Godot 4.7's Final Development Snapshot Arrived

Time really flies: Godot Engine 4.6 was only released in late January, and now the developers are already moving toward 4.7, as the last development snapshot has just landed. As expected, at this stage, the project has now entered feature freeze, so testers are invited to help shake out issues before the stable release.

In Godot Engine 4.7 dev 5, the asset store received an overhaul, the details of which developers plan to showcase in the future. Starting with the main selection screen, the display of asset items has been refined. When accessing an asset in isolation, you'll have quick access to the current description and all existing changelogs, and the ability to change an asset's version is now also just one click away.

A long-awaited quality-of-life improvement arrives in the text shader editor with a C++ implementation of Shader Previewer, CashewOldDew's popular add-on. It aims to reduce guesswork when constructing text shaders, allowing users to instantly preview the resulting effects right in the editor.

Godot Engine 4.7 clearly puts a strong focus on rendering, and this snapshot delivers rectangular area light sources. By leveraging the new AreaLight3D, it's now possible to render real-time lighting from a rectangle in 3D space.

Update: HDR output is finally being added to Godot after a long wait. According to the developers, it's designed to be "a best-in-class HDR implementation that looks as good as possible on all supported platforms."

In case you're not familiar with the term, HDR originally comes from photography, where multiple exposures are combined to capture more detail in both dark and bright areas. In game engines like Godot, HDR is already used internally to improve lighting accuracy and visual effects. What's new with HDR output is that this extra light information is kept all the way to the final image. For example, the sun can look properly intense without flattening the nearby clouds.

HDR images like these are best viewed on an HDR-compatible smartphone or laptop with brightness set to 50%. At the moment, Firefox doesn't support displaying HDR images properly. Find out more about HDR output and how to make the most of it here.

In total, 71 contributors submitted 135 fixes for Godot 4.7 dev 5. Among the highlights are also the rework of the export template dialog to allow individual templates and a GUI improvement that enables scaling images relative to font size in RichTextLabel.

As always, especially at this stage, you're encouraged to test the release and report any issues on GitHub. Check for existing issues with relevant keywords before submitting a new one.

Learn more about Godot Engine 4.7 dev 5 here and see the interactive changelog for a deeper look. Don't forget to subscribe to our Newsletter and join our 80 Level Talent platform, follow us on Twitter, LinkedIn, Telegram, and Instagram, where we share breakdowns, the latest news, awesome artworks, and more.

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