The full release of Godot 3.0 is now available, bringing VR support to the engine via a lightweight, 3DoF, ‘Cardboard-like’ solution, and OpenVR support through a GDNative-based plugin. The multiplatform Godot Engine is an open source, non-profit project available to download for free via the official site or through Steam.

As described in the news article on the Godot Engine website, Godot 3.0 is the result of over 18 months of development, bringing many changes and improvements, with a “brand new rendering engine with state-of-the-art PBR workflow for 3D, an improved assets pipeline, GDNative to load native code as plugins, C# 7.0 support, and many other features.”

VR support originally appeared with the introduction of an ‘ARVR Server architecture’ in the October 2017 Alpha 2 release, which allows various AR and VR platforms to communicate with the engine. Lead developer Juan Linietsky describes the GDNative ARVR framework as “tightly knit,” allowing support for other VR platforms to be developed “independently of the core game engine.”

SEE ALSO
Meta is Deleting All Old Oculus Accounts by Month's End, Severing Another Tie to "the good old days"

Further information about the team’s plans for AR and VR support can be found in an earlier post by programmer Bastiaan Olij, which details the “Native Mobile” interface for lightweight mobile VR apps which just require headset orientation and lens distortion, and the full compatibility with SteamVR headsets via their GDNative OpenVR implementation.

An “experimental” GDNative module for OpenHMD is also available, the open source project that enables cross-platform support for several headsets, including PSVR. There are further plans to bring Gear VR and Daydream support in the future. AR is now planned for the 3.1 release; support for ARKit has been in progress for several months via Olij’s ARKit branch on GitHub.

Olij recently posted the video above demonstrating how easy it is to enable OpenVR in a project now that the module has become an official asset in the library, and a few users, including tutorial makers Game From Scratch are reporting success when using a Windows Mixed Reality headset running SteamVR.

Newsletter graphic

This article may contain affiliate links. If you click an affiliate link and buy a product we may receive a small commission which helps support the publication. More information.


Dominic Brennan
The trial version of Microsoft’s Monster Truck Madness probably had something to do with it. And certainly the original Super Mario Kart and Gran Turismo. A car nut from an early age, Dominic was always drawn to racing games above all other genres. Now a seasoned driving simulation enthusiast, and former editor of Sim Racer magazine, Dominic has followed virtual reality developments with keen interest, as cockpit-based simulation is a perfect match for the technology. Conditions could hardly be more ideal, a scientist once said. Writing about simulators lead him to Road to VR, whose broad coverage of the industry revealed the bigger picture and limitless potential of the medium. Passionate about technology and a lifelong PC gamer, Dominic suffers from the ‘tweak for days’ PC gaming condition, where he plays the same section over and over at every possible combination of visual settings to find the right balance between fidelity and performance. Based within The Fens of Lincolnshire (it’s very flat), Dominic can sometimes be found marvelling at the real world’s ‘draw distance’, wishing virtual technologies would catch up.

  • Cool

  • El Pingüno

    amazing! but I wish it already supports mobile platforms. Mobile is the future. And unfortunately only useful engine is unity3d so far, which had super heavy overhead in comparison with native solutions and unlikely is going to eliminate these performance issues

    • Aitor Cereceto

      This comment show how didn’t even try the engine. I am running a VR game made in godot in my mobile phone https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/a820fc64988debf9193158a67757c09ed577eac68632c482f646dc4939189a02.jpg

      • El Pingüno

        what’s the name? any public benchmark against unity?

        • Aitor Cereceto

          I did it myself. Godot has pretty well made plugins made by community for doing VR / AR
          I’m not sure about performance bcs my mobile doesn’t handle much more (it has almost 3 years). When I change the mobile, I’ll reply you.

  • bluesatoshi

    >3 DoF
    And dropped. It’s just not the same without positional tracking.

    • You literally dropped in “3 DoF”? It says “3DoF, ‘Cardboard-like’ solution, AND OpenVR support”, so yeah, it supports 6 DoF through OpenVR and other interfaces

      • Caven

        The article even goes beyond that by saying “…and the full compatibility with SteamVR headsets via their GDNative OpenVR implementation”. Plus, the lead picture and the included video both show the use of an Oculus Touch controller.

  • Lucidfeuer

    Interesting although I don’t see a point besides for 2 games for now.

  • Dartaniel

    Not a mature engine. Will take years to reach the level of polish for Unity and Unreal. Come back in 2020.

    • Leslie

      Gℴℴgle is giving now 99 US dollars/hr to complete few jobs off a home computer .. Work Some just few peroid of time in a day & live happy greater time with your circle of relatives … Any person can also do this chance!!!on weekend I got a top of the range Fiat Panda after I been earnin $14200 past four weeks .it sounds the coolest job however you could no longer forgive yourself if you do not hop over to this.!bh092f:➢➢➢ http://GoogleCapitalEasyMoneyMaking/get/cash/$98/hourly… ♥♥♥e♥s♥d♥♥z♥i♥♥s♥v♥p♥♥♥v♥♥♥t♥l♥m♥♥h♥i♥o♥♥♥q♥♥♥x♥m♥♥♥d♥x♥♥d♥♥w♥y♥x♥♥s:::::!af742d:wkyu

    • Frobots

      Not true. Godot has been around for 17 years and the new version 3 is very polished:
      https://godotengine.org/article/godot-history-images

  • Sammiebox

    I’ve been waiting for this.