Godot Engine News

Hi there,

Godot 3.0 has just been released after 18 months of development!

Check the official website for the lengthy but feature-packed announcement: https://godotengine.org/article/godot-3-0-released

The Steam version will be updated in coming days, and will offer both 2.1.4 (like now) and 3.0, with an option to select what version to start. This should allow you to start porting projects to Godot 3.0 without losing the option to run your existing projects in 2.1.4.

Stay tuned!

It has been four months already since our previous stable release, Godot 2.1.3 - and one year since the release of our stable 2.1 branch and the start of the work on Godot 3.0, which should soon see a new alpha build.

This exceptionally long development cycle for Godot 3.0 has encouraged many Godot users to contribute new features to the stable branch, in order to bring them faster to end users and to their projects. The side effect is that such features can introduce regressions, which we absolutely don't want in the stable branch, so this 2.1.4 release required a good deal more testing than the previous one. But as a result, it's actually a pretty exciting "maintenance" release with various new features and a great deal of bug fixes.

Highlights

• Platform: iOS: MFI gamepad support, audio improvements
  
• Platform: macOS: system menu integration, better multimonitor DPI scaling, audio and input improvements
  
• Platform: Support for UWP (Universal Windows Platform) alias WinRT as target platform, with gamepad support
  
• 2D editor: Fix IK not being solved while dragging a bone (regression in 2.1.3)
  
• 3D editor: Ability to select subscenes when clicking them in the viewport
  
• Debugging: Many improvements to the editor's debugger and display of complex types
  
• Display: Add "expand" option for window stretch aspect
  
• GDScript: Backport advanced string format feature from the master branch
  
• Physics: Add one-way collision to tile-set/tile-map
  
• Physics: Backport move_and_slide API from the master branch
  
• Tools: Improvements to the Godot 3.0 exporter (still work-in-progress)
  

See the official blog announcement for more details, as well as the exhaustive changelog.

All in all, this is a pretty big maintenance release, and it should improvement the usability of the stable Godot 2.1 while we are waiting for the upcoming 3.0 version.

Support duration

As mentioned previously, the 2.1.x stable branch will continue to receive bug fixes and enhancements at least until Godot 3.0-stable is released. Given that Godot 3.0 is not planned to have support for OpenGL 2.x / OpenGL ES 2.x devices, we will likely continue to maintain the 2.1.x branch further until Godot 3.1, which should add back support for older devices.

So you can expect at least a 2.1.5 release in the future (especially in order to bring a more final version of the 3.0 exporter once the master branch is stable enough), likely in a couple of months.

Supporting the development

If you'd like to support Godot's development, apart from making cool games with it or contributing directly to the engine with code or bug reports, you can make a financial donation on Patreon to enable us to hire our lead developer Juan Linietsky full-time, thus greatly increasing the development rate of new features and bug fixes for Godot 3.0 and beyond!

Have fun with this new release!

Hi there!

We just launched a Patreon page to collect funding for Godot!

The aim: make it possible for our most important developers, starting with the lead developer Juan Linietsky (reduz), to work part or full-time on the development of our engine.

Indeed, Godot is a non-profit, free and open source project, so all contributors work on their free time next to their unrelated day jobs. With funding from the community, we can hire Juan to work exclusively on Godot, and increase a lot our development pace! That means more features, less bugs, and faster releases :)

Everything helps, so if you like the idea, do not hesitate to contribute a couple bucks per month. The initial support from the community has already been beyond our expectations, but there is still some way to go to reach our main goal of a monthly wage for Juan!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XptlVErsL-o
In other news, the development of Godot 3.0 is steady (check the video on the Patreon), and we should also soon have a maintenance 2.1.4 release. Stay tuned!

Short of three months after the release of Godot 2.1.2, the community is proud to announce this new maintenance update in the stable branch, Godot 2.1.3!

Due to the long development process of the upcoming Godot 3.0 (see our Devblog for technical posts about its impressive progress), many contributors took a renewed interest in the 2.1 branch. This release therefore brings various new features to GDScript, the editor, some nodes' API – but we tried to ensure that compatibility with earlier 2.1.x releases would be fully preserved.

Highlights:

• Audio: Add priority setting for samples in a library
  
• Audio: Make spatial AudioServers prefer inactive voices instead of unconditionally playing on the next voice slot
  
• Controls: Add ColorFrame control
  
• Controls: Add shape property to TouchScreenButton
  
• Editor: Add contextual create/load script button to the Scene Tree dock
  
• Editor: Implement warped mouse panning for 2D & 3D editors (enabled by default)
  
• Editor: Only assume HiDPI mode if DPI >= 192 and screen width > 2000 (fixes editor starting in excessively upscaled mode on some configurations)
  
• GDScript: Add enumerators (enums)
  
• Nodes: Add ability to change A-star cost function
  
• Nodes: Add modulate (color) to TileSet tiles
  
• Nodes: Add get_used_rect() method to TileMap
  
• iOS: Implement core motion API
  
• Tools: Work in progress (read: buggy, will be improved for Godot 2.1.4) exporter to Godot 3.0 alpha format
  

See the official blog announcement for more details, as well as the exhaustive changelog.

That's it for this release, as usual it brought its fair share of bug fixes and improvements and upgrading existing projects to this new version should be hassle-free.

Support duration

As mentioned previously, the 2.1.x stable branch will continue to receive bug fixes and enhancements at least until Godot 3.0-stable is released. Given that Godot 3.0 alpha currently has no support for OpenGL 2.x / OpenGL ES 2.x devices, we will likely continue to maintain the 2.1.x branch further until Godot 3.1, which should add back support for older devices.

Have fun with this new release!

Five months after the release of Godot 2.1, and two months after 2.1.1, it's the right time for another maintenance release in the stable branch!

While we are all looking with avid eyes at the awesome developments for Godot 3.0 shown on our Devblog, you won't find much of them in this release... but it should already have some quality of life improvements and important bug fixes that you will definitely want for your published and WIP projects.

Highlights:

• Networking: IPv6 support and many bug fixes and enhancements
  
• Audio: Fix ~200 ms audio latency bug due to misinitialization of some drivers
  
• GDScript: Python-like ternary operator (a if cond else b)
  
• 2D: Easy API for 2D split screen (with demo)
  
• OSX: Fix minimum supported version when compiling with recent Xcode, now 10.9 (regression in 2.1.1)
  
• Dozens of bug fixes
  
• Many class reference documentation updates
  
• Editor translation updates
  

See the official blog announcement for more details, as well as the exhaustive changelog.

That's it for this release, as usual it brought its fair share of bug fixes and improvements and upgrading existing projects to this new version should be hassle-free.

Support duration

As mentioned in various blog posts, the 2.1.x stable branch will continue to receive bug fixes and enhancements at least until Godot 3.0-stable is released - and potentially beyond, depending on whether version 3.0 will support OpenGL 2.x / OpenGL ES 2.x devices.

Our current gut feeling sets the 3.0 release around May/June 2017 - it will definitely be our biggest (and likely greatest) release so far!

Have fun with this new release!