Godot Digest 10
Last edition of 2024! Another year passed by, and it was an excellent year for Godot.
Most people take a break over the holidays, so this edition will be shorter than previous ones.
Game Dev News
Since it is the end of the year, let's do a couple of articles that summarize 2024.
GameDevloper does an annual review of several categories.
I always enjoy reading the top 10 featured articles of the year. Since they are all related to game development, I recommend checking them out.
https://www.gamedeveloper.com/design/game-developer-s-2024-wrap-up-10-must-read-featured-blogs
Another even more interesting category is the top deep dives. These deep dives are great reading and provide extensive knowledge on different topics directly from the developers.
https://www.gamedeveloper.com/design/game-developer-s-2024-wrap-up-10-must-read-deep-dives
Lastly, let's recap the most significant news from this year. This article from 80 Level summarizes this year's best and worst gaming industry news.
https://80.lv/articles/the-gaming-industry-2024-review-highlights-lowlights/
Official News
The Godot XR community has been thriving, and the engine's capabilities in this area have improved significantly during this year. Following that success, this official article will discuss some community projects that will help attract more attention to Godot XR.
https://godotengine.org/article/godot-xr-community-nov-2024/
As a Christmas present, Godot 4.4 dev snapshot 7 is ready to try. This build has many fixes and interesting new features worth mentioning: integrate Godot Jolt as an official module, update to .NET 8, and add documentation tooltips in the editor. This release also adds a few more features to the engine, so check the RN.
https://godotengine.org/article/dev-snapshot-godot-4-4-dev-7/
Regarding the physics update in this release, Gamefromscratch made a full video on the subject. If you are interested in learning more details about it, check out his video.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KRvt_QPs8uI
From the Community
Here are some of the latest tutorials and resources from the Godot community.
Wet painting shader — FencerDevLog
Using layering and applying noise and rotation effects on each layer, Fencer teaches us this shader that can produce the effect of blurring and merging the colors.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dIt5PYDC86o
Great changes coming to Godot — Octodemy
This video summarizes Godot's new features, improvements, and changes in 4.4, as well as some of the things to come in the next year. A good summary of the year for 4.4.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t-wE8_Y5OQc
Quest system — Michael Games
Continuing with his series of tutorials focused on creating a quest system, we now have parts 4 and 5.
Part 4 is about designing a node that allows to interact with quests and quests status changes.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=poQYDT62lTI
Part 5 will focus on UI notifications when a quest updates.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ItsVktBDJ9k
Bomberman in Godot —CyberPotato
Step-by-step full tutorial on how to make the classic Bomberman game in Godot.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xf17dZ099DU
3D Rigged, Animated, Playable Character —BornCG
This lesson is part of a series on building a 3D platformer game in Godot. In it, we will learn how to create a 3D third-person character from a rigged, animated 3D model in Blender.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E6qsOY2CSdI
How to Make an Enemy Follow the Player —MakerTech
The title is self-explanatory enough, so here is the link.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kNFd6-CfQjo
Video glitch shader —FencerDevLog
Most of you probably have never experienced this, but when you try to play a VHS, you get some distinctive artifacts in the video. This is either because the video is bad quality or the tape is too old. This shader emulates that effect.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=du6IOITYAi0
The _draw() function —StayAtHomeDev
If you need to draw things manually in Godot, this tutorial will introduce you to the draw callback and the multiple draw functions.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q86CbbtOePU
How to use Resources —Bitlytic
An overview of Resources in Godot, from the definition and usages to how to create your own resources.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h5vpjCDNa-w
A G.U.I.D.E to input —Godotneers
This video teaches how to use the new library G.U.I.D.E., which allows us to encapsulate different inputs from different sources in a unified way.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gNiiaNViaUg
The Expression class —Queble
This tutorial will teach you about the Expression class and how to execute GDScript snippets without creating a separate script.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nxEW2NHpaDc
Shader precompilation —Firebelley Games
Compiling shaders at runtime is costly. Precompiling shaders is the most common technique nowadays to improve performance and avoid issues while the game is running. This video discusses a possible implementation of this process.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bgex_UmvJvM
A Guide to Creating UI —DevWorm
Great tutorial on how to create user interfaces in Godot, in particular menus and settings screen.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KOyREJu1P3I
Godot Game Awards 2024 —StayAtHomeDev
During the year, the StayAtHomeDev community voted weekly for the best games made in Godot. These are the results. This is the first year this is done, so give it a thumbs up!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mUzAHrpjwl4