Godot 4.6 Dev 1 released
Thaddeus Crews has announced the first development release of Godot 4.6, a free and open-source game engine that empowers developers to create stunning 2D and 3D games, as well as cross-platform projects and XR experiences.
As is customary for the first development snapshot of each new version, this release includes a significant portion of high-quality pull requests (PRs) from the backlog that were previously locked out due to the 4.5 feature freeze or deemed too risky for the stable release. Although it's impossible to incorporate every PR at once, Godot's team is committed to gradually releasing them in future development snapshots.
This release primarily focuses on bug fixes, with many already scheduled for backporting to 4.5.1-stable in the near future. This means that testing this build is extremely important for guaranteeing a smooth release for both versions. Nevertheless, there are some exciting enhancements and features that will remain exclusive to Godot 4.6.
When working with prerelease environments, it's essential to take safety precautions to minimize risks of data loss or corruption. Creating backups and utilizing version control can help mitigate these concerns.
To get started with this new release, head over to the Downloads section or try out the Web editor, XR editor, or Android editor for Godot 4.6 dev 1. If you're interested in testing the latter, please request to join the testing group to gain access to pre-release builds.
Some of the notable additions and improvements in this release include:
The ability to drag-and-drop objects to the script editor to automatically create exported variables. This QOL addition is just one of many that will be released in the near future.
Support for Spatial Entities Extensions in OpenXR. This specification standardizes obtaining and interacting with information about the user's real-world environment. The implementation involves over 7,500 lines of code changes, making it an impressive achievement.
The specification includes a modification that decouples focus state logic for mouse and touch from keyboard and joypad input. This modification enables toolmakers and UI designers to have granular control over focus states in their applications.
The prompt to restart the editor after changing a custom theme has been removed. This simplifies the process of testing and comparing different themes without requiring a comprehensive reset of the entire editor instance.
Other notable changes include:
- Improvements to 2D rendering, such as avoiding unnecessary updates in TileMapLayer
- Enhancements to 3D rendering, like removing the requirement for an editor restart when changing manipulator gizmo opacity settings.
- C# translation parser support.
- The addition of 'Find Sequence' to Spans, along with the consolidation of negative indexing behavior, enhances functionality.
- A fixed-width font for the expression evaluator.
These are just a few examples of the many exciting changes packed into Godot 4.6 dev 1. For a detailed change log and download links, visit the announcement below:
Dev snapshot: Godot 4.6 dev 1 – Godot Engine
The calm before the storm…
