Godot 4.3 is out

(This is old-ish news, Godot 4.3 came out last Thursday)

Godot Engine, the big-ticket open source project from sunny Argentina just released Version 4.3, which mainly contains fixes and improvements to current systems. Some changes include:

> Some new AudioStreamPlayer resources. These are mainly focused around interactive music, which was doable before with the preexisting audio system, but is made significantly easier with the new stuff

> 2D physics interpolation. This is a feature that was lost in the transition from 3.5 to 4.0, and was one of the reasons some devs stuck with 3.5 when making games for lower-end devices. It's back now, and is one of the changes this update that should make developing for low-end devices a bit smoother.

> built-in ufbx importer, so importing 3D files is easier

> built-in Direct3D 12. This became possible due to a previously proprietary component of D3D12 getting open-sourced by Microsoft, allowing the Godot devs to directly include it inside the engine

> Single-threaded web exports. This was on the table for a while, taking a long time because of an audio quality issue.

> File system can be moved to the bottom of the screen, which is how other game engines usually do it. Also allows you to see file icons a lot easier.

> TileMap system has been reworked, with TileMap layers now each being a separate node instead of all contained in one mega-node. This should make them a whole lot less finnicky to work with

> Parallax system has been re-reworked, with everything now being in a single Parallax2D node and simpler to use

> Fixed a bug where if two pixelated objects collide with each other, there was sometimes a one-pixel gap between them in rendering

> built-in compression for GDScript files

> Compatibility Renderer is now at feature parity with the other two renderers, enabling stuff like glow

> Compositor hooks, which allows you to fiddle with the rendering pipeline

> Wayland support for Linux (experimental)

Not sure what to expect from this, probably just a continuation of current trends. More people moving to it or trying it out for the first time, a few more indie studios switching to it, more Unity users sneeding, and more Gen Xers in their midlife crises starting gamedev YouTube channels and trying to make their ultra-realistic MMORPG dream games.

Lastly, to all fellow Chuds, gamedev is an awesome creative hobby and there's never been a better time to get your feet wet with it