Godot 4.8 is a HUGE update! — Transcript

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1. 0:00GDO4.8 has now entered feature freeze.
2. 0:03So, it's the perfect time to talk about
3. 0:05the best new features from quality of
4. 0:08life improvements to new very requested
5. 0:10nodes and huge features that will be
6. 0:13very useful for bigger games.
7. 0:17[music]
8. 0:19Let's start with the rendering side. 4.8
9. 0:21[music]
10. 0:22finally introduces texture streaming.
11. 0:24It's a feature that lets the engine load
12. 0:26lower quality versions of a texture
13. 0:28based on the camera distance to save
14. 0:30VRAMm and improve load times. This can
15. 0:33be very useful, especially for openw
16. 0:35world games that often have to render
17. 0:37many high-res textures at once. The
18. 0:40feature is marked as experimental, but
19. 0:42I've tried it and it works fine. There
20. 0:44were a few smaller bugs, mostly related
21. 0:47to error spamming, but they've already
22. 0:49been fixed. You have to enable this
23. 0:51feature in a project setting under the
24. 0:53rendering and texture section. There's
25. 0:56an option to set a memory budget,
26. 0:58forcing the game to lower the
27. 0:59resolutions of the textures to stay
28. 1:01within that limit. After you enable it,
29. 1:03you should see a new textures button in
30. 1:05the toolbar containing a submen with
31. 1:08quick quality presets you can apply to
32. 1:10the project settings. You should also
33. 1:12make sure to import all the textures you
34. 1:14want as textured 2D streamed, not just
35. 1:18textured 2Ds. otherwise they will not be
36. 1:20affected by the texture streaming. While
37. 1:22there's no quick function to apply a
38. 1:24preset at runtime, in case you wanted to
39. 1:27add texture quality settings in your
40. 1:29game, you can just set the corresponding
41. 1:31values in the new texture streaming
42. 1:33singleton and it should work at runtime.
43. 1:36That's how I've managed to integrate it
44. 1:38with my modular setting system. If
45. 1:40you're interested in how that one works,
46. 1:42leave a comment and I'll make a video
47. 1:44about it. It might not seem like it, but
48. 1:47setting systems in games can be their
49. 1:49own rabbit hole once you start to have
50. 1:51dozens of these with different values,
51. 1:53translations, and implementations.
52. 1:56Moving on to another rendering feature,
53. 1:58directional light 3D nodes have added
54. 2:00support for screen space contact
55. 2:02shadows. It renders precise small
56. 2:05shadows with detail that traditional
57. 2:07shadow maps may miss. This is especially
58. 2:09useful for things like foyage, fences,
59. 2:12or other smaller detailed objects. Of
60. 2:15course, as with any screen space-based
61. 2:17technique, some detail will be lost if
62. 2:20the object is not completely visible,
63. 2:22but still it can vastly improve the
64. 2:25depth of a scene. It's something that I
65. 2:27personally don't want to have. Keep in
66. 2:29mind that you have to enable this in the
67. 2:31directional light 3D node, but also in a
68. 2:34new project setting under rendering
69. 2:37lights and shadows. One of the most
70. 2:39requested 3D nodes in GDAU has always
71. 2:41been line 3D. This release doesn't have
72. 2:44that, but it does introduce a new trail
73. 2:463D node that shares some of the codebase
74. 2:49a future line 3D node should have. Trail
75. 2:533D resizes itself based on movement,
76. 2:56leaving a trail behind. This is useful
77. 2:58for velocity lines, bullet trails, wind
78. 3:02trails, and those types of effects that
79. 3:04are actually more complex to implement
80. 3:06than they seem. There's options for
81. 3:08width, a color gradient, a custom curve
82. 3:11if you want to change the shape a bit,
83. 3:14and even a custom material. Even though
84. 3:16this last option is a bit limited
85. 3:18because trails already rely on custom
86. 3:21shaders, I think I'll be using this for
87. 3:23glide and ship trails in my game. By the
88. 3:26way, this is Project Neon Wild, the
89. 3:28cyberpunk survival sandbox game I'm
90. 3:31working on. You explore an infinite
91. 3:33procedural high-tech world in decay and
92. 3:36survive by scavenging resources, raiding
93. 3:39survivors, installing body implants, and
94. 3:42upgrading your ship. It's still in
95. 3:44pre-alpha, so I know it looks bare
96. 3:46bones. I want to finish the basic
97. 3:48systems first and then focus on making
98. 3:50it pretty before releasing a demo or a
99. 3:53Steam page. If you're interested in my
100. 3:55game or general game development deep
101. 3:57dives, you can subscribe or follow me on
102. 3:59Blue Sky. Let's keep [music] going.
103. 4:01Previously, you could only use decals in
104. 4:04the 4 plus renderer. 4.8 now allows you
105. 4:07to have them in the compatibility
106. 4:09renderer as well, which is great for
107. 4:11compatibility with older devices. One of
108. 4:14the main limitations decals also had was
109. 4:16that they were static. Gado draws decals
110. 4:19in a single draw call to improve
111. 4:21performance by grouping all of them in a
112. 4:24single texture, a decal atlas. Now the
113. 4:27rendering server is able to update a
114. 4:29single texture in that ad class without
115. 4:31needing to rebuild the entire thing. In
116. 4:34practice, you can use this to create
117. 4:36animated decals via drawable textures
118. 4:39and even animated light projectors too
119. 4:41because they work in the same way. This
120. 4:43is useful for effects like water
121. 4:45costics, animated puddles, animated
122. 4:48movie projectors, etc. Finally, for this
123. 4:51section, multibounce ambient occlusion
124. 4:54has been merged for 4.8. This one also
125. 4:58has to be enabled in the project
126. 5:00settings. GDAU already had SSAO, adding
127. 5:02drop shadows between corners to give
128. 5:05scenes more depth. However, this could
129. 5:07also lead to certain areas being over
130. 5:10darkened. Multibounce ambient occlusion
131. 5:13reads information from the albido
132. 5:15texture to simulate color bouncing off
133. 5:17the surfaces, making those shadows look
134. 5:20more natural and balanced. It's an
135. 5:22industry standard [music] feature other
136. 5:24game engines already had, so it's nice
137. 5:26to see GDO finally getting it. There's
138. 5:29plenty of editor improvements, so I'm
139. 5:32just going to mention the most important
140. 5:33ones quickly, such as the new find
141. 5:36[music] and replace UI. This panel now
142. 5:38includes a preview of what the
143. 5:40replacement will [music] look like. It
144. 5:42allows specifying a folder, a pattern,
145. 5:45and you can even have many tabs. This is
146. 5:47complemented by a new experimental
147. 5:50symbol renaming feature. While the
148. 5:52editor was already able to replace
149. 5:54strings in [music] text files, it wasn't
150. 5:57very smart. It replaced every occurrence
151. 5:59of that string, including comments,
152. 6:02variables, and other things that you
153. 6:04might not want to change. Symbol
154. 6:07renaming allows you to select a variable
155. 6:09and [music] rename it, respecting its
156. 6:11scope. It will also skip comments or
157. 6:14other [music] things that aren't direct
158. 6:16references to that exact variable as
159. 6:18well, even if they share the same
160. 6:20string. It's a step forward when it
161. 6:22comes to making the code editor more
162. 6:24robust and smarter, [music] as it
163. 6:26usually lacks behind others or editors.
164. 6:30Another feature that improves the code
165. 6:32editor is the new support for warning
166. 6:34and error underlining. The code editor
167. 6:37used to highlight an entire line if you
168. 6:39had either of these, which could be
169. 6:41confusing if you had a many errors in
170. 6:43the same line. The main 2D, 3D script,
171. 6:47and asset store tabs have now been
172. 6:49turned into docks [music] you can move,
173. 6:52make floating, reorder, and close. This
174. 6:54will improve the flexibility of the
175. 6:56layout even though there are still some
176. 6:58limitations. [music] These docks can
177. 7:00only be centered for now, and the game
178. 7:02tab can't be made into a floating
179. 7:04window. Below those tabs, you'll find
180. 7:06the new 2D, 3D, [music] and game
181. 7:09toolbars. They feature a new design that
182. 7:11groups some icons into related actions,
183. 7:14grouping things like the transform
184. 7:16[music] actions, the snap buttons, and
185. 7:18the environment options. I like this
186. 7:21change. I think it [music] makes them
187. 7:22more legible, and especially for the
188. 7:24Game Tap toolbar. That one used to have
189. 7:26the window options kind of hidden. By
190. 7:29the way, the embedded game view has now
191. 7:31become the default instead of a floating
192. 7:33window. So, like in most engines,
193. 7:35[music] it's just so useful. The tree
194. 7:37control has gotten a new feature that
195. 7:39makes an item stick to the top of the
196. 7:41tree if it's the parent of a foldable
197. 7:43section. Because the editor is made with
198. 7:45GDO's UI toolkit, this works for both
199. 7:48tree controls you have in the editor's
200. 7:50lists like the scene tree panel that now
201. 7:53supports track toggles for visibility
202. 7:56like in Blender. The add node dialogue
203. 7:59or the [music] file system dock, which
204. 8:01speaking of, I get a new shortcut that
205. 8:03lets you zoom in and out by holding down
206. 8:05the control key while moving the scroll
207. 8:08wheel, emulating how many file managers
208. 8:10do it. There's been two menu bar options
209. 8:13that stood out to me because of how
210. 8:14convenient they are. First, there's a
211. 8:17new option to clear the project cache.
212. 8:19Sometimes import settings or assets
213. 8:22break or the project cache gets too
214. 8:24bloated. You could delete the Dodo
215. 8:27folder to remove the cache, but it also
216. 8:30removed other things like colored and
217. 8:32favorite folders. This option keeps
218. 8:34those while still moving the rest to the
219. 8:37trash. Another new option lets you
220. 8:39automate the setup of the Android SDK
221. 8:42when you want to export your game to
222. 8:44Android. This was annoying as you had to
223. 8:47do the entire process all over again
224. 8:49when the version changed. The engine
225. 8:51should now take care of installing the
226. 8:53export template and setting up the SDK
227. 8:56properly. You can now assign different
228. 8:58audio streams to theme event because it
229. 9:01uses a regular audio stream. You could
230. 9:03also pass an audio stream randomizer to
231. 9:06make the pitch and volume vary a little
232. 9:08each time they're played. It's a nice
233. 9:11feature. You could already do this, but
234. 9:13it required you to make a manual
235. 9:15implementation, and you also had to
236. 9:17assign it to all controls you wanted to
237. 9:19be affected. This already affects all
238. 9:21instances of that [music] control
239. 9:29labels. Enriched text labels only
240. 9:31allowed hard-coded sizes. This could
241. 9:34quickly become an issue if you had long
242. 9:36text, user input, or when translating
243. 9:39strings to other languages, as the
244. 9:41formatting of the text may change and
245. 9:44break the labels bounds. You can now
246. 9:46enable automatic label resizing, making
247. 9:49the engine adjust the font size to
248. 9:51ensure the text fits within the label's
249. 9:53bounds by specifying a min and max size.
250. 9:57One of the most requested visual shader
251. 9:59features was support for group nodes. I
252. 10:02wouldn't really call myself good with
253. 10:03shaders, but I've made a few of my own,
254. 10:06and visual shaders make it easier, but
255. 10:08they can also be messy. I often found
256. 10:11myself duplicating setups or logic with
257. 10:14barely a few changes because there was
258. 10:16just no way of reusing them. Not
259. 10:18anymore. As good 4.8 adds group nodes.
260. 10:22These let you reuse a visual shader
261. 10:24subgraph with custom input and output
262. 10:27values. As you can see, I used them to
263. 10:30reuse the texture UV shifting logic with
264. 10:33different [music] parameters for this
265. 10:34water shader. It works fine, but I have
266. 10:37noticed a few smaller bugs and quirks.
267. 10:40For example, default values don't work
268. 10:42and you have to pass them to the
269. 10:44subgraph because otherwise it breaks the
270. 10:46shader. I'm not sure if this is a bug or
271. 10:49intended behavior. Sometimes the life
272. 10:51editor shader updates break, [music] but
273. 10:54they work fine at runtime. Still, it's a
274. 10:56very useful feature I'm sure I'll be
275. 10:59using a lot, and these smaller issues
276. 11:01should be fixed in upcoming releases. A
277. 11:04gripe I had with GDAU's animation system
278. 11:06was that waiting for animation events
279. 11:08wasn't straightforward in all cases.
280. 11:10While state machine playback objects had
281. 11:13signals, if you used an animation node
282. 11:15transition, a oneshot node, or a blend
283. 11:18space, you were on your own. I don't
284. 11:20like using state machines for animations
285. 11:22that much because they're messy and
286. 11:24unreliable in my experience. So, I used
287. 11:27transition and oneshot nodes and had to
288. 11:29resort to using timers, custom animation
289. 11:32tracks, and other hacks to know when an
290. 11:35animation finished and this didn't cover
291. 11:37all cases. Fortunately, with animation
292. 11:40node observers, this shouldn't be an
293. 11:42issue anymore. There are new resource
294. 11:44you can define in the editor and get it
295. 11:46via code. As with any other animation
296. 11:49tree parameter, connecting to its
297. 11:51signals to run custom code when an event
298. 11:54occurs. I can imagine this being very
299. 11:56useful for setups with many animation
300. 11:58events like combos or to emit a sound
301. 12:01effect after an animation has finished.
302. 12:04GDAU already had an internal class to
303. 12:06handle fuzzy surge. You know, being able
304. 12:09to find results even if the input has
305. 12:11subtle typos or the wrong order. But
306. 12:14this was only for the quick load window.
307. 12:16not anymore as it's been exposed as an
308. 12:18API you can use in your game. This is
309. 12:21going to be very useful if you have,
310. 12:23let's say, an inventory menu with a
311. 12:25search bar. There's been several
312. 12:27performance improvements in this new
313. 12:30version. If you've ever tried to perform
314. 12:31a physics query without notes, you'll
315. 12:34know that the physics server returned
316. 12:35the results by allocating a dictionary,
317. 12:38which was slower and prone to typos. New
318. 12:41physics result classes and functions
319. 12:43have been added that let you perform the
320. 12:45same queries faster, skipping the
321. 12:47dictionary and returning a typed object.
322. 12:50Mice with high polling rates were
323. 12:52causing severe performance issues on
324. 12:54Windows. [clears throat] This has now
325. 12:55been fixed. We've also seen considerable
326. 12:58performance improvements when removing
327. 13:00many nodes as well as when updating a
328. 13:02Polygon 2D. There were many smaller
329. 13:05features I skipped because if I included
330. 13:07them here, the video would be like 30
331. 13:10minutes long and I have to work on my
332. 13:12game and other videos. So, I do
333. 13:14recommend you to read the blog posts in
334. 13:16the change logs if you're interested in
335. 13:18all the features, fixes, and changes.
336. 13:21I've been using 4.8 for about a month or
337. 13:23so, and so far there were a few small
338. 13:26bugs here and there. They've been fixed
339. 13:28now, and I do find it to be mostly
340. 13:30stable, just in case you want to give it
341. 13:32a try. Of course, unless you really need
342. 13:34the new features, I would recommend you
343. 13:36to just wait for the stable version or a
344. 13:39beta at least and make lots of backups
345. 13:42just in case. The future of the GDAU
346. 13:44engine looks promising, that's for sure.
347. 13:46I started working on this game since
348. 13:48like 4.2 or 4.3, and I've seen every
349. 13:52feature I needed get added over time. I
350. 13:55can only imagine the stuff we'll have in
351. 13:56a few years. But anyway, what was your
352. 13:59favorite feature and what would you like
353. 14:01to see in the next releases? Thank you
354. 14:03so much for watching the video. See you
355. 14:06in the next one.