godot can be used as a 3d engine from c# too? Specifically as part of an existing application instead of a game?
- coffeeaddicted 8y ago
  Godot is not a library. It's more like a development environment. You can use scripts and modules inside Godot (including c#). You can't use it as a library.
EamonnMR 8y ago
Been playing around since 3.0 added a bunch of features that piqued my interest. Very cool tech, the fact that it's open source is just icing.
smt923 8y ago
The one thing I hope Godot can push towards is just a huge pass in usability, smoothing out UI bugs and just generally improving the look and feel of the entire engine and all of it's UI - stuff like the 'inspector' panel just doesn't feel as nice or as usable as something like Unity's - it has great features but in my opinion just doesn't "feel" quite as polished as it could be, but I really do hope for this engine to keep improving and getting better
- acfaruk 8y ago
  They are actually going to be shipping a new inspector with the 3.1 release. https://godotengine.org/article/godot-gets-new-inspector https://godotengine.org/article/godot-gets-new-inspector
  - smt923 8y ago
    I actually missed this, and the thing with Vector3s and such not being all in one was one of my main gripes, I'm super happy to see stuff like this
- TazeTSchnitzel 8y ago
  I personally find Godot's simple UI much less intimidating than Unity's. I have no idea what I'm doing in the latter without reading lots of documentation.
  - naikrovek 8y ago
    Unity is powerful enough that the UI learning curve didn't bother me too much. There are some really odd decisions reflected in the Unity UI, though. I find the Unreal Editor UI to be a direct precipitate of the way the engine is designed and the way the code is organized, and that makes it a little bit harder to find what you're looking for than what an ideal UI would offer, and there is nothing that is really hidden and hard to find. That is not the case with Unity, and it seems to be getting better each and every release.
- nrjames 8y ago
dgellow 8y ago
Godot has a patreon page, in case you would like to help the project with money: https://www.patreon.com/godotengine https://www.patreon.com/godotengine
adinobro 8y ago
Been playing with Godot since version 3 came out this year. It is a massive update but it is worth being aware that it doesn't feel complete. It was released because it is good enough to get people started on projects and the port them to 3.1 (which is what this editor is for) 3.1 seems more like the real release: * Massive cleanup of the UI (as people other people here complained about) * Full C# support * GLES v2 support (more hardware support) I'm developing with 3 and looking forward to 3.1
kumarvvr 8y ago
Anyone using it for commercial games? I am really interested to use it for interactive 3D applications in Engineering.
georgewsinger 8y ago
SimulaVR (a project to bring Linux Desktop to standalone VR headsets) is using Godot for its next version. You can see our almost-finished Haskell bindings to Godot here: https://github.com/SimulaVR/godot-haskell https://github.com/SimulaVR/godot-haskell

260 points by doppp 8y ago

Godot is one of those open source projects where all the pieces fall into place. The developers are doing an amazing job, the lead is sensible to the wishes of the community. The community in return gets involved deep enough that substantial funding and a lively ecosystem emerge. Everyone involved in this project should be really proud, Godot, much like Blender, is a true gem of OSS.

qz3 8y ago
Yes, it really is. Although I had absolutely no intentions of creating a game, I tried it out a few months back just because it's such a well-made project with an active community.
erlend_sh 8y ago
Not to mention they have a pretty strong sustainability story: Massive success on Patreon combined with core developers who are able to sustain themselves with Godot contracting work. It's shaping up to be quite the open source success story!
jedimastert 8y ago
When I found it, my knee-jerk reaction was "it's like someone looked at Blender and said 'We should do that for Unity!'" I'm super glad it's looking to be that and more!

pietroglyph 8y ago

Godot has consistently impressed me. I tried something with it a year ago, but I got stalled because the only supported language (then) was a custom language called GDScript. Support for C# was added in October [0], and there are a bunch of other exciting changes in 3.0 [1] that have happened. I can't wait to give Godot another try. (If anyone is wondering how all this development is funded, Godot appears to get a lot of funding on Patreon, and the C# support was funded by Microsoft.) [0]: https://godotengine.org/article/introducing-csharp-godot https://godotengine.org/article/introducing-csharp-godot [1]: https://godotengine.org/article/godot-3-0-released https://godotengine.org/article/godot-3-0-released

ElCapitanMarkla 8y ago
I got caught up on that a few times too but GDScript is actually pretty good. I actually enjoy using that more than C#. Great during the quick prototyping phase at least.
Hamcha 8y ago
I tried C# in 3.0.2 and sadly it's not yet feature complete, which meant porting my GDscript was not possible, but I love what's in place right now and I can't wait for it to become more mature. On the other hand, GDscript itself has gotten a lot better, and it's getting types in 3.1! Technically speaking though, thanks to their C APIs (GDNative) you can use any language now, I've seen bindings for D, Rust, Go, Haskell and a bunch others!
giancarlostoro 8y ago
Note now it supports just about anything thanks to GDNative and related efforts. Including support for D, Rust and other languages (I only cared to look those two up but if those are supported I can only imagine what else is). Also people can make plugins that extend the editor altogether. Its amazing that without C# the installer is a tiny download. You download other game engines and you're in for 1GB+.
baldfat 8y ago
GDScript really is just a subset of Python and works really well. Remember Moonscript for Unity? Well GDScript is much better. GoDot FAQ: The short answer is, we'd rather a programmer does the small effort to learn GDScript so he or she later has a seamless experience, than attracting him or her with a familiar programming language that results in a worse experience. We are OK if you would rather not give Godot a chance because of this, but we strongly encourage you to try it and see the benefits yourself. The official [languages] for Godot are GDScript and C++. GDScript is designed to integrate from the ground to the way Godot works, more than any other language, and is very simple and easy to learn. Takes at much a day or two to get comfortable and it's very easy to see the benefits once you do. Please do the effort to learn GDScript, you will not regret it. Godot C++ API is also efficient and easy to use (the entire Godot editor is made with this API), and an excellent tool to optimize parts of a project, but trying to use it instead of GDScript for an entire game is, in most cases, a waste of time.

ehnto 8y ago

I am h̶a̶l̶f̶ ̶w̶a̶y̶, q̶u̶a̶r̶t̶e̶r̶ ̶w̶a̶y̶ I am part way through a game in UE4 after having switched from Unity, and every bone in my body wants to switch to Godot because it's so consistently impressive as a project. I will stick to my guns for now, else I will never release, but I am definitely giving it a go next project.

bmer 8y ago
Is your game 2D or 3D? How are you liking UE4 in terms of the engine's learning curve?
- ehnto 8y ago
  It is First Person 3D (no shooting). The learning curve was individually quite straight forward for each component, especially if you already have familiarity with the concepts. Blueprints were easy because I can code, and node based shaders aere quick to get started with because I knew the pieces of the puzzle so to speak. There is just a lot of different concepts flying around so it's easy to get flustered at first. UE4 also has a lot of boilerplate around game modes and default world functionality. It's not hard to learn it's just arbitrary learning so not all that fun. After the first week I found it surprising how quickly everything started coming together, it was more up front but once I was sped up I was good to go. Unity was a bit more of a constant grind of learning little bits here and there. What I have found difficult and continue to find difficult is support for UE4. Someone has almost always asked the same question as you, it's just that no one has answered. I found there was always some level of discussion for Unity if not a solution. But for UE4 it just feels a bit baron, at least for the results Google offers me.
  - pjmlp 8y ago
    It also helps that many game development universities are focusing on Unity. When reading about university projects on Making Games (http://www.makinggames.biz/ http://www.makinggames.biz/), a German publication about game development, the vast majority of them were done in Unity.

chrisdevereux 8y ago

I've been waiting for this....

ckok 8y ago

Does anyone know if godot can be used as a 3d engine from c# too? Specifically as part of an existing application instead of a game?

coffeeaddicted 8y ago
Godot is not a library. It's more like a development environment. You can use scripts and modules inside Godot (including c#). You can't use it as a library.

EamonnMR 8y ago

Been playing around since 3.0 added a bunch of features that piqued my interest. Very cool tech, the fact that it's open source is just icing.

smt923 8y ago

The one thing I hope Godot can push towards is just a huge pass in usability, smoothing out UI bugs and just generally improving the look and feel of the entire engine and all of it's UI - stuff like the 'inspector' panel just doesn't feel as nice or as usable as something like Unity's - it has great features but in my opinion just doesn't "feel" quite as polished as it could be, but I really do hope for this engine to keep improving and getting better

acfaruk 8y ago
They are actually going to be shipping a new inspector with the 3.1 release. https://godotengine.org/article/godot-gets-new-inspector https://godotengine.org/article/godot-gets-new-inspector
- smt923 8y ago
  I actually missed this, and the thing with Vector3s and such not being all in one was one of my main gripes, I'm super happy to see stuff like this
TazeTSchnitzel 8y ago
I personally find Godot's simple UI much less intimidating than Unity's. I have no idea what I'm doing in the latter without reading lots of documentation.
- naikrovek 8y ago
  Unity is powerful enough that the UI learning curve didn't bother me too much. There are some really odd decisions reflected in the Unity UI, though. I find the Unreal Editor UI to be a direct precipitate of the way the engine is designed and the way the code is organized, and that makes it a little bit harder to find what you're looking for than what an ideal UI would offer, and there is nothing that is really hidden and hard to find. That is not the case with Unity, and it seems to be getting better each and every release.
nrjames 8y ago

dgellow 8y ago

Godot has a patreon page, in case you would like to help the project with money: https://www.patreon.com/godotengine https://www.patreon.com/godotengine

adinobro 8y ago

Been playing with Godot since version 3 came out this year. It is a massive update but it is worth being aware that it doesn't feel complete. It was released because it is good enough to get people started on projects and the port them to 3.1 (which is what this editor is for) 3.1 seems more like the real release: * Massive cleanup of the UI (as people other people here complained about) * Full C# support * GLES v2 support (more hardware support) I'm developing with 3 and looking forward to 3.1

kumarvvr 8y ago

Anyone using it for commercial games? I am really interested to use it for interactive 3D applications in Engineering.

georgewsinger 8y ago

SimulaVR (a project to bring Linux Desktop to standalone VR headsets) is using Godot for its next version. You can see our almost-finished Haskell bindings to Godot here: https://github.com/SimulaVR/godot-haskell https://github.com/SimulaVR/godot-haskell