Following EXTREMELY quickly after the Godot 4.6 Dev6 release, Godot 4.6 beta1 is now available. This is an important milestone in the development of Godot 4.6 as this represents the point of feature freeze. What we see is what we will ideally get in regard to new features in Godot 4.6. Highlight features in Godot 4.6 beta include:
Rendering Enhancements
- Updates to Rendering Features (AGX and SSR)
- AGX Tone Mapping: The rendering pipeline includes updates for the AGX tone mapping algorithm, which is known for producing more natural and filmic colors by better preserving hue and saturation in extreme brightness, offering an alternative to traditional methods like ACES.
- Screen Space Reflections (SSR): The Screen Space Reflections system has been completely rewritten and overhauled for significantly improved quality and performance, yielding notable speed boosts across all devices in GPU-bound scenarios.
Editor UI and Experience
- New Modern Theme The community-created “Godot Minimal Theme” has been officially integrated as the new default editor theme, renamed to the “Modern Theme.” This change aims to improve accessibility and readability with a minimal, neutral design. The previous default style remains available as the “Classic Theme.”
- Dock Rewrite for Bottom Panel The editor’s docking system received a major overhaul, introducing a new
EditorDockclass. Crucially, the bottom panel (which houses the Output, Debugger, etc.) is now part of the generalized docking system. This means bottom editors can be treated as movable docks and can be freely repositioned between the sides and the bottom of the editor, enhancing layout customization. - Updated UI: Condensed Array Display A minimal-style overhaul was applied to the array inspector to create a more condensed layout. This UI update trims away wasted space by consolidating information and logic to their essential elements, improving visual clarity regardless of the chosen editor theme.
Core Mechanics and Workflow
- New IK System The engine introduces native Inverse Kinematics (IK) support via the new class
IKModifier3Dwithin theSkeletonModifier3Dframework. This system modernizes the IK functionality, providing a comprehensive set of new specialized subclasses to handle various IK methods like Chain IK, CCDIK, FABRIK, Spline IK, and Two Bone IK. - New Rotation Features (Camera Snapping and Objects) The 3D viewport received workflow enhancements common in modern 3D modeling programs:
- Object Rotation: The 3D transformation gizmo now provides a visual indicator for the current delta angle during a rotation operation, offering a convenient reference point for precise adjustments.
- Camera Snapping (Orbit Snapping): Users can now utilize orbit-snapping within the viewport itself, enabling more granular control and consistent positioning of the editor camera.
GDScript Enhancements
- GDScript Profiling Support GDScript now has native tracing profiler support, currently integrated with Tracy. This is a major step in allowing dedicated, high-performance external profilers to be a universal solution for debugging performance in your GDScript code, not just the engine’s C++ core.
- Drag-and-Drop Export Variables A new quality-of-life improvement allows users to drag and drop nodes or resources directly into the script editor to automatically create a populated
@exportvariable. This speeds up workflow by creating a reference-based variable, which is more robust than string-based path references.
Key Links
Godot Bundle Used in Demo (Used Code BF60!)
You can learn more about the Godot 4.6 beta and the best new features in this release in the video below.