Thread by @defold

Defold is often thought of as a 2D only game engine, but it is in fact a full 3D engine. If you found Defold thanks to recent Unity news, then we’ll try to provide a clear picture of what you can expect when working with 3D content in Defold. 🧵

#unity3d #indiegamedev #gamedev

Defold is a 3D engine from the ground up. It always has been. At the moment we are not building high-level features, but work on the foundation for them and provide our users with the ability to build their own features and tooling.

Design philosophy: defold.com/why/

This is what we provide out of the box:

- Simple model component and import from glTF
- Dynamic mesh component with ability to modify at runtime
- Basic 3D materials and shaders (GLES)
- 3D physics using Bullet3D
- Cubemaps

to be continued.... 🧵

- Lua scriptable render pipeline
- Perspective camera
- Texture compression using BasisU (@_binomial)
- Scene editor

This is the boring part and it is all covered in our manuals:

Fun part in next few posts! 🧵defold.com/manuals/introd…

@_binomial The interesting part is what can be built on top of these low-level features and easily shared as reusable assets.

Let's start with our PBR demo by @jhonnygoransson with a well known helmet:

GitHub:
Demo: github.com/defold/defold-…
defold.com/defold-pbr/

@_binomial @jhonnygoransson Illumination by @astrochili

This extension contains ready-to-use forward shading lighting for 3D games made with Defold. Just set the provided material to your mesh and place light sources on the scene.

GitHub:
Demo: github.com/astrochili/def…
astronachos.com/defold/illumin…

@_binomial @jhonnygoransson @astrochili Defold Kinematic Walker by @astrochili

This is a tweakable kinematic character controller suitable for 3D games when you don’t want to use a dynamic body and prefer to have more control over the movement.

GitHub:
Demo: github.com/astrochili/def…
astronachos.com/defold/kinemat…

@_binomial @jhonnygoransson @astrochili Defold Camera Operator by @astrochili

This is a tweakable camera movement controller suitable for 3D games. It can help you smoothly control your character’s camera or make cinematic motion paths using checkpoints.

GitHub:
Demo: github.com/astrochili/def…
astronachos.com/defold/operato…

@_binomial @jhonnygoransson @astrochili TrenchBroom extension for Defold by @astrochili

This is a kit of game configuration files and importing scripts to design your level with TrenchBroom (@tb_leveleditor) and export it to Defold.

GitHub:
Demo: github.com/astrochili/def…
astronachos.com/defold/trenchb…

@_binomial @jhonnygoransson @astrochili @tb_leveleditor Scene3D by @aglitchman

Scene3D is a collection of assets to help you to develop 3D games with Defold. Use included prefabs to quickly prototype structures, levels, and to test game mechanics. Try out ideas quickly!

GitHub:
Demo: github.com/indiesoftby/de…
indiesoftby.github.io/defold-scene3d/

@_binomial @jhonnygoransson @astrochili @tb_leveleditor @aglitchman ReactPhysics3D for Defold by @d954mas

ReactPhysics3D Lua bindings for the Defold Game Engine. This project is based on

GitHub:
Demo: github.com/DanielChappuis…
github.com/d954mas/defold…
d954mas.github.io/defold-reactph…

@_binomial @jhonnygoransson @astrochili @tb_leveleditor @aglitchman @d954mas This is a taste of some of the ready made solutions available if you want to create a 3D game in Defold.

Now go and download Defold!



PS If you want more there’s an even longer list in this thread:

#gamedev #madewithdefolddefold.com