Godot (game engine)

The engine supports deployment to multiple platforms and allows specification of texture compression and resolution settings for each platform. The website provides binaries only for the editor platforms, and exporting projects to other platforms is done within the Godot editor.

The Godot editor, used for creating Godot games, supports the following platforms:

• Desktop platforms Linux, macOS, Windows distributed on the website, on Steam, on Epic, and on Itch.[9][12]
• Web platform HTML5, WebAssembly with the web editor.[13]
• Android phones and tablets (available as of Godot 3.5).[14]
• BSD is also supported, but must be compiled manually.[15]

The engine supports exporting projects to many more platforms, including all of the editor platforms. Currently supported platforms as of Godot 4.0 are:[16]

• Desktop platforms Linux, macOS, Windows, BSD (must be compiled manually[15])
• Mobile platforms Android, iOS
• Web platform HTML5, WebAssembly.[17]
• Virtual/extended reality platforms HTC Vive, Valve Index, Oculus Rift, Oculus Go, Oculus Quest, all Microsoft MR headsets, Apple's ARKit and many more.[5]

The Godot engine can be run on consoles, although popular consoles are not officially supported since they do not allow their platform-specific code to be published under an open-source license.[18] Games can be ported to consoles through third-party companies.[19][20] Godot 4 support for consoles by third party teams is currently being worked on.[16] W4 Games, a commercial company co-founded by some members of Godot's leadership, has announced plans to offer services porting Godot 4.0 games to Microsoft, Nintendo, and Sony platforms.[21][22]

For CPU architectures, Godot officially supports x86 on all desktop platforms (both 32-bit and 64-bit where available) and has official ARM support on macOS, mobile platforms, and standalone Oculus platforms (both 32-bit and 64-bit where available). The web platform uses 32-bit WebAssembly. Support for ARM, RISC-V, and PowerPC Linux is unofficial and experimental.[23][24]

Screenshot of editing a GDScript file using the built-in script editor of Godot 3.4

Godot supports a variety of programming languages for making games, including the integrated language GDScript, C++[25] and C#. Additionally, the engine includes GDNative, a facility for creating bindings with other languages. Officially-supported GDNative languages include C and C++.[26] Community-supported languages include Rust, Nim, Haskell, Clojure, Swift, and D.[27] Visual coding was also supported, via the built-in language VisualScript, designed to be a visual equivalent to GDScript.[20] Visual Scripting was removed from the core engine in Godot 4.0.[28] Godot games running in the browser can interface with the browser's JavaScript code.

The Godot editor includes a text editor with auto indentation, syntax highlighting and code completion and folding. It also features a debugger with the ability to set breakpoints and program stepping.[29]

Godot has its own built-in scripting language, GDScript,[29] a high-level, dynamically typed programming language which is syntactically similar to Python. Unlike Python, GDScript is optimized for Godot's scene-based architecture and can specify strict typing of variables. Godot's developers have stated that many alternative third-party scripting languages such as Lua, Python, and Squirrel were tested before deciding that using a custom language allowed for superior optimization and editor integration. In version 4.0, a new feature called Typed array[30] was implemented on GDScript. This allows users to easily change a regular array to typed and vice-versa without changing much code.[29]

A simple "Hello world" program can be written like so:

func _ready():
	print("Hello World")

More complex programs, such as this one generating a Fibonacci sequence, are also possible:

func _ready():
	var nterms = 5
	print("Fibonacci sequence:")
	for i in range(nterms):
		print(fibonacci(i))

func fibonacci(n):
	if n <= 1:
		return n
	else:
		return fibonacci(n - 1) + fibonacci(n - 2)

Godot's graphics engine uses OpenGL ES 3.0 for all supported platforms; otherwise, OpenGL ES 2.0 is used. Vulkan is supported starting in version 4.0 and also includes the possibility of support for Metal using MoltenVK.[31] The engine supports normal mapping, specularity, dynamic shadows using shadow maps, baked and dynamic global illumination, and full-screen post-processing effects like bloom, depth of field, high-dynamic-range rendering, and gamma correction. A simplified shader language, similar to GLSL, is also incorporated. Shaders can be used for materials and post-processing. Alternatively, they can be created by manipulating nodes in a visual editor.

Godot also includes a separate 2D graphics engine that can operate independently of the 3D engine, but both can also work at the same time on the same display, so as to make complex mixes between 2D and 3D. The 2D engine supports features such as lights, shadows, shaders, tile sets, parallax scrolling, polygons, animations, physics, and particles. It is also possible to mix 2D and 3D using a 'viewport node'.

Godot contains an animation system with a GUI for skeletal animation, blending, animation trees, morphing, and real-time cutscenes. Almost any variable defined or created on a game entity can be animated.[32] Godot has its own in-house physics engine, and as of Godot 4.x allows third parties to integrate their own physics via GDExtension. In Godot 3.x, the Bullet physics engine is included and used by default.[33] The ThorVG library allows creating GUIs with vector resources.[34]

Juan 'reduz' Linietsky and Ariel 'punto' Manzur co-founded Codenix in 1999, a game development consulting company. As early as 2001, they began work on an engine then code-named "Larvotor" which was licensed to third-party companies in Argentina.[35][36][37][38] Over the course of the following ten years, the engine was renamed to "Legacy", "NG3D", "Larvita" and finally to "Godot". The name "Godot" was chosen due to its relation to Samuel Beckett's play Waiting for Godot, as it represents the never-ending wish of adding new features in the engine, which would get it closer to an exhaustive product, but never will.[39] Linietsky and Manzur joined OKAM and the company worked with a number of studios in the closed-source era including Square Enix. Linietsky indicated that their work was hampered by political and economic instability in Argentina at the time however.[40]

By 2014 Linietsky was planning on moving away from Argentina, and he released the source code for Godot to the public on GitHub under the MIT License.[41] Godot joined the Software Freedom Conservancy (SFC) on 4 November 2015.[42] On 22 June 2016, Godot received a $20,000 Mozilla Open Source Support (MOSS) "Mission Partners" award to be used to add WebSockets, WebAssembly and WebGL 2.0 support.[17]

The 3.0 update for Godot involved addressing a long list of desired features which required a major refactor of the engine that had been impossible while under commercial constraints in the closed-source era. With Miguel de Icaza's support, Godot received a $24,000 donation from Microsoft in 2017 to implement C# as a scripting language in Godot.[43] A Patreon was launched, which enabled Linietsky and Verschelde to work on the project full time. The 3.0 version launched in 2018. The 3.1 update added a OpenGL ES 2.0 renderer aimed at mobile hardware, as mobile support for ES 3.0 by manufacturers was then limited.[44]

In 2019 two teams were formed, with Linietsky's team focusing on the Vulkan branch (later released as 4.0) and Verschelde's team covering further updates to the 3.x branch. Linietsky indicated that part of the issue was that the 3.x branch was built with older architectural principles in mind, such as single-core processors. Thus, the intention was to redevelop the core architecture for 4.0 and account for modern principles.[45] In 2020, Godot received a $250,000 Epic Games award to improve graphics rendering and the engine's built-in game development language, GDScript, which was used to pay Linietsky and George Marques for two years while freeing donation money for other purposes.[46][47] Godot also received grants from Meta Platforms' Reality Labs in 2020 and 2021.[48][49][50] The 4.0 branch released in alpha form in early 2022, and was polished over the course of the year.[51] That August, Linietsky and several other members of the Godot team established W4 Games to offer commercial services based on the engine, including console ports that cannot be included in its open-source codebase.[52][21] In November, Godot announced plans to transition from the SFC to its own newly-formed Godot Foundation.[53][54][55][56]

The full release of the 4.0 update with Vulkan support occurred in 2023, as well as the arrival of the Godot engine on the Epic Games Store. The version on Epic is identical to others in terms of both content and licensing, with the storefront simply used as a means of distribution and for updating.[57] In September, Unity Technologies announced major changes to licensing for the Unity engine including the addition of "runtime fees" that would charge users on installation of Unity games. As a result, Re-Logic donated $100,000 to Godot, and further announced that it would be donating $1,000 a month going forward, in the interest of supporting an open-source alternative to Unity.[58]