Manzur A. - Godot Engine Game Development in 24 Hours. The Official Guide to Godot 3.0

Ariel Manzur

George Marques

CONTRIBUTORS:

Poommetee Ketson

Thomas Herzog

Emmanuel Leblond

Tiamo Pastoor (Pandaqi)

Anna Daubenspeck

Jakob Schwab

800 E. 96th St., Indianapolis, IN 46240 USA

What Youll Learn in This Hour:

• Installing and running the Godot Engine

• Creating a blank project

• Using the visual editor

• Running a simple scene

• Setting the main scene of the project

The Godot Engine is software designed to make games. It contains many tools to make all kinds of 2D and 3D games, with varying levels of complexity. This all comes in a very small download compared to other engines, without strings attached. Since Godot is available under the MIT license, you can use it for free and redistribute your games in any way that you want to.

This first hour (this chapter) gets you started with the Godot Engine. It shows you how to download, install, and run the editor for the first time. Youll look at the project manager at first and learn how to create and open a new project. Then youll see the editor, put together a simple scene, and run it for testing. Finally, youll set up a main scene for the game and change a few other common settings for projects.

Unlike most computer software, Godot doesnt require an installation wizard. After downloading it from the website (see ), all you need to do is to put the executable in a folder anywhere and it can be launched from there all the time. Theres also an installer available for Windows users if you prefer the usual method. Another option is to install it via the Steam store, which has the advantage of easier updates.

FIGURE 1.1

Godot Engine download page

Downloading and Installing the Godot Engine

Godot is very lightweight. The editor has only about 30MBs of size and that includes all of the features. It can run on pretty much any computer, as long it has a relatively recent operating system and a graphics card that supports OpenGL 3.3 (supported by most current integrated graphics processors).

1. Go to the Godot Engine website (https://godotengine.org).

2. Click on the Download link on the top bar.

3. Select the option for your current platform.

4. Wait for the download to finish.

5. Extract the zip contents to a local folder in your hard drive.

TIP

Self-Contained Mode

Godot usually stores the user settings in a global folder for the user profile (%APPDATA% on Windows, ~/.local/share on Linux and ~/Library/Application Support on macOS). If you are running multiple versions or want a portable mode this behavior might not be desired. To fix this, you can run the editor in a self-contained mode. This is easily accomplished by adding an empty file called._sc_ (or just _sc_ if youre on Windows) in the same folder as the executable. Godot will then create an editor_data folder in the same place where all the settings will be stored. Note that temporary files are also stored there, so the folder can become quite heavy if there are many projects or big ones.

Creating a Project

The first time you open Godot, you will be greeted with the Project Manager screen. This is where you can see the projects you have, create new ones, and import projects made by others. If you click the Templates tab, youll get access to Godots Asset Library where you can download templates and demo projects.

Project Manager Interface

The main portion of the Project Manager (see ) shows the list of your projects. You can see the name, icon, and path of every game you are working on. Its also possible to favorite projects, which will make them appear before the others. To find a specific one, you can use the search box to the right of the Name dropdown list to filter the list. At the right of the window you can see the main buttons. The names are quite descriptive: you can edit or run the selected item(s), scan a folder to import all projects there, create a new game project, import an existing one, and remove the selected item(s) from the list (which does not exclude the projects files from the hard drive).

FIGURE 1.2

The Godot Project Manager with a single project.

TRY IT YOURSELF

Create a New Project

You can create a project anywhere in your system. They are contained in a single folder and are as large as your assets, so only big games will occupy much of your hard drive space. Godot can recognize a project by the presence of a file called project.godot, where your project settings are stored. Here is how you do it once you first open Godot:

1. In the Project Manager, click on the New Project button.

2. Type or browse to the place where your project will be. The dialog can create folders if they are needed. The folder should be empty and its a good practice to keep projects together.

3. Type the name of your project. Godot will autofill with the folder name, but you can change it as you wish. Note that the name can be changed later.

4. Click on the Create button.

5. The new project will be created and the editor will launch automatically.

NOTE

Console Window

If you are running Godot on Windows, you may notice the console window that opens alongside the engine. This window shows errors, warnings, and messages related to the engine itself and your game. If youre having problems, be sure to check if anything important appears there. On Linux and Mac, you can see those messages if you open Godot from a terminal window.

Dont worry about this window on your published game, because it does not appear on release builds, which are used in the final export of the project.

Once you create a project and open the editor, youll be greeted with the main Godot Engine Interface. There are a few menus and buttons at the top, a few docks around the interface, some buttons at the bottom, and the main viewport is in the middle where the scene is created. Everything is quite empty at first, but soon we will add content to our first project. Well cover the Godot Editor Interface, shown in , in the following sections.