Godot 4.0 Released

The Godot team has released Godot 4.0, the new major version of the open-source game engine. The much-anticipated 4.0 release brings significant updates to various aspects of the engine, including scripting, networking, audio, and UI design toolsets as well as enhances the UX of the Godot Editor while expanding platform support.

Notable updates for artists and developers include a new Vulkan rendering backend, real-time global illumination solutions, a volumetric fog system, and advancements to the simulation and character animation toolsets.

Godot 4.0 features a new rendering backend, which has separate versions for desktop and mobile, based on the open-source Vulkan graphics API. With the adoption of Vulkan, Godot 4.0 offers a significant visual improvement over its predecessor and is poised to keep up with modern game development.

The new version of the engine also comes with two real-time global illumination solutions: SDFGI and VoxelGI, both of which enhance the lighting quality significantly.

SDFGI is the slowest of the two GI systems but it is expected to perform well on most desktop GPUs. VoxelGI, on the other hand, is faster but requires more set-up, making it ideal for small-to-medium-sized environments. Additionally, the engine's shadow rendering quality has been greatly enhanced. For mobile games, Godot supports lightmap baking, which is now possible on both the GPU and CPU.

Godot 4.0 also brings a range of new environment effects to the game engine, including a volumetric fog system and custom sky shaders. The engine now also has a new animation library system that allows for easier reuse of animations between projects. In addition, the animation retargeting system and blending have been improved.

Besides, the new version of the engine boasts a revamped version of the in-house Godot Physics engine, which replaces the open-source Bullet physics framework used in previous versions. The new engine supports a range of features, including soft bodies, clothing, and heightmap-based collision with terrain.

For those unfamiliar with the software, Godot is an open-source game engine that provides an alternative to commercial engines like Unity for desktop, console, and mobile games in both 2D and 3D.

If you don't have experience in using it, we highly recommend you check out our 80 Level Digest: Great Resources for Learning the Godot Engine which provides a selection of informative video tutorials, text educational materials, books, and other valuable resources that will help you learn the engine.

You can find a full list of new features and improvements Godot 4.0 brings here. Also, don't forget to join our 80 Level Talent platform, our Reddit page, and our Telegram channel, follow us on Instagram and Twitter, where we share breakdowns, the latest news, awesome artworks, and more.