Godot 4.0 hits beta
Open-source game engine reaches a major milestone.
After 17 alpha builds in 2022 alone, the open-source Godot game engine (https://bit.ly/lxf295godot) is now one step closer to the full release of version 4.0, with the recent release of the first beta.
According to the release announcement, this beta version is essentially feature complete, so it should give us a good idea of what the final release will look like. The main purpose of this beta is to help identify and fix bugs, as well as optimise performance. It includes a culmination of improvements made on the engine core since work on Godot 4.0 began in 2019. The idea is that the core engine will be a solid and robust base to build the application around, and as the release announcement says, “We’re thinking forward, and preparing the ground for frequent 4.x releases which will let us improve Godot at a much faster pace thanks to all the foundational work we’ve been doing for 4.0.”
The manner in which Godot renders 3D and 2D scenes has also been overhauled, with Vulkan the default API, but with other APIs, including Direct3D 12 and OpenGLbased renderer being supported.
Numerous atmospheric effects have been either added or improved to make games even more immersive, including an overhauled VoxelGI real-time global illumination system, volumetric fog effects and sky shaders for dynamic skies. Elsewhere, Godot Physics makes a return (after using the third-party Bullet engine for 3D physics), for better performance and optimisation, and brings with it a suite of tools that can add more realistic physics and reactions to games.
Overall, Godot 4.0 sounds like it’ll be an incredibly exciting release – and it’s great to see a free and open-source game engine offer such an accomplished range of features and tools. You can download Godot 4.0 Beta 1 from https://bit. ly/lxf295godotbetadownload.