Godot Engine Game Development in 24 Hours, Sams Teach Yourself: The Official Guide to Godot 3.0

by Ariel Manzur, George Marques

In just 24 sessions of one hour or less, this guide will help you create great 2D and 3D games for any platform with the 100% free Godot 3.0 game engine. Its straightforward, step-by-step approach guides you from basic scenes, graphics, and game flow through advanced shaders, environments, particle rendering, and networked games. Godot’s co-creator and main contributorwalk you through building three complete games, offering advanced techniques you won’t find anywhere else.



Every lesson builds on what you’ve already learned, giving you a rock-solid foundation for real-world success.



Step-by-step instructions carefully walk you through the most common Godot engine programming tasks and techniques

Practical, hands-on examples show you how to apply what you learn

Quizzes and exercises help you test your knowledge and stretch your skills

Notes and tips point out shortcuts, solutions, and problems to avoid

 

Learn how to…

·         Install Godot, create projects, and use the visual editor

·         Master the scene system, and organize games with Scene Trees

·         Create 2D graphics, 3D graphics, and animations

·         Use basic and advanced scripting to perform many game tasks

·         Process player input from any source

·         Control game flow, configurations, and resources

·         Maximize realism with Godot’s physics and particle systems

·         Make the most of 3D shaders, materials, lighting, and shadows

·         Control effects and post-processing

·         Build richer, more sophisticated game universes with viewports

·         Develop networked games, from concepts to communication and input

·         Export games to the devices you’ve targeted

·         Integrate native code, third-party APIs, and engine extensions (bonus chapter)

 

432 pages, Kindle Edition

Published March 13, 2018

Reviews

[Asher Wolfstein · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good Introduction

This book offers a solid introduction to all pertinent aspects of the engine for most games. Note though it is only an introduction, don’t hope for anything too in-depth. That said, there were some typos, and some sections were difficult at first to understand (the chapter on scene structure) because of the composition. A few explanatory sentences seemed shortened into poor logical structures English wise (I’m a native English speaker). That didn’t get in the way though from ultimately understanding. It is however why I give it four stars.

[Steve · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very accessible, with the obvious downside that the engine continually evolves meaning this will become increasingly obsolete. I just wish all the official documentation was written this clearly.

[Nathan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Solid and enjoyable read explaining the Godot Engine. AFAICT, it still seems applicable to Godot 4, though I'm sure minor details have changed.

I appreciated the structure of the book. Each chapter introduced a concept and had several paragraphs explaining why/how, so you could contextualize the applied section which followed.

One of my high level take-aways is that game engines are built to support a *team* working together within a tool, so it's not unreasonable that some aspects (3d meshes, lighting, shadows, animation) will be less familiar. I'll have to see what's most applicable as I build things ahead!

There were 3 short chapters on "build this game", so I may attempt to implement those, especially the later two (a simple 3d puzzler and a bomberman that supports networked multiplayer)

p.s. thank you SF Public Library for having access to so many digital textbooks!

[Shayan Kh · Rating 4 out of 5]

A nice book for beginning game development with Godot engine.
It is clear with great examples, and introduce almost everything.
It is not a comprehensive guide, but it is a great introduction for almost every aspect of this great piece of opensource software. I particularly liked the last bonus hour, the introduction to GDNative, and working with Godot's source code.
I highly recommend this book for developers who are new to Godot game engine.

[Mehmet · Rating 4 out of 5]

Topics are described with important aspects, easy to follow text and well-chosen examples. A good resource for new learners.