Graphics GD

This project aims to provide a safe performant way to work with graphics and game development in Go via the GDExtension interface of any supported graphics/game engine (ie. Godot 4.3).

Why use graphics.gd?

• Write shaders in Go!
• Unlike with other languages, RIDs, callables and dictionary arguments are all distinctly typed.
• A good balance of performance and convenience.
• General-purpose pure-Go 'variant' packages, reuse them in any Go project.
• Recompile your code quickly, with a build experience similar to working in a scripting language.

We would love you to take part in our active discussions section with any questions, comments or feedback you may have. Show us what you're building!

// This file is all you need to start a project.
// Save it somewhere, install the `gd` command and use `gd run` to get started.
package main

import (
	"graphics.gd/startup"

	"graphics.gd/classdb/Control"
	"graphics.gd/classdb/Label"
	"graphics.gd/classdb/SceneTree"
)

func main() {
	startup.LoadingScene() // setup the SceneTree and wait until we have access to engine functionality
	hello := Label.New()
	hello.AsControl().SetAnchorsPreset(Control.PresetFullRect) // expand the label to take up the whole screen.
	hello.SetHorizontalAlignment(Label.HorizontalAlignmentCenter)
	hello.SetVerticalAlignment(Label.VerticalAlignmentCenter)
	hello.SetText("Hello, World!")
	SceneTree.Add(hello)
	startup.Scene() // starts up the scene and blocks until the engine shuts down.
}

You can help fund the project, motivate development and prioritise issues here

Getting Started

The module includes a drop-in replacement for the go command called gd that makes it easy to work with projects that run alongside a graphics/game engine. It enables you to start developing a new project from a single main.go file, to install it, make sure that your $GOPATH/bin is in your $PATH and run:

	go install graphics.gd/cmd/gd@master

Now when you can run gd run, gd test on the main package in your project's directory, things will work as expected. The tool will create a "graphics" subdirectory where you can manage your assets via the Engine's Editor.

Running the command without any arguments will startup the Engine's Editor.

NOTE On linux (and macos if you have brew), gd will download an engine for you automatically! HINT On Windows, you'll want to setup CGO.

If you don't want to use the gd command, you can build a shared library with the go command directly:

go build -o example.so -buildmode=c-shared

Design Principles

Each engine class is available as its own package under classdb. To import the Node class you can import "graphics.gd/classdb/Node" There's no inheritance, so to access a 'super' class, you need to call Super() on an Extension 'Class'. All engine classes have methods to cast to any sub-classes they extend for example AsObject() or AsNode2D().

Methods have been renamed to follow Go conventions, so instead of underscores, methods are named as PascalCase. Keep this in mind when referring to the Engine documentation.

https://docs.godotengine.org/en/latest/index.html

Frame-Based Memory Management

Engine references must be 'used' every frame in order to remain alive, otherwise they will automatically be garbage collected each frame. You shouldn't have to worry about any memory management as long as you keep Engine references inside an extension class and don't hold onto references across frames. If you get an "expired pointer" error, it means either the reference has outlived its frame and has not been used since or the ownership of the value was transferred to the engine.

The project aims to provide as much memory safety as possible for working with the Engine, please open an issue if you determine there to be any issues here.

Recommendations

Start with a main.go file, model your project in Go using structs to represent the world, space or state of your project. Go is an excellent language for textual representation. Use the gd command to launch the Engine's editor when you want to create visual representation of your structures. The editor is excellent for importing media, managing assets and designing the visual and spatial aspects of a project.

NOTE: Don't forget to write tests!

Where Do I Find?

Ctrl+F in the project for a specific //gd:symbol to find the matching Go symbol.

* Engine Class           -> `//gd:ClassName`
* Engine Class Method    -> `//gd:ClassName.method_name`
* Utility Functions      -> `//gd:utility_function_name`
* Enum                   -> `//gd:ClassName.EnumName`

Variant Type Table

Engine Type	Convenience Type	Best Performance Type
Variant	any	variant.Any
bool	bool	bool
int	int	int64
float	Float.X	Float.X
String	string	String.Readable
Vector2	Vector2.XY	Vector2.XY
Vector2i	Vector2i.XY	Vector2i.XY
Rect2	Rect2.PositionSize	Rect2.PositionSize
Rect2i	Rect2i.PositionSize	Rect2i.PositionSize
Vector3	Vector3.XYZ	Vector3.XYZ
Vector3i	Vector3i.XYZ	Vector3i.XYZ
Transform2D	Transform2D	Transform2D
Vector4	Vector4.XYZW	Vector4.XYZW
Vector4i	Vector4i.XYZW	Vector4i.XYZW
Plane	Plane.NormalD	Plane.NormalD
Quaternion	Quaternion.IJKL	Quaternion.IJKL
AABB	AABB.PositionSize	AABB.PositionSize
Basis	Basis.XYZ	Basis.XYZ
Transform3D	Transform3D.BasisOrigin	Transform3D.BasisOrigin
Projection	Projection.XYZW	Projection.XYZW
Color	Color.RGBA	Color.RGBA
StringName	string	String.Name
NodePath	string	Path.ToNode
Signal	chan T	Signal.Any
RID	RID.T	RID.Any
Object	T.Instance	T.Advanced
Callable	func(...T) (...T)	Callable.Function
Dictionary	struct/map[T]T	Dictionary.Any
Array	[]T	Array.Any
PackedByteArray	[]byte	Packed.Bytes
PackedInt32Array	[]int32	Packed.Array[int32]
PackedInt64Array	[]int64	Packed.Array[int64]
PackedFloat32Array	[]float32	Packed.Array[float32]
PackedFloat64Array	[]float64	Packed.Array[float64]
PackedStringArray	[]string	Packed.Array[String.Readable]
PackedVector2Array	[]Vector2.XY	Packed.Array[Vector2.XY]
PackedVector3Array	[]Vector3.XYZ	Packed.Array[Vector3.XYZ]
PackedColorArray	[]Color.RGBA	Packed.Array[Color.RGBA]
PackedVector4Array	[]Vector4.XYZW	Packed.Array[Vector4.XYZW]

Performance

It's feasible to write high performance code using this module, keep to Engine types where possible and avoid allocating memory on the heap in frequently called functions. Advanced instances are available for each class which allow more fine-grained control over memory allocations.

Benchmarking shows Advanced method calls from Go -> Engine do not allocate in practice.

Allocations are currently unavoidable for any Script -> Go calls (but not for Advanced class virtual method overrides such as Ready or Process, which do not allocate in practice).

We've got some ideas to reduce allocations for Script -> Go calls, when arguments fit entirely within registers. TBA.

Examples

There are a number of examples in the examples repo. All examples are designed to be run with gd run without any additional setup.

Supported Platforms

• Windows
• Linux (including Steam Deck)
• Mac (including Apple Silicon)
• Android (including MetaQuest)
• IOS (should work, untested)
• Web (experimental) GOOS=js GOARCH=wasm gd run

Known Limitations

• No support for calling classdb methods that accept a variable number of arguments.
• No support for Go 'scripts'.
• 64bit only (arm64 && amd64).
• No console support, will likely be achieved in the future with WASM.

Contributing

The best way you can contribute to graphics.gd is to try it, we need your help to find out what's working and what doesn't, so do please let us know of any trouble that you run into!

The next best thing you can do to help is improve the Variant packages, these are general-purpose packages inspired by the Godot engine's Variant type. Specifically any changes you can make to optimise functionality and/or improve test converage of these packages is more than welcome (such as specialised assembly routines for vector operations, anyone?).

If you enjoy hunting down memory-safety issues, we would appreciate any issues being opened on this front.

Thirdly, the project needs more tests to ensure that everything is working, the best way you can guarantee that graphics.gd won't break on you is to contribute tests that cover the functionality you need!

To run the go tests for graphics.gd, cd into the repo and run cd internal && gd test.

See Also

• godot-go (Another project aiming to support Go + Godot integration)

Licensing

This project is licensed under an MIT license (the same license as Godot), you can use it in any manner you can use the Godot engine. If you use this project for any commercially successful products, please consider financially supporting us to show your appreciation!