
Godot 3.0 game engine released - Rusky
https://godotengine.org/article/godot-3-0-released
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fartcannon
I can't say enough good things about this project. In particular I love
GDScript. It's a lot like Python and it makes the cost of learning the engine
negligible.

You can also use C++, C# and a visual scripting language to make stuff.
There's also community support for python and some other languages.

It's hard to believe that it's a 20mb when Unity is 1.5gb.

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nrjames
My understanding was that they were going to have full support for Python 3 in
the 3.0 release. Not sure if that survived the last 6 months.

[https://godotengine.org/article/beta-release-python-
support](https://godotengine.org/article/beta-release-python-support)

~~~
baldfat
I think the best thing for people to do is to program a simple game or two and
see that the need for full python support is really not needed. In Godot you
are scripting elements.

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jchw
I don't have much valuable to add here, but I'm glad to see more serious open
source success stories. Godot seems like it has a lot to offer developers and
it's great that it's open to everyone to play with, as opposed to being some
proprietary code behind the fences of some organization. The Patreon model of
developing software could have a bright future, perhaps.

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aetherspawn
Not mentioned in any of the changelogs: I implemented color blending utility
functions like darken and lighten from SASS/LESS for GD Script. So now ie
blending your characters color based on damage received is ~1 line of code.

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vanderZwan
Neat! Got a link to some examples?

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Iv
Happens at a perfect time for me. I was wondering about a project I want
running on smartphones and web and was pondering restarting a unity project
(which meant begrudgingly reboot to windows, the linux IDE is not there yet).
Now I'll give godot a try.

Is the iOS support good?

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vanderZwan
> the linux IDE is not there yet

If you're a Linux person using Unity, double-check if your version of Unity
has fixed the VSync bug.

99% of all Unity games max out one core for me all the time, even if they are
static sprite games like Desktop Dungeons, due to that really dumb bug of
theirs. Unity games are basically a no-go on my laptop, draining the battery
like crazy and heating it up tremendously.

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akmittal
Now you can build games in browser using wasm.

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markdog12
Would be awesome to get some examples up on the site, particularly
WebAssembly/WebGL 2.0 ones

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andybak
Very interested in it for GDScript's alleged Python-ness.

Can anyone comment on how seamless the transition from Python to GDScript will
be? And how performant is GDScript?

It's a shame Unity dropped Boo but I think it was due to lack of interest as
much as lack of support. There is no much code in a game (or "game-like thing"
\- I'm more interested in VR experiences etc) that doesn't need to be
performant that two levels of code access is desirable. A fast language and a
nice language...

I'm warming to C# but that's probably more down to Stockholm Syndrome than any
innate pleasure in using the language. When I switch back to Python I feel all
warm and fuzzy again.

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marzipan
I've done a few tests with GDScript.

There isn't the same depth of library support as Python for obvious reasons,
which makes the experience different even though the syntax is pretty close,
but it's not worse at the task of doing things with the engine, in fact it's
better at that because it's more deeply integrated(which is the point of
having a custom language). It's aware of engine core stuff like e.g. geometry
vectors and the scenegraph, and the built-in IDE supports working with
GDScript directly with no configuration step needed - edit/test/debug all done
exactly like it should be.

Performance-wise, it's fine for what it's intended for - running gameplay
logic for a game of small-to-midsize scope(think ~$5mm budget) that isn't
trying to drive tens of thousands of entities or run parts of the rendering
from script. Smaller games can get away with optimizing hotspots, and a bigger
game can start to justify having someone forking the engine and poking around
in the internals to optimize whatever part of the architecture starts falling
over.

For the use-cases of running a specific task that's more intensive or bolting
on some additional dependencies, the new GDNative support is compelling.
Godot's stated aim is for convenience over optimization but the optimization
is definitely present in critical elements.

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FreakyT
This looks like a really cool tool based on their website -- has anyone here
had any experience with it? How does the developer experience compare to, say,
Unity?

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fartcannon
I've used both for hobby projects and Godot is superior in my opinion because
of the scripting language, the open sourciness and the small package size.

Why is unity 1.5gb anyways?

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pjmlp
Because it targets all Sony, Nintendo and Microsoft consoles, OS X, iOS, tvOS,
Windows desktop, UWP, Android and GNU/Linux. With binaries for every
architecture being part of it.

Can target OpenGL, OpenGL ES, Metal, Vulkan, DirectX 11, DirectX 12, LibGMN,
NVN.

Has graphical debuggers for shader development, a 2D GUI engine, a 3 engine
with VR and AR support, asset pipelines for integration with studios workflow,
and lots of features that Godot might one day have, but aren't on 3.0.

Kudos to Godot developers for what they achieved, I am also impressed with
their work, but Unity devs aren't putting bloat just for fun.

In fact, any engine with similar laundry list of features has a similar size.

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zerr
That's why installation options exist, no?

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chillidoor
GameMaker Studio used to do something like that. You started off with a
specific version and then could buy plugins for additional features like
compiling for consoles, Linux, etc. I haven't looked at the GMS2 pricing model
so I'm not sure if they still follow that though.

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Sir_Substance
High five to all the godot developers, I've been on the edge of my seat
waiting for this one for a while now!

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chillidoor
Oh wow, this is a really cool release. I was hoping that Python 3 would be a
built-in feature but I'm not complaining :)

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giancarlostoro
GDScript is pythonesque enough to where that's alright. By having made their
own scripting language it allows for it to flow better with their engine, at
least that's my opinion.

I used GDScript and didn't have any issues with using it, I'm sure everyone
wants to reuse the millions of Python libraries available but they're not
built for Godot. However, using GDNative I'm pretty sure one could put Python
support into Godot, as a Godot native plugin that then runs your Python code.
It wouldn't be as efficient as just using GDScript though.

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krapp
> By having made their own scripting language it allows for it to flow better
> with their engine, at least that's my opinion.

It also locks your code into their ecosystem, albeit to a much lesser degree
than, say, GameMaker and GML because Godot is open source, and allows support
for other languages.

Unless anyone is going to use GDScript anywhere else as a general purpose
language, it's as useless to learn in the long term as GML or Boo for Unity.

That said, Godot looks nice and I look forward to trying it out. But I do
believe that, in general, game frameworks should stop rolling their own custom
scripting languages.

