I found all the Godot 4 features in here. There are some really cool improvements on
the way. Here are our 10 favorite features so far:
Number 1: Tilesets. Godot’s tileset resource and tilemap node
were always a bit clunky. Honestly, why is defining a collision or an
autotile 7 months of full-time work? So for Godot 4, the tilemap will be completely
reworked and looks amazing. You can use tiles that are actually scenes
without doing strange hacks. We will finally get tile properties. We get terrains. And everything looks so much more streamlined. Overall, it looks like tilesets moved up from
a pretty lackluster feature to one of the best implementations of all these engines
out there. Number 2: Particles. Particle systems both 2D and 3D will get huge
upgrades. First huge thing: you will be able to spawn
particles manually. That way you can coordinate really, really
complex and cool-looking systems from the CPU and don’t need to write an extra particle
shader or do strange trickery. [Pitlord: What trickery is this?!] Particles can now emit particles, which is
crazy powerful. Also, we got particle attractors. We got particle trails. We got particle collisions. We got particle collisions. Guys, I mean, we got particle collisions. My life is pretty much complete now. Number 3: Native Extensions. If you are a manly man with a beard like I
man, you want to chop some wood and write some C++. Working in compiled languages will be much
much easier now. You have access to the entire engine API,
can override anything, and don’t even have to recompile your engine. Writing performance-intensive parts in C++
was cool before, but will be much more power for much less pain. [Vegeta: It’s over 9000!] This makes it much easier to use C++ libraries,
you can even get compiled assets from the asset library, which is huge. The combination of GDScript for non-performance
critical parts and C++ for the few things that need to run fast will give you the best
of both worlds. Number 4: GDScript 2.0. GDScript is such a cool language, you don’t
need a beard to write it, and it will get a number of helpful improvements. The new version will come with a free performance
boost for everyone and everything and I like free stuff. With Godot 4, optional typing will work for
arrays. This is good! We don’t have to use untyped arrays anymore
- like animals. Also, we finally get lambda functions. So in case you really like functions, with
lambda functions you can basically define functions inside of functions. Many built-in types will get static functions,
which is cool because now, you don’t have to construct instances of them if you don’t
want. Not a huge deal, but clean. Number 5: Navigation server. The navigation in Godot 3 had its problems. For example that it could not imagine things
having like, an actual body with an area. The routes just did not account for that. So especially for 2D, many developers used
the Astar implementation, which works very well. The upcoming navigation servers will be more
much more optimized, they will construct much better routes and they will be able to do
dynamic collision avoidance. Number 6: Shader precompiling. So, in Godot 3, shaders get compiled on demand. This was pretty standard in the past, but
when you need the shader, the GPU suddenly notices it procrastinated too much, needs
to compile the shader, and likely produces a small lag spike the first time the shader
is loaded. The most important part of this: particle
systems are also vertex shaders basically, so they had the same problem. There were some hacky solutions to force the
compilation, but they were messy and annoying to do. With Godot 4, shaders can be precompiled,
which completely removes this problem. This is huge for our game that uses a lot
of shaders and particle systems. Oh, and by the way: our game is called Furcifer’s
Fungeon, it is a colorful action roguelike with spells that go ZAPZAP AND BOOMBOOM and
such. You should wishlist it. Shameless self promotion over. Number 7: 2D rendering improvements. 2D rendering gets large performance boosts
and added functionality. We will get 2D lights that you can use a LOT
of. Also, directional lights. Then, there are the new materials that have
an actual shininess slider. So shiny. A really useful thing are canvas groups that
can put multiple graphics together so you can manipulate them as if they were one. Before, when you faded multiple layers, you
could see them splitting. And you can finally use masking. Also, somewhere on Github, I read that the
3D camera masks will be transferred to 2D, but I looked for it and could not find it
anymore. So take this with a grain of salt, but this
would make features like water reflections pretty easy to do. If you know more, let us know in the comments. Honestly, all of these things could be their
own entry on this list, but this list is coming to an end and I could not decide. Number 8: Vulkan renderer. I’m pretty sure you have already heard that
one, so we keep it quick: Everything will be faster for free. Yay. Number 9: Gud Physixs! Godot 4 will have a lot of physics improvements. They finally fixed my old nemesis: Slopes. Also, there were a lot of small physics issues
of which very many will be addressed. There will be impressive modern new features
like cylindric shapes. But seriously: Heightmap collisions are cool
and soft bodies are so nice and soft. Aww. Also, physics will be multithreaded, which
will mean a performance boost of factor 2 to 3, which is pretty great. So, because I planned this list badly, here
are some honorable mentions: Game resources now finally use unique IDs
instead of paths. Magic strings were a pain to work with and
will be a thing of the past, thankfully. Shaders get shared uniform which is amazing
for stuff that multiple shaders need to react to, like the player position. Also pretty insane for a shader nerd like
me. Tweens get an overhaul and will be much more
flexible. The HTML5 export will be improved. And there will be Multiplayer improvements,
that I did not read yet. Number 10: 3D render features. The 3D renderer will get really really really
cool stuff. First of all: Occlusion culling. It is a pretty good idea to only render stuff
that can be seen, and Godot 4 will come with a good implementation of that. Also, look at what they did with the lighting. The new lightmapper looks amazing. You can use it for scenes where the lighting
will not change. In these, you will get great lighting for
minimal performance cost. The light baking is mostly done on the GPU,
which means you don’t even have a wait a lot for it to be done. But in case you are one of those crazy people
using dynamic lighting: Godot 4 has got you covered with real-time global illumination. I mean, just look at that. You can get these beautiful indirect light
scenes without any major effort. All these rendering improvements will make
Godot 4 pretty competitive for 3D and even more of a powerhouse for 2D. Now go and show your excitement for Godot
4 by liking this video! This will not make Godot 4 come out any faster,
but it will help this channel.
