Spyke
lemmy.world

I feel like that's not how you measure a game engine usage, the large majority probably don't install Godot via Steam, just looking at the numbers it's a very small sample which might not represent game devs in general

137
MJBrunereply
lemmy.world

Eh, I feel like the sampling is clearly biased toward those who would install a game engine through a service that auto-updates it. (Novices and hobbyists.)

17
Derpgonreply
programming.dev

And - thats exactly what that means...? An uptake in GODOT usage would mean novices and newbies are trying it out. Every new user is a newbie.

15
MJBrunereply
lemmy.world

Sure but it doesn't really reflect the studios switching to Godot. I think they are likely switching to unreal.

1
Derpgonreply
programming.dev

Of course it doesn't, it's a number that days how many people are running the app, that's it.

2

Yup just pointing that out because some folks aren't seeing that. Not everything is an argument.

0
Cethinreply
lemmy.zip

For sure an uptick, but who knows by how much? I agree this is useful for showing something, but it's hard to know what really from this alone.

7

I imagine, Godot doesn't collect usage data on its own. So, this is likely the best data there is...

5
MasterNerdreply
lemm.ee

Can confirm. I use Godot and didn't even know it was on steam

39

It might mean something though, FFXIV is a classic example of a game that almost nobody plays on Steam, but its Steam charts line up somewhat well with the game's increasing popularity especially with Shadowbringers and Endwalker. Of course you have to look at actual data to back that up, but soemtimes it can show trends.

23
lemm.ee

TIL Godot is on Steam. Huh, will you look at that.

77

I just wish you could disable steam features such as overlay or time counting etc, so that you can just use steam as a dumb updater for the program.

3
lemmy.world

Does godot support 3D? If so does it support PBR materials? Does it support installing 3rd party plugins like HAVOK? Literately the only things i need.

52
programming.dev

It support 3D, but I think Vulkan is in Godot 4. I'm not sure how mature it's. In Godot 3, it only support OpenGL.

18
fredreply
lemmy.ml

What are some of the best-looking games in Godot?

6

Tbh that's a pretty horrible example. It was a rushed product full of graphical glitches, including rapidly flashing lights. This is true especially on the switch. Idk if it's improved since launch but shit was rough early on.

-1
midwest.social
  1. Yes, not a great as Unity but it's still pretty good especially after they switched to Vulkan over OpenGL. VR performance still could use some work though.
  2. Yes, PBR materials are fully supported. Actually one of the earlier things in 3D that was implemented, and then imoroved
  3. Yes, now I don't know if HAVOK has a Godot plugin but there is a Jolt physics plugin that's designed to be plug-and-play, with a few exceptions (it doesn't suppory soft bodies afaik)
16
  1. Shaders are still GLSL or SPIR-V. Nothing changes in terms of quality.
3
uisreply
lemmy.world

Not sure why would you use HAVOK instead of Bullet, but yes

5

Already have experience with it mostly. It's what I used and what I'm use to when it comes to physics engines

5
lemmy.world

I did not know Godot was on steam. Why would one prefer to use steam instead?

48
rndllreply
lemm.ee

I'm assuming for automatic updates. Just like some people do with Blender.

29
lemmy.world

Oh yeah for Windows and mac os that makes sense. The problem doesn't exist om linux with package managers :3

30

winget install --id=GodotEngine.GodotEngine -e

11
JDubbleureply
programming.dev

I'm all for Linux, I use it literally every day between my Steam Deck and remote dev machine at work, but updating software on Windows and MacOS isn't hard, and I have no clue why the Linux crowd pretends it is. You could complain about forced updates on Windows, or MacOS having two different applications folders for Lord knows why, or literally anything else that is wrong with either of them, but ease of program updates isn't a problem for Windows or MacOS.

3

Having a million different updater services instead of one is very annoying and even slows down boot

6

It's not that it is hard on Windows, I at least have never seen anyone claiming that, just that it's annoying having every program self-update or sometimes needing manual updating. A centralized way of updating like you have on Linux is simpler for the end-user, just open the store and update, like smartphones do.

There's other advantages too, like rolling back or downgrading is easier to do and if an update would break or be buggy and it is caught up before being available to everyone, it can be withheld until fixed.

3
fluxreply

I suppose it's the easiest way to try it out.

I wouldn't use it long-term, because you don't want Godot to update without you knowing, if there's something that needs to be changed due to an update. I bet a few people noticed the update from 3.x to 4.x..

I've read it also doesn't come with the C# support, so that's one reason not to use Steam for it if you're interested in testing that side.

21
muhybreply
programming.dev

If you're on Windows, it's an easy way to auto-update. If you're on Linux, there is no need for that.

20
Siroskyreply
lemm.ee

Dang I've been manually updating this entire time... auto updates sounds appealing ngl

2

I use it on steam, for this exact purpose. So it shows in using it. The more people are using it, the more people get aware of it.

If all these people downloaded it directly and not from steam, this post wouldn't exist :)

Auto updates is interesting, didn't even consider it, but it can be both a pro and a con I guess...

6
dumdum666reply
kbin.social

Well - you probably don’t have to download any updates yourself when using Steam.

3

Just like Linux is default standard for servers, I wish Godot would become a future's stardard of game engine.

Just like hudreds of corpos and many independent individuals commit patches to Linux kernel, I wish the same happens with Godot.

38

Now that you mention it it's kinda weird it isn't. When our phones, servers, infrastructure, social networks, chat apps and even AI are all open source why are games all still built on proprietary software?

7

GPL forces modifications to be best put upstream. Godot is MIT, which usually doesn't get the same effect

7
lemmy.ml

I love seeing more people getting into Godot! It's such a nice game engine with a fun learning curve and the scripting language is mostly hassle free.

28
scarilogreply
lemmy.world

the scripting language is mostly hassle free.

Is there a reason Godot has it's own language for scripting and doesn't use a common language like unity (C#) and unreal (C++)?

4

Here is their reasoning, basically summarized as "it's easier to get everything for games into a new language than bolting it onto an existing language". I also recall seeing a blog post where they said their initial implementation of GDScrip took fewer lines of code than embedding Lua did.

Note Godot does officially support C# and C++, and there is unofficial support for other languages too. But they commonly recommend GDScript for beginners.

14

The free, open source game engine everyone should have been using and contributing to this whole time but noooOOOooo.

87
programming.dev

It's an open source game engine. People tend to consider it as a replacement for Unity when it come to 2D game development.

38
voxelreply
sopuli.xyz

hey it's 3d is pretty decent too!
you won't be making aaa games with it anytime soon but it's really good for 99% of tasks

31
Afiefhreply
lemmy.world

Before Godot 4 the 3D engine was pretty far behind, think early 2010 teach. With Godot 4 it got an insane upgrade which puts it in par with Unity as far as I understand (not a unity expert), but still behind Unreal (then again, everything is behind Unreal.)

Unfortunately it takes multiple years for a 3D game to be developed, so it'll be a while before we see actual released 3D games with Godot 4.

17

Sonic Colours Ultimate was made before Godot 4 was out but it doesn't look bad at all.

3
uisreply
lemmy.world

What exactly put it behind? Bad performance?

1

Not many tools supported out of the box. Its beauty comes in its modularity, so anyone could have always made an add-on - but that takes time and money, what most small devs don't have (but Sega and Tesla could).

Then more recently the devs have had time, and so could make these first-party - and very recently much more stable long term funding, so I'd expect these tools to improve rapidly.

All that being said you could toss a 20 million polygon default cube in UE5 and it'd look/run pretty good

3
voxelreply
sopuli.xyz

godot runs everywhere, webgl, webgpu, android, ios, linux, macos, windows, gaem consoles

10
Trantariusreply
programming.dev

My understanding is that running on game consoles can't be officially supported, because they can't integrate the necessary proprietary code into the engine while keeping it open source.

7

They can't distribute the proprietary bits in with the engine, so you have to work with the Godot team and a publisher which you probably would be doing anyway.

6

yeah plugins are needed, but the engine core is extremely portable

1

To be fair, the only reason Godot can't port to consoles as easily as Unity is for licensing reasons. Console manufacturers don't want their console build code released as open-source under MIT like Godot is, so that's all relegated to third-party services/plugins

8
lemmy.world

... and I assume that's just the instances installed through Steam.

26
ninchukareply
lemmy.one

yup, thats steamDB, I do wonder how many devs installed it via DL from the site or other ways

16
lemmy.world

Unrelated question: is it pronounced go-DOT as in polkadot, or go-DOH, like the actress Gal Gadot?

15

Theres no official pronounciation

The most common ones are guh-dough & go-dough (+ other variations) with the t silent, but the lead developer as well as a bunch of others call it go-dot and some people put the d in the first syllable instead to do things like god-oo

Q&A with devs talking about it

12
Echo Dotreply
feddit.uk

I think it's pronounced "God OO"

Like the play. Although I have no idea why it would be named after the play.

Also the logo doesn't really have anything to do with anything. The whole thing is weird.

4

While the numbers themselves are just a small fraction of actual usage (as I guess most people using it don't do it thru steam), it doubled in about a week.

What would be an "educated" guess of steam/non-steam users ratio? 1:50? 1:100?

13
kbin.social

Awesome- hopefully more money will get put into the development fund as well. It is rather small yet.

10
lemmy.world

I forget who and I'm too lazy to search, but a company just announced a recurring $10,000/month donation to Godot. A few others are donating too. So they do have some monetary support!

11
Rentlarreply
lemmy.ca

Back in the USSSage...

You don't how lucky you are.... boy

5
lemm.ee

Is there any reason to install it via steam and not just via the official site?

3