Why VULKAN won't FIX Godot 4's 3D

Godot 4 will arrive this year (2021). While it will bring a lot of changes, there are still simple things missing that might be pain points for current and future 3d game developers. Let's explore them and see how we can help the engine improve!

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[blisterfingers]

Moved from Unity to Godot a few months ago and while sure there's a few features I'm used to having that I now don't, I doubt I'd go back. If you don't want some huge corp taking a large percentage of your sales, you're not after cutting edge 3d graphics and you want to learn about game dev (rather than just unity dev), Godot is the engine for you.

[saberhagenindustries]

I completely agree, a new renderer is a good start but the problems are much deeper. Even the most basic 3d things are of higher difficulty in Godot like setting rotations and positions. But my biggest struggle is the import and handling of resources. Iterating on models and animations is a huge pain thanks to how the importer works. Good luck trying to have animations separated from models or maintain scenes that are forked from imported models. Things break constantly there and it's just a poor workflow at least in my experience.

[DillonDev]

This is something that bothers me a little... I love Godot for a lot of reasons. The node system is really intuitive for me and for some reason I feel like I can just develop faster in Godot - but there are lots of 3D features missing as you've mentioned. Since Unity has been in the game for so long, it has some really cool features like its terrain tools, cinemachine for cameras, etc.

The fact of the matter is that Godot is still relatively young in comparison and is only just starting to boom. The upside to this is that we have the opportunity to contribute our own tools, which is rewarding in and of itself and can be a beneficial learning experience.

I think it depends on your goals - if you want to make a 3D game quickly and without worrying about whether the feature you want is actually implemented, Unity or Unreal is maybe a better choice. On the other hand, getting your hands dirty with implementing some lower-level stuff seems like a great way to learn and grow your skills as a developer.

[jocamar]

Agreed, getting improved performance is great since that is one of the blocks to creating large 3D games (no occlusion culling, or LOD, etc), but the engine sorely needs some more 3D features. Stuff like terrain, trails, improved navmesh support (even the new 4.0 navmeshes still do not support jump links), improved shader support (no access to normals buffer), etc. Even simple UI stuff like 3D scene files not generating their preview icons, which means I need to navigate the assets tab just by the names alone whereas 2D scenes get thumbnail icons.

[godev]

Your addon doesnt work using gles 2.0 due to a non power of 2 repeatable texture(line_3d.png). Any chance of a fix? I tried resizing the texture from 12x14 to 14x14 but it gave the same error.

[Chevifier]

Thats what i love about godot a line3D feature is literally a node away that anyone could make at any point.

[tauheedgamedev]

That's awesome man, making a community hub for sharing tips, identifying issues and sharing tools sounds like a great idea.

[toddzircher]

Subscribed, hopefully future updates will get a mention in this channels so I know when they get posted.

[nick]

Ok... So this entire video is about your gripe with there being no Line 3D node. That doesn't mean the 3D is bad, or that 4.0 doesn't drastically improve it over 3.0 (it does, by the way, it's a massive improvement on every front). Vulkan's primary purpose is to provide significantly better performance in 3D scenes while having much higher fidelity over OpenGL, which it does in almost every instance. Vulkan is just a rendering API, it has nothing to do with feature implementations like nodes, things like that are still at the discretion of the developers.

[PeppoMusic]

Yes, awesome initiative! 3D creators need to band together to throw off the chains of the oppression of the 2D bourgeouisie! We need more 3D features that are more than just performance improvements (which are nice, don't get me wrong)

Might be useful to also start an ordered list of essential features that are missing.

[dfa]

Luckly I started with 2D and still long way before (if ever) switching to 3D.
Hopefully, by the time, 3D will be awesome!
Thanka for the video!

[johnrussell]

Does your Line3D node happen to be on the asset library?

[vmeirellespereira]

As someone who's making a 3D game in Godot, I completely agree. There are some key features missing, and while some of them will be present in Godot 4, many won't. But I still think improving the renderer is the correct move. Cool visuals bring media attention to the engine, and it makes people check the engine out. Of course, the next move should be adding the missing features, and I really hope they do that.

[devinbelver]

The only thing I'm worried about with Godot 3d is the performance and optimization. Do you think Godot can run larger scale 3D games with several animations, shades, and code running spontaneously?

[WhalesState]

there's a node called immediate geometry which can draw lines in 3d but it's only for basic 3d geometry, i use it mostly to draw 3d grids

[PlayWithFurcifer]

Welcome back!
3D definitely needs some work, but i am positive it will develop nicely.

[JasonLothamer]

It goes the other way too. Like there is a tool for MulitMeshInstance but not for MultiMeshInstance2D. And you can bake navigation in 3D but not for 2D. I'm sure there are other examples. But rather than make a separate addon for each new tool, I would favor making a "missing bits" addon that the community can contribute too over time. There are some out there already, like Godot Next. Sure you would get things that you don't want or need, but I don't think the additional code/resources would inflate the size of the exports that much, and you can always delete things out of an add-on if need be.

[stylemistake]

Had the same problem, I wanted to render random 3D gizmos in the game, so I ended up coding my own Debug singleton, which would draw immediate geometry every frame, like in Unity. It was also missing a stretched billboard particle shader, which I also coded from scratch. A lot of small things like these need manual work in Godot.

But I still love it, due to how small, simple and extensible it is, there's nothing quite like it.

[Chevifier]

4:52 Ill try to make a Line 3D that inherits from Path Node(which already has intuitive controls)

[micmacha]

Frankly most of what you're talking about breaks down to a spline, not a line, and there are a lot of variables on how it should be displayed which are better addressed with a simple mesh. This is likely why Line2D was determined not to make enough sense in 3D space.