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akien-mgaGodot contributor•

Nice, it's a great read! I like that you give your honest assessment of the features you love and of the quirks that bother you, and that you makes lots of reference to work done by other community members.

You could likely post it on r/gamedev too, I'd just advise to use a more explicit title as "Why Godot Engine" is a bit cryptic. Maybe something like "Why I picked Godot Engine as my main dev tool" or "Why I use and love Godot Engine".

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diegomacOP•

Thanks guys!

I actually posted there before posting here, within a broader context: Talking about two other articles that we wrote about opening an indie studio in our spare time and a post-mortem. But it went to moderation due to the fact that it had the game store link.

I've just submitted a new one without it and it passed for now: https://www.reddit.com/r/gamedev/comments/72o1sx/bootstrapping_our_parttime_game_studio_powered_by/

But I've just noticed that someone posted the Godot article there too: https://www.reddit.com/r/gamedev/comments/72nf37/why_godot_engine_rock_milk/

Shout out to @minifigmaster125 for recomending the same thing!

3
Fallayn•

Ah, sorry, I just found it interesting and wanted to help out by spreading your article :)

I would be very interested in reading more about how you use Godot, especially the little nuggets of knowledge, tips & tricks that you only get after using an engine for some time for bigger projects!

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diegomacOP•

No problem, spreading the word is what matter. ;)

Right now we have a bigger scope project in our plans. We already have 2 prototypes done, we're just doing some playtesting to see which one creates more interest on our friends. After that I would love to write something in these lines.

If there's something more that you would like to know, I'm here!

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tails_11•

Great article. Nicely done!

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minifigmaster125•

Excellent article. At first I thought it was just going to be an elongated list of pros and cons, but you really went into the nuanced details. It was a pleasure. Definitely would xpost on r/gamedev as well.

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Panoramix360•

Hi! Very well written article!

I'm from Brazil too and appreciate your enthusiasm!

I'm in the same boat as you guys :) Learning Godot and making games on my spare time! (Game jams mostly)

Who knows when we will "hit" each other in some game jam on Brazil!

Regards!

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insomniac_lemon•

For me the biggest setback of Godot (and why I haven't started yet!) is the lack of good vector support (both lack of 2D AA, and lack of bezier-supporting SVG)... I've heard this might be fixed in 3.1 or 3.2 (along with 2D deformable meshes).

I'll admit that I will likely try to get into it with 3.0 because of the PBR stuff (and other rendering improvements, 3D sound, visual programming stuff, etc) but I really wish I could start with 2D vector to have an easier start.

Also minor nitpick:

but a solution is on it's way

Should be its.

(it's = it is. its = possession)

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CalinouGodot contributor•

Godot 3.0 does implement SVG (mainly for use with the editor icons), but you can also use SVGs as images in games now – they will be rasterized to bitmaps. While this isn't "true" vector graphics, this still can look good on hiDPI since it is possible to rasterize the bitmaps at load time (so that the "right" resolution can be picked for a given DPI).

Note that this implementation is based on nanosvg, which only supports basic SVGs. Unfortuately, it is the best permssively-licensed SVG library we can use (nothing else really exists for this).

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insomniac_lemon•

I think you may have told me this before (I'm a broken record on this subject... and you may have not worded it this exact way). I am looking for true vector, but I guess what you're saying will be good enough for getting started (retro game clones) and simple stuff like jam games, allowing people to propel themselves into 3D.

It will be more viable for more 'real' games if there is a way to manually (or configured automatically to) call for a re-rasterization of a certain asset, or have multiple versions rasterized already. While this won't allow for live rescaling (or for live vertex editing/animating or fancier similar effects that true vector can allow), it should allow for things like cutscenes with characters zoomed in on.

I suppose live switching could be a thing, allowing rescaling or camera zoom changes. It might be a bit jarring unless you have some sort of configurable transition options (blend, during/after stepped re-rasterization) it would be better than nothing, but I suppose at some point it might be easier to just go ahead and get a true SVG rendering.

What about 2D AA? The built-in vector nodes (polygon2D) might be a bit crude, but they would be usable for a few styles (especially minimalist) if AA was possible. External assets would be preferable, but this should at least allow for more advanced stuff (hopefully). If specific nodes (or trees of nodes) could be targeted by shaders that'd be really cool, too (smoothed vertex shader, maybe?).

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diegomacOP•

Thanks! Just fixed that!

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pmurraydesign•

Great read, even though I love the engine already I still found it inspiring to read. Hopefully posts like yours will inspire indies to give it a try or at least help raise awareness for it. Godot is a great engine already and it's sure to only get better in time.

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Gokudomatic•

I appreciate this article too. Thanks for the writing.

1