Zylanns Terrain Editor for Godot 3.1

emo10001

Just wanted to throw this out there for anyone new(er) to Godot who might not know it exists. I'm not associated with the project in any way, but I really think it's fantastic and needs some mentioning and love :) Zylanns Terrain editor is really a great edition to the Godot community. I certainly hopes he keeps working on it. Anyone needing terrain in their games should certainly try it out.

I'm using it in my POC fantasy level I'm working on currently.

Thanks @Zylann !

https://github.com/Zylann/godot_heightmap_plugin

Zylann

Looks like my old post got forgotten https://godotforums.org/discussion/17427/3d-terrain-plugin To be fair I didn't take time to update it, it has come a long way. I only started looking back into godotforums since today

MirceaKitsune

This is by far one of the best plugins created for Godot to date! I can't understand why it hasn't been included in vanilla Godot yet, something this useful and well made should be builtin rather than having to be maintained as an external addon. I love the fact that it's implemented fully in GDScript rather than C too... at first I was afraid to use it thinking it requires compiling or installing binary blobs but the latest version doesn't!

I wanted to ask if Git master is compatible with the upcoming Godot 4.0. If not is there a deadline as to when a working version will exist? I'm very eager to switch go the new Godot once it's out but unsure if this plugin will stop working and put the project I'm using it for on hold in terms of upgrading.

Megalomaniak

TBH and with no offence towards @Zylann I would consider it bloat if it was bundled with godot by default. I do however agree that some of the plugins and addons probably deserve to be better advertised for especially new users.

skep

@Megalomaniak said: TBH and with no offence towards @Zylann I would consider it bloat if it was bundled with godot by default. I do however agree that some of the plugins and addons probably deserve to be better advertised for especially new users.

Just curious, you think it would be bloat because Godot has no need for a terrain system, or bloat because of the way Zylann's terrain editor is implemented?

Personally, I think Godot would really benefit from a native built-in terrain system with a bit more functionality, but until then Zylann's is a good compromise.

Megalomaniak

Bloat in the sense that bundled assets like this is exactly what makes the likes of unity and unreal so bloated. It good that godot is nice and compact to get started with. Plugins can expand it as needed. Lets us improve the plugin infrastructure instead.

The plugins should be easy to get and the plugin infrastructure should allow for additinal features be developed to the same quality and performance as any other feature.

Dschoonmaker

@Megalomaniak yeah, having hundreds of built in features when most of them won't even get used is not necessary. A terrain editor is pretty common, but even in unity there's plenty of people who don't use the default terrain editor. For those people, the terrain editor is just extra bloat for the engine, and increased build size.

Megalomaniak

To be fair though, plenty of unity games do need a terrain system, its just that the default one is so bad that plugins are used instead. However there lies the problem, no matter how good you make the built in terrain system, it will never cover every possible need.

Dschoonmaker

Right, heightmap terrain would cover a lot of needs, but it's not the same as a voxel terrain, and another person might use their own meshes. For a completely indoor game, terrain might not be needed. But it's certainly not needed to have 3 different terrain systems bloating the engine.

One solution could be the terrain editor is built-in, but needs to be installed. That would not be much different from a plugin, though, it would just mean there's a built in node for it. I still think plugins are the best way.