Will Godot ever integrate Terrain3D fully?

jamieyello

I've been wondering about this. On one hand, Godot might not want to rely on external developers for such a core feature of the engine, they also might want to/plan on implementing it in a completely different way. The author of Terrain3D might not even be interested in collaborating on that level and be satisfied with it remaining a GDExtension, for all we know.

However, I think it would be a very good thing for various reasons. First off, Godot needs this feature eventually, it's very important. If they developed an alternate core terrain system, it might discourage the creator of Terrain3D to continue work on this already capable system. If they fully integrated it, support it, and continue to improve on it, then no work is wasted, and it incentivizes people to create more very ambitious extensions for Godot in the future, without fear that their work might eventually be in vain, deprecated, or made obsolete.

We can see this play out in the .NET ecosystem when popular Nuget packages exist and are used by everyone, they are so popular and core to the way of doing things that .NET eventually creates their own version of it, usually improving on it, which on a community level kills off interest in the existing package. A lot of developers see this as very problematic and unhealthy to the .NET ecosystem.

Either way, I haven't seen any word on this from Godot developers or Terrain3D developers, I'm curious if anything has been said on the matter.

Tl Dr; I think integrating Terrain3D would increase people's faith in relying on GDExtensions and increase people's confidence in developing ambitious GDExtensions. If Godot has a better idea on how to implement it, then I think it would be better to work that implementation into Terrain3D as it exists right now.

kuligs2

jamieyello You can suggest it to godot and see if it gets added..

https://godot-proposals-viewer.github.io/

Tomcat

jamieyello First off, Godot needs this feature eventually, it's very important.

Not everyone needs the ability to create terrain in this form. And it will significantly weigh down the engine. It's better to leave it as an GDExtension.

trizZzle

Tomcat Not everyone needs the ability to create terrain in this form. And it will significantly weigh down the engine. It's better to leave it as an GDExtension.

That was what the mantainers said afaik. Too many people don't need it and it would bloat the engine unnecessary.
I would love to have it built in too, but right now using the addon is just fine.

kuligs2

trizZzle but when they say it like that, what is the game engine then? Maybe they need to empty out the engine strip it from every feature, then pack them as GDExtensions, so that the engine doesnt get bloated.. Like you need node2d, well there is an extension for that.. need a control node... get extension.. 😃

zsqambient

kuligs2 I think what you're describing is Unity. 😃

Tomcat

kuligs2 but when they say it like that, what is the game engine then?

A lightweight engine without frills like Godot? 😺

kkkkkkabc

When making 2D games and some 3D games, this function is not necessary. It is not necessary to increase the number of bytes in the engine and the games.

kuligs2

kkkkkkabc one would think that the exported game would compile with only used functions and addons, and discard the bloat that is not used, but alas, its not, its just wishful thinking

kkkkkkabc

kuligs2 Indeed, the source files of a 2D game that are just a few megabytes can result in an executable file that is tens of megabytes when exported. I hope Godot can optimize this in the future.

Tomcat

kkkkkkabc Indeed, the source files of a 2D game that are just a few megabytes can result in an executable file that is tens of megabytes when exported. I hope Godot can optimize this in the future.

Godot is a compromise between what is necessary in gamedev and the size of the program. All programming is a compromise. All of life is a search for compromises.

There are separate efforts to reduce the size of the build.

How to Minify Godot's Build Size (93MB -> 6.4MB exe)

Toxe

As far as I know they always have the reduction of the exported project size in the back of their mind.

And I would agree with what the others already said, this isn't something that should be part of the base engine.