Godot Tutorial - Your First Application Video Lecture | Godot Game: Learn and Master - Game Development

hello this is Mike again from scratch
and welcome to a brand new tutorial
series today we're going to be looking
at a new game engine called Godot it's
actually not new it just hit its 1.0
release however Godot is an open source
C++ based cross-platform unity esque 2d
and 3d game engine works on Windows
Linux and Mac and it can target all
those platforms plus iOS Android Windows
Phone is coming soon html5 is coming
soon as well as I do believe blackberry
if you're interested in it I actually
didn't know pretty in-depth overview of
what the Godot engine is provided the
comments link below it's also like I
said the beginning of a brand new
tutorial series so we're going to
hopefully over time cover all aspects of
good--do development there will be a
table of contents links at the bottom
being that this is the very first actual
tutorial and not a very big table
contents yet but bear with me and we
will fill it out today itself we're
going to jump right into Godot look at
creating a first simple application of
course since this is a tutorial in it
the first tutorial we are of course
going to start with hello world and
we're going to make ours a little bit
more interesting than that but it will
show you the basics of how a Godot
program works how to navigate the UI how
to go ahead and get it etc for every
tutorial in this series I'm actually
going to do a corresponding text
tutorial as long as it makes sense so
there will be a text tutorial and a
video tutorial for every single stage so
if you prefer text you go to game from
scratch comm and see it there you see
right here in the background this is
actually I've already published the text
version I'm doing the video after the
fact in this case anyway it's a fairly
in-depth a lot of screenshots you can
figure out where you need to go okay I
went a little too far but if you go to
game from scratch again the link will be
in the bottom two the actual
corresponding text tutorial to go along
with it we'll cover more or less the
same materials I tend to blabber a bit
more during the video so you'll have a
bit more public detail in the video
version but sometimes is easier to
follow along or for reference to use a
text version so that's why I'm providing
both so anyways let's jump right in with
Godot
say it's open source it's completely
free so let's go ahead and download it
it's pretty impressive it's a very
self-contained package you just come in
and pick your platform in this case I'm
on 64-bit windows so I'm just going to
download that executable here and there
we go download it while we're still in
this page I want to point out a couple
things they also have
colada
order for doing 3d models we'll touch on
that much much later down in the series
exporting templates as well for sending
them to various platforms we'll talk
about that later as well
but the thing that you should really be
aware of here is the Godot demos there's
a lot of demos included with this one
thing that kind of is the the negative
point for the Godot engine and part of
the reason I'm doing this tutorial
series is the help material isn't great
there's not a ton of it a beginning
start of stuff isn't incredible but
there is a lot of demonstration stuff
including arts and assets to work with
so when you're just getting started you
know beyond this tutorial series of
course if you want to get a little bit
more in depth or try to figure things
out yourself
grab these demos and definitely take a
look alright so anyways now it's been
downloaded let's go ahead and just load
it up nice thing is there's no installer
there's nothing the Godot program is
also a project manager and when you open
it and create it boom
here is your starting screen so again no
installation just bring it down and run
it so you can run this from a USB drive
if you want kind of handy that way the
UI is consistent across all different
platforms which has advantages and
disadvantages it's not a native UI but
the behavior is consistent across Mac
Windows Linux so a bit of an up bit of a
down but we're here you come to your
your basic project manager and here
first off if you download these that zip
file with all the demo projects you can
import them right here but what we want
to do is actually go ahead and create a
new project we'll just click new here
and you got to pick a path a place to
save the project go ahead and make it
here create a folder called dough demo
so and everything's going to be in that
folder itself let's go ahead and open
that so the project name comes
automatically from the directory and
then when you're ready just click create
so this is now I've made your project
now next time you load this up all your
projects will be tallied and displayed
right here
ditto as you start importing demos
they'll all show up in a list here so
once you're ready you can either just
double left-click on this guy right here
or single click and then click Edit and
welcome to the Godot interface I'm not
going to go into a lot of detail how
this works if you want more of an
overview of the the IDE itself
take that walkthrough video I did
earlier you'll
a lot more detail or depth into what's
included but this is the basic dough
interface this is where you will more or
less live from now on right now we're in
3d mode these important these taps right
here are important for switching between
different modes or your 2d editing this
is where you actually draw your world 3d
same thing if you're working in 3d
script here's where you're editing your
scripts we'll come back to that and here
is where your help is available
if you've used unity this should all
look very familiar there might be a
little bit of plagiarism going on up
here you got your your control buttons
your play your stop your resume opened
and then your scene and resource
navigation your resources your files etc
inspector is basically property viewer
so let's go ahead and now that we've got
the scene going let's get things started
at the core of the Godot model or
hierarchy is the node you basically
assemble your scene out of a hierarchy
of nodes so let's go ahead and create
one right away like I said we're going
to make a hello world application so
we're going to start with a text node in
this case it's called a rich text label
so what you do is you create a new node
over here on the scene so you tab
between them here but we want the scene
selected and you click here for a new
node and then we want rich text label as
you see there are lots of nodes built in
and you can easily create one yourself
using either Gd script which is the
Python s script or C++ it's your choice
will cover C++ later on down the road
but you can extend out of node and add
things to here like Matt but let's go
ahead and add our rich text label this
guy we want so at the top as you see you
can filter by wild card up here and just
pick rich text label and create so over
here you see this is your world this is
your cut off your screen dimensions by
default and this is the node you just
create it you can left-click to drag it
around or you can grab control handles
to resize it now what you'll see down
here there's this inspector view this is
what looks at all the configurable
properties of that node Godot takes a
somewhat component-based look so a node
is made up of an anchor a margin Iraq
inherited from the control its inherited
from canvas item which has a visibility
it's inherited from node so these are
the different classes that this is the
basically they heritance tree that the
rich text label inherits from so pretty
much canvas item inherited from node and
control inherited from canvas item and
you can come through and change all of
the various properties that are exposed
so instead of changing and resizing here
you can also set the values here or as
you see as I'm editing here the values
are changing in the bottom right so you
can set your properties in the inspector
or you can set them over here one thing
to be aware of right off the hop though
this is kind of annoying hopefully it's
something they fix but if I come in here
and do say 2:22 okay it hasn't committed
yet so if I type away it doesn't set so
if you manually edit a property make
sure you hit the enter key so that it
commits but basically that is adding a
text based our rich text label node to
our game world let's put it back to the
origin and now we need to add some text
to it oddly enough the text property of
this is not exposed so we need to hook a
script up to it script you just
basically collect then select a node you
want here and I'll show you one thing
quick is you can actually edit in select
instead of that I can come down here in
K my rich text label and change the name
of the the node within your scene but
now that we've got our node selected we
come up here and you hit this little guy
right here which is your script
configuration and this is going to
create a new script or open the existing
script depending if there is one there
isn't one in this case so this is
bringing up the new script dialog it's
going to automatically inherit the class
that it is and brings up the language to
write it it Godot is written to support
multiple languages but there is only one
language TD script that has been
implemented so perhaps down the road
there could be a loo or c-sharp etc in
your language selection but in this case
right now there is just GD script then
the final thing you got to do is create
a path for it
one thing to be aware of and I'll show
you right here when I create this new
path all the resources are relative to
your root directory so anything you want
in the file system any art etc you need
to bring them in
into that folder you created originally
in this case I'm just going to go ahead
and put it how did I do in the text I'm
not sure I'll show you this way now so
we'll go ahead and create a folder this
is completely optional you don't have to
but if you want to organize things a
little bit more you can so I'm going to
create the scripts folder like so and
then we'll call this guy my script dot
Gd now it's important you have to add
this dot GD extension unfortunately it
won't add it automatically it'll just
throw an error at you if you don't do
that so there we go we've defined our
script we've put the location in and
we've named it so now let's save it and
then create it so there is our script
this is GD script and right off the hop
one thing you should be aware of or
goodö is there as a built-in editing the
code editor built right into it that's
also got debugging break point support
etc very handy nice things there's also
code completion now a flip side is Godot
uses its own custom programming language
which is life as I said earlier a Python
like language is very simple to learn
that's the key thing to pretty much
every single successful scripting
language is it should be simple to learn
and for the most part if you've ever
used Python at all it will immediately
make sense if not go to the the text
version of this tutorial and I've linked
in some resources mostly wiki entries
etc from the go to a website but you can
learn a bit more in the language there
the one thing to be aware of especially
if you come from C++ Java C sharp or say
Java Script background your use of curly
braces denoting scope or semicolons
denote inline termination that is not
the case in Python like languages new
lines determined where things end so as
you see this function actually the
semicolon and then the tabbing indebt is
what controls the scope of it so every
time you like if you have an if you tab
in the next line and then when you move
out let's go pew untap it so the the
scope or the local the local scope is
set by the tabbing and indentation it
takes a bit to get used to but it does
have some upsides it makes code makes
tricky code like for example this line
of C++ code let me try and type better
I can't type today which we've probably
all typed at least once if you've worked
in C++ this is impossible and if you
haven't noticed this is actually but
what will happen here is you will have a
for loop that loops ten times doing
nothing because you accidentally put
this at the end of the line so even it
looks like it's scoped down here it
isn't because you've got the Terminator
up here so what this does is creates a
new local scope which does absolutely
nothing of value this is the kind of
thing that white space based scripting
languages try to get away from if it's
good or bad totally up to you I can see
the advantages I could see the
disadvantages however when working with
Godot the primary scripting language
took this approach so learn to live with
it here we go I'll get back to the past
later on it's a form of multitasking
well we'll touch on it a bit later but
referring now we're just going to go
ahead and delete that so here's our
function ready ready it's called ready
is not a constructor it's actually
called after the control itself yeah
after the note itself is created and
good to go if you want a constructor
like behavior that is you want it to be
the guaranteed first call you use a
function called underscore and knit
you'll notice all these are actually
inherited from when I said earlier about
those different those three classes that
made up the sky node canvas item etc
these actually come from either node or
the base object class these underscore
over rideable functions but the ready
one is called after it's been created
and it is coincidentally ready to go so
first thing we need to do is self is the
equivalent of this so self dot add why
am I not getting Co completion like so
and
go ahead and that should be it so that
will unload when this control is ready
set its text to hello world now next key
thing we've got to do is save our scene
I'll put it in the root folder this time
we'll keep it with the default name of
new underscore scene once again you have
to give the extension or this will error
out and go ahead and save it so now our
scene has been saved we need to set it
as the startup scene that is done by
going up here to the scene menu going to
project settings and then locate main
scene this guy right here and go over
here to the open and go file and I just
pick the scene you just created all
right so that's it you'll notice in here
also there's a number of properties for
your application so as I said earlier
the editing window the 2d that frame was
800 by 600 it's defined here
the driver set here the if it's
resizable etc so a lot of your
application specific settings are set in
this settings folder and there's other
stuff up here for like localization and
input mapping we'll touch on all of that
later on for now let's just go into the
general go to your main scene setting
and set it to the scene you just created
and now that you're done click close
alright so in theory this should add
suck call add text on hello world so
let's go ahead and run that there you go
you can't see it very well but there is
our text set when we run now one thing
you might notice is that text was pretty
damn small so when you're setting text
in Godot you actually need to create a
font per size so we want to make a
slightly bigger text available or
different color or some no not color
sorry but different font format or
family you need to import it fortunately
it's a fairly simple thing to do so
let's say let's change out the change of
the font on our our guy here first off
let's switch over select it so it's
selected alright now let's go over here
to import and font now what you do is
you can bring in a true type font from
your system and set it up however you
want you can see the preview right here
of what we're going to create so just go
ahead and load in a font I'm going to
use the ones available
from windows itself so they're back here
keep in mind all fonts are actually
licensed or trademarked you can't just
use one even though people do it all the
time there is a copyright people do
license these font Oh to use them there
are thousands of free and open-source
ones available online just be aware that
you can't distribute a product using a
font if you don't have a license for it
like what I'm about to do so I could not
distribute this application legally
because I don't have a license to the
particular font but if you're using
Windows under the windows slash fonts
folder all of your system fonts are
registered there so I'm going to go in
here and grab the comic book font and
that's under predictably Nazi so comic
here this here's the italics form etc so
comic TTFN and just go ahead and open it
so now you can see the preview is
updated a bit here now what I want to do
is I want to change the font size a bit
so there we go
alright why are you being so slow that's
part of why all right so finally you
just have to save it somewhere we could
put it and we will let's be clean make a
fonts folder and we will call it my
comic font but once again need the
extension dot F and T like okay so that
will create up let's go at 30 nice
rounded number 30 point font size
version of comic into that file of my
comic font in the fonts folder there's
other settings you can do here for it
change the spacing change the color etc
in this case I'll just go ahead with
that guy and import it alright so we
have now added a font into our system
you can go over here to the file system
and browse the hierarchy that we're
creating as we go let's go on back to
the inspector with our guy selected
which coincidentally you can also select
things using the scene panel over here
so now that it's picked cut on down and
find the font section custom font and we
are going to change it from null to
loading and select our font like so so
now when I go ahead and run it there we
go much nicer text bigger
and there's our first application now
let's change it up a bit we're going to
actually make it so that our application
does something and I'm also going to
illustrate how nodes work you can use
notes to do a lot of the heavy lifting
for you there's a lot in there out of
the box we saw that earlier on as close
that down and I will show you that
quickly again this is really irritating
by the way which they get rid of that
okay message but alright so with my my
node select I'm actually going to add a
child node to this one so we did select
to just go ahead and hit the new again
and let's get rid of our search filter
here and what we want now I'm going to
show you here a lot of this is for UI
like so split controllers buttons
scrolling etc but what we want is that
timer so come on down here and pick out
timer timer and then create so we've
just added a timer node to our rich text
node and the timer has these properties
you can see down here the key thing we
want to do is say auto start is on that
means as soon as that thing is loaded
and ready it will start the timer
counting the wait time up here is one
second so every one second it is going
to so automatically start every one
second it's going to do something now
the something part is key there's an
event system in Godot which we're about
to take advantage of a lot of times you
would use it for UI controls things like
a button was pressed or etc so if you've
done any whim wind form programs or all
programs or whatever
you've dealt with event handlers
delegates that kind of stuff that handle
you know on button press etc you can do
the connections here and that is using
this guy edit note connections so the
time are two selected just kind of click
on it and here are the events that it
emits the key one we want is timeout
timeout is just like JavaScript set
timeout timeout is the function that is
called every time the timer ticks so
when it ticks it calls timeout so go
ahead and set the connection for timeout
and connect it and we're connecting it
to our parent node here my rich text
label and you will see it automatically
wants to name the method on underscore
on underscore timer underscore to
underscore timeout I'll say anything
problems with that so we'll let that
happen and we'll go ahead and click
connect
so now you'll see the script debtor is
automatically brought up and we're back
in our rich text labels scripts so the
script that is attached to go back to
scene the my rich text labels script
which I click here to bring back in
sorry there my rich text label script is
automatically having this method being
called which is going to be called by
the timer every time there is a so we're
just going to change our code slightly
what we want to do is go ahead and add a
counter so basically show the elapsed
seconds and in addition to the hello
world so every time a tick goes we're
going to update our counter first we
need to add a member variable to our
scripture so that's just a matter of bar
count equals zero Godot is a duck type
language which means it comes with an
expression looks like a duck quacks like
a duck quacks like a duck it's a duck
they take the same approach with
variables if a variable looks like it's
a float it's a float if it looks like
it's a string it's a string and so the
initial appearance is what determines
its type in this case it can infer the
fact that it's an in by the fact that
it's a zero or it could infer the fact
that it's a float based off the fact
that it's a float so in this case we're
going to go ahead with our count you can
you can convert variables after the fact
don't worry about that but now we'll go
back down to our timer here and each
tick let's increment our counter
coincidentally there's no plus plus
operator next we're going to clear out
our text so the existing hello world
message is taken away because the only
message the only method available for
adding text to rich text label is add
text so if you didn't do this you will
get the same you will to basically keep
appending it over and over and over
again so we don't want to do a clear
there and finally let's add our text
self dot add underscore text now next
thing is we're going to use a built-in
function again if you go to the
text-based version of this tutorial I
have a link to all the built-in
functions but the one we were going to
use now is called sturer STR and it's
very comfortable to string dot format or
printf depending on which language you
come from but it's a quick and easy way
of formatting text or converting things
to text so what we want to do is we want
to take our hello world message as one
parameter into it
and it's a elapsed I'm colon and a space
so and then our second value into stir
call is our count so this is going to
make a new string out of the first
string and then the int value passed in
and finally close that off and enter now
if I go ahead and run this code every
second it ticks and updates and that's
basically it that this is a very ok this
this is an annoying thing it needs to go
away ah it's a very simple introduction
but it does show you the basics of
creating an application manipulating
nodes editing connections between nodes
as well as scripting in the next section
we'll probably look like at graphics get
a little bit more in-game specific but
that is a brief gentle introduction to
the DOE game engine I hope it looks
interesting to you and you will stay
tuned thanks a lot good bye