Godot hits version 1.1 (was hits 1.1 RC3)

To note about this thread, seeing the relative lack of commits in the BGE since August has convinced me that BGE development has about ground to a halt (and possibly for good).

Not everything is dark in the land of FOSS though, as we are now seeing the Godot team post builds that will eventually lead to version 1.0 and as such is now the most promising game engine the FOSS world has seen in a very long while.
http://www.godotengine.org/wp/download/

What’s even better is that they are preferring open formats to Autodesk .fbx, meaning that there will not be any license hassles that would hinder the development of a better bridge between this engine and Blender.

I know some here are already checking it out, perhaps I will follow suit soon once I catch a rest from Cycles stuff.

I know, I know, I’ve been trying to make the point of the BGE not being dead for as long as possible, but the relative lack of commits, the black hole that is its bug tracker, and a series of dreams all point that its time for removal from Blender has come (those who still want to use the BGE can possibly continue it in a fork or just use Blender 2.69, which is arguably the last really good BGE version). I can’t see why it won’t be removed anymore, not with FOSS now offering superior solutions.

Check it out and see what you think.

LATEST NEWS::
The official 1.1 version is now out.
http://www.godotengine.org/wp/godot-1-1-out/

I don’t think the bge is dead, and people have commits waiting to be merged.

some kind soul just needs to fork the bge, prove it’s merit, and get it back in…

bullet 3 + some of the long standing improvements to the bge can probably help quite a bit.

pushing some operations to openCL and the gpu via bullet seems like it will speed everything up nicely.

doesn’t a large portion of the game loop depend on bullets speed?

I have been checking Godot out for a while now. It is indeed a promising engine… but the key is “promising”. There is a ways to go before it matches even Unity Free (in my opinion). On the other hand, the studio supporting/developing the engine is eating it’s own dog food on this one and had a successful Kickstarter for what appears to be a promising 2D point&click adventure game. There is funding, there is an amazing foundation, and there are growing pains to go through (e.g. writing their own scripting engine to replace Lua)

I would hesitate to say that if one needs more than the absolute basics in a 3D game engine, that they either wait a little on Godot or prepare to invest significant time getting it beyond the basics. On the other hand, if you’re interested in a 2D or 2.5D game engine, Godot does seem to have a great deal to offer.


[SUB]@AD: Seriously, is it not possible to mention the release, development, or feature of some other engine/software without adding the doom & gloom prophesies about Blender? Agree with you or not about the BGE, you know the Godot info & discussion is going to get buried under the pile of “BGE is d00m3d!” & “BGE is teh bestest engine evar!” garbage.[/SUB]

I’ve actually just downloaded Godot now with the example projects, here’s what I’ve been seeing.

  • Shaders - okay, has the basics along with some nifty extras like reflections
  • Scripting - Perfect for someone coming from the BGE, has its own API and its own script editor (ie. no external IDE’s required), a lot like how it used to be for me with GameMaker which I consider a good sign
  • Platforms - PC and mobile mainly, but still more than the BGE, it even has a 64 bit version
  • Logic - Also has the basics along with more advanced techniques like pathfinding, everything seems to just work right now, which is a plus
  • Extras - Has nice looking sky-dome capabilities, has the ability to scan entire folders for project files, has that full integrated environment that you couldn’t find with FOSS stalwarts like the Jmonkey engine.

There might be a few rough edges, but it’s standard for new engines and it seems to be growing nicely (the new builds were posted just a few days ago). They have also made it clear that the website is a work in progress and the forum already has a bit of activity.

Honestly, I think the one thing BGE has going for it is convenience.
It’s so much nicer to make and rig your models right there in the program, without having to save redundant model files, and without risking a total f*ckup when porting to another engine. It’s also nice to have some image and text editing in-engine, too.
Unless this Godot can boast a good modeler on top of its GE, I don’t think we have to worry about the BGE “dying” anytime soon.

I almost guarantee you’ll be singing a different tune when things start breaking all over the place due to code rot, and the people who have committed code do not have enough time to guarantee a lower bug count in the next version.

As I said, Moguri has a job now so he can’t exactly work on the BGE much anymore (it’s quite possible the game engine section will just be omitted from the release logs since there’s been no commits).


I have been checking Godot out for a while now. It is indeed a promising engine… but the key is “promising”. There is a ways to go before it matches even Unity Free

With all due respect, people were probably saying the same thing about Blender soon after its open sourcing, in part due to how it had to go a ways to even match lower end apps. like Carrara in functionality.

But is further development on the BGE really a huge issue? I mean, there are people still using 2.49b and that got rewritten a looong time ago. Heck I’m still using 2.66 and I’ve not found any real reason to update. I mean, maybe in 10 years time, when we’re using holograms as monitors, I’ll have to move on, but as of right now and the next 2 or 3 years, there’s really nothing to worry about.
Blender is defined as one of the forefront programs in the indie free-opensource industry. I don’t see it up and dying. It’ll take a looong time for that to happen.

Who is the BGE module owner?

Do they have to be a coder?

What about Mahahlin or Goran?

Who knows the source enough to decide how to proceed?

I am using 2.72 and I just have worked around any bugs…

It’s possible, some people even still use the old engine that was used to make Doom, but the nostalgic factor of making awesome projects with old engines will be the only means by which a BGE community will remain (and already is to some respects due to some areas getting little to no updating since 2.49b).

Fear, it is the root of the dark side,

put it aside you must.

Engine is strong it is.

about the module owner…

Well there’s nothing stopping you from trying to single-handedly code a massive update for the BGE itself if you feel you might be up for it, but you will still have to find a way to get it reviewed and committed (which you might be hard-pressed to get done as not even the bugfix patches are going in).

I think a fork, and a slight rework, and a few successful games on steam, will attract a few coders to help save it.

it’s a nice little thing.

No arguments there. I think Godot has a bright future ahead of it. I’m simply pointing out where it is NOW.

There are many good things to say about the engine as it stands. The built-in UI being my favourite honestly. However, it is well behind in other areas too and it pays for someone reading a thread about a given engine to hear about that as well.

I highly recommend Godot for 2D games. It’s pretty solid for such at the moment, performance issues for most 2D games are minimal in the first place, and it where the funding is going for it at the moment (due to the studio’s upcoming Dog Mendonça & Pizza Boy game succeeding in it’s Kickstarter funding).

For 3D games - I think it has promise but it isn’t there yet. If you want to get stuck straight into a project now, I’d suggest other engines. If you’re willing to play around a little before hand, it is possible Godot will be the engine for you by the time you need to stress the engine. Honestly, I’m kind of debating whether I take the Godot UI / IDE & hack it onto GameKit’s (imo, better) 3D engine foundation (i.e. Ogre3D). Personal opinion only and you’re free to take it or leave it as suits your whims :slight_smile:


[SUB]FWIW, I think you can see what I meant about the whole “BGE is not dead, long live BGE” subject taking over now ;)[/SUB]

To those wanting to hold out on the BGE as long as possible, show us a steady stream of bugfixes and code cleanup work (or find a way to make it happen), and I can tell you that it’s likely a number of long-time users will take another look. Show us a completed Android player and that number will go up even further.

You have your work cut out then, it’s not going to be an easy task, but it will give a strong impetus for me to possibly use the BGE heavily again if you do. The point is that I would expect to continue on using development builds without the fear that a game breaking bug or crash will sneak in and destroy one or more of my projects should I open it several months or a year later (as right now it’s kind of a gamble to an extent).

My problem, is what can’t you do right now for the bge?

things that come up are

Portable game market

Html 5 export

Render draw call batching

more dependency on view-port code etc.

What I am wondering is what you can do to get some of the original devs to rework the engine in a “bge revival”

where I think that should go.

Bullet 3

3d Sprite Object - changes UV images based on viewport angle and animation frame of sprite sheet

3d Sprite Baking Tools - Generate Sprite sheets from models with animations

VR ToolKit - Occulus rift tools, Razor hydra, Leap etc

Robotics - simulation and control environment

Ragdollify, = turn any armature ragdoll with the Armature Actuator

Rig-A-Ragiffy = turn any Actor into a rigged ragdoll in armature settings - adds property ‘Strength’ to each IK joint axis angle - Play animation using physics instead of pure actions.

Ie -X range +X range -X strength +X strength etc.

6dof Sensor - link to bullet 6dof joint data, trigger python based on joint angle

I think someone with a few degrees, and the know how should make a kickstarter, or indiegogo,

But we need something like GearEnd or??? to draw a crowd that cares enough to care with their wallet.

We need some stunning examples of people going places people have not went with other engines however.

We need Coder_Bait.

I’d look towards HTML5 solutions (WebGL). It makes cross-platform support easier since the browser abstracts that part away to a degree. WebGL lacks the performance of native applications but for 2D games and simpler 3D games it works fine. This makes it very attractive for the indie crowd and the BGE crowd since the games are not as demanding. Of course, native applications and mobile apps will always be there for performance.

If there was a successor to the BGE, I’d go with a WebGL engine, although I still have my concerns about it. HTML was designed for displaying text and static content, not for full featured interfaces/graphical applications so WebGL feels kind of hackish to me; bandwith is still an issue. Clearly, we are entering a new era of the web, and I think WebGL is setting the stage for something else.

The Blend4Web project might serve as a good foundation, but it’d be GPL. Hmm, a project like this could also lay the groundwork for an HTML version of Blender.

I think the BGE is ok as it is, I don’t have any plans to jump ship any time soon. I’d still be using 2.49b if it wasn’t for the slight performance improvements the newer versions have.

Lately though I’ve noticed, especially after reading Moguri’s blog about the BGE’s issues, that without a major rewrite the BGE is going to stay in the same state for a long time. There are fundamental problems with the way it is written, which limit it’s potential in the future. That doesn’t really bother me, but feature junkies are in an uproar. Adding new features to the BGE is not going to improve it, in fact they are likely to make it worse, as each new feature brings a host of bugs. So less new features and more stability is what I’d like to see from the BGE in future.

Hey guys… just so you know. Probably the first stable release 1.0 is about to be released this week.
Reduz(main dev) is preparing the godot homepage for the release. Here is already a not yet finished overview of godots features:

http://www.godotengine.org/wp/features/

I am using godot now since february. At the moment only 2D. But I have to say I love godot so far! It has an awesome feature set. The worflow design is great and you can easily create some prototypes.
Gdscript is super easy to pick up. Especially when you come from python, which is the case for us bge users :wink:
The 3d pipeline is getting some nice additions too. Reduz added some time ago some a global illumination pipleline in godot. Next year he is going to improve it and port godot to opengl es 3.

So, if anyone is looking for an open source alternative to the bge, he should definately take a look at godot!

It does sound pretty good. My second son is going to be born soon (t minus 6 months) so I’ll probably be out of development for a year or two, when I come back I’ll have to decide to go back to BGE or try moving on to GODOT. My eventual aim is to make educational games for the market here in South Korea, learning the BGE has been part of that, but with those sort of games you don’t need cutting edge 3d graphics, and mobile support would be a big bonus. I just hope I don’t forget all that I’ve learned until now. :frowning:

Congratulations Smoking_mirror! I have two girls and I get amnesia every day with Python. Being in hospital does not help either!

I’m a little depressed with this thread although my rational head is telling me I’m a hobby game creator, and thus if things freeze now it won’t be the end of the world. I thought the BGE was going through a polishing phase to sort out issues?