What's new in Godot 4.5? Everything you need to know

Godot Engine has been gaining in popularity for game design for good reason, particularly for light 2D mobile games. As we note in our pick of the best game development software, it's free, open-source and relatively easy to use with its GDscript scripting language.

And now it's just got a whole bunch better with the release of Godot 4.5. The latest version introduces both big and small changes across the software, making it more powerful and practical for both game design and VFX work. Here are six key improvements to know about (for a general introduction, see our explainer what is Godot Engine?

01. Stencil buffer support

Top of the list of new Godot 4.5 features is stencil buffer support. Like the existing depth buffer, a stencil buffer provides a memory buffer that meshes can write to for later comparison, but it supports arbitrary values, which gives developers more control.

It can be used to create effects like the cutaway-style rendering demonstrated above by passivestar plus X-ray effects, outlines and selective post-processing for specific objects.

02. Shader baker

Shaders are small programs for your GPU that draw the current scene and need to be compiled to be used. The shader baker addresses the long startup times associated with waiting for that compilation.

When enabled in the export settings. It will scan resources and scenes for shaders and pre-compile them in the right format used by the driver on the target platform. The Godot team says it saw a 20× decrease in load times for its TPS demo when targeting Apple and Windows devices, using Metal and D3D12 respectively.

03. Chunk tilemap physics

Ever since 2D tilemaps were implemented, physics has relied on the concept of “one tile, one body”. This works for most games, but can cause performance issues in 2D scenes that rely on physics as the number of bodies is wasteful.

The system has now been reworked from the ground up, and TileMapLayer physics merge cell shapes into bigger collision shapes whenever possible.

04. Export to Apple Vision Pro

You can now export for Apple’s XR platform, visionOS, making Godot projects compatible with the Apple Vision Pro. It's the first new platform supported natively by Godot since the project was open-sourced, and Apple’s own engineering team was involved in the project.

Currently, it is only possible to export a project as a “windowed app”. Your game will appear as a window, floating in the user’s 3D space, but there are plans to support fully immersive experiences in the future, which could encourage more developers explore creating games for Apple's mixed reality device.

05. Bind bones to other bones

Animators have new constraints for binding bones to other bones, with BoneConstraint3D and the new AimModifier3D⁠, CopyTransformModifier3D⁠, and ConvertTransformModifier3D⁠. Godot says this allows for more natural movement and poses, and is especially helpful for handling VR and metaverse avatars.

Godot’s animation editor, the AnimationPlayer node, has also been treated to some workflow improvements. Bézier editor points can be moved and scaled in bulk using the selection box, and users can filter animations by name, or sort them alphabetically.

06. Specular occlusion from ambient light

Godot 4.5 also reworks how the Forward+ and Mobile renderers handle specular occlusion, now based on ambient light rather than just the lightmap. Users could previously fine problems with light from the sky being reflected in the cracks between bricks in a wall because the calculation of light reflected off a surface didn’t take ambient occlusion into account. The renderer now has a cheap option for specular occlusion that should fix this.

Godot 4.5 also adds backtracing and custom loggers to improve debugging by providing detailed error information, including in release builds, and enabling custom bug reporting tools with more accurate data. Developers can now preview translations directly within the editor viewport, making it easier to test the UI in multiple languages and there are various quality-of-life improvements in the Editor, including the ability to change language without requiring a restart.

You can learn more on the Godot Engine website.

Also see our comparisons Godot vs Gamemaker and Godot vs Unity.