Godot 4 Quickstart

godot.md

Godot 4 - Fast quickstart!

Legend

• ♻️ Workflow
• 🛠️ Tool
• 📦 Asset or Library
• ⭐ Guides
• 🎨 Pattern
• 🔥 Hot Tip

Read me first!

• ⭐ Official Guide
  • ⭐⭐⭐ 3D Workflow. 100% DO THIS! DO THIS! ⭐⭐⭐
  • Other beginner guides
• 🔥 Are you a Unity refugee?
  • 🔥 in Godot everything is a Node or a Scene (a group of Nodes)
    • Scene = Scene
    • GameObject = Node (or Scene!)
    • Component = Node (or Scene!)
    • Prefab = Scene
    • Prefab instance = Scene instance
  • 🎨 To start, just have a parent Main Node, and attach your Scenes to it.
    • ...and main.tscn and main.gd
  • 🛠️ Convert Unity scenes to Godot scenes
  • Experiences: 1 2 3
  • ♻️ Improved theme

Feature Demos

• 🔥 New stuff in 4!
• 📦 Feature Demos
• 📦 GDQuest Feature Demos
  • Source

Shaders

• 🔥 Built-in: Depth of Field, AA, GI, AO,
  • Demos / Setup - Preview Video
    • Desert Light Demo
    • Overgrown Demo
  • Motion blur is currently camera only. Issue
• 🔥 Using the cross platform godot shaders
• 📦 Godot Shaders
• 📦 More Godot Shaders

Collaboration / Team Workflow

• ♻️ Overview
  • 🔥 Avoid massive scenes. Split into many scenes!
    • 🎨 Use Right Click ➡️ Save Branch as Scene. Branch will become an instance of the new scene!
      • Each scene is a seperate file: will eliminate conflicts.
      • "I am working on X scene today"
    • 🎨 Use the /actors/ and /skins/ pattern to break up scenes even more.
  • 🎨 Use Merge from Scene for complex visual merges. Similar to Unity merge
  • 📦 Improved git

Asset Pipeline

• ♻️ Direct Blender integration (no export!)
  • You can just use blender! Alternative: Godot Shader Editor
• 🛠️ Effects
• 🛠️ Texture generation
• ♻️ Animation tweens
  • Tween types visualized

Library

• 📦 https://github.com/GDQuest/
• 📦 https://github.com/godot-extended-libraries
• ♻️ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hl0OZj7qszg
• ♻️ https://godotextra.com/5-addons-for-increased-productivity-in-godot/
• 📦 Awesome Godot
• Topic on Github

Code

• ⭐ Core API
• ⭐ From Godot 3 to 4
• 🎨 Utils
• 📦 Automated Exports
• 📦 Steam API
  • Before you Publish your game

Code - App

• 🌌 OS App code. Loaded first. Can execute() kill() alert()
  • For tool development!
  • 🎨 Open in web browser OS.shell_open("https://godotengine.org")
• 🌎 SceneTree Manages all Scenes / Nodes. Default main loop.
  • 🎨 get_tree() get the SceneTree
  • ⬇️ See below! ⬇️

Code - Scenes / Nodes

• 🌎 SceneTree Manages all Scenes / Nodes. Default main loop.
  • 🎨 get_tree() get the SceneTree
  • 🎨 Change scene get_tree().change_scene_to_file("res://path/to/scene.tscn")
• 🔍 Find
  • 🎨 $ is shorthand for get_node()
    • $AnimatedSprite2D.play() is the same as get_node("AnimatedSprite2D").play()
    • 🔥 Go deep: $screen_gameplay/hud/score
      • ♻️ Click and drag from outline to code to insert path!
      • 🎨 Deep paths getting long? Alias ($"%PauseButton") using unique in-scene ID 1:40+
    • 🔥 Prevent errors with if $thing: $thing.do_it()
    • Loop through all nodes in group for node in get_tree().get_nodes_in_group('enemy'): Video
  • 🎨 Alternative: get_node("/root/main")
• 🟢 Create
  • 🎨 Instantiate (... in main.gd or screen_gameplay.gd.. whatever)
    • @export var enemy_scene: PackedScene = load("res://entity/enemy_purple.tscn")
    • var enemy = enemy_scene.instantiate()
    • add_child(enemy)
• ❌ Remove
  • 🎨 Delete node queue_free()
  • 🎨 Clear child nodes for child in get_parent().get_children().kill(child)

Code - Physics

• CharacterBody3D High level player-controlled entity.
  • move_and_slide() Engine will smooth out collisions.
  • is_on_floor()
• RigidBody3D High level physics-controlled entity.

Code - Physics Collisions

• 🔥 Layers & Masks save you from writing physics "collision check" code. (Default: all 1 layer)
  • Layers: Which layer(s) a node / scene is on.
  • Masks: Which layer(s) a node / scene will detect.
• 🔥 Add signals to a CollisionShape3D: Make it a child of Area3D (Respond to body_entered and area_entered!)
  • Ex: area_enemy ➡️ collision_shape_3d
  • Set area_enemy ➡️ Monitorable to OFF if you want to only emit signals, not auto-interact with other collision shapes.
  • body_entered 👁 CharacterBody3D or RigidBody3D .... area_entered 👁 Area3D

Code - 3D

• Vector3 can look_at() and has useful constants Vector3.ZERO, Vector3.UP
• Nodes have both position and global_position
• Nodes have both _physics_process(delta): and _process(delta):
  • _physics_process(delta): runs at 60 fps always.
  • _process(delta): runs as often as possible (framerate).
  • use the delta to move things at a consistent rate in either function.
• Dot Product (compare the angle between two vectors)
  • Useful for detecting if 3D character is on top/front/bottom of enemy or platform.
    • if Vector3.UP.dot(collision.get_normal()) > 0.1: enemy.die()

Code - GUI / 2D

• 🔥 Will always be overlayed on top of the 3D. Go to "2D view" to preview.
• Build a "screen": Node3D ➡️ Control ➡️ Label

Code - Signals + Lambdas

Code - Performance

• Threaded resource loading - can load up to ten times faster!
  • ResourceLoader
    • ResourceLoader.load_threaded_request("res://scene.tscn","",true)
    • var thing = ResourceLoader.load_threaded_get("res://scene.tscn")

Code - Future

• Engine Proposals
• Nullish coalescing

Marketing

• 🛠️ Presentations in Godot