Godot engine 3.6 brings major updates with 2D physics interpolation, mesh merging and more

The Godot Engine 3.6 release has arrived after two years of development, bringing significant features and quality of life improvements. Key additions include 2D physics interpolation, 2D hierarchical culling, 3D mesh merging, discrete level of detail (LOD), and tighter shadow culling. The update focuses on backward compatibility, making it a recommended upgrade for Godot 3.5.x users while ensuring existing functionality remains intact.

The new 2D physics interpolation supports most objects, excluding GPU-based Particles2D, enhancing the fluidity of 2D animations. 2D hierarchical culling improves performance by culling entire scene tree branches rather than individual off-screen items, beneficial for large 2D maps. Tighter shadow culling reduces workload by eliminating unnecessary draw calls for non-visible shadows, enhancing frame rates.

Mesh merging, applicable both at design and runtime, allows thousands of objects to be rendered efficiently in one draw call, optimizing maps and procedural game types. Discrete LOD automatically adjusts object visuals based on camera distance, ideal for open-world games. ORM materials support improves rendering performance by combining occlusion, roughness, and metallic textures into a single file.

Additionally, the release includes vertex cache optimization for mesh imports, increasing rendering performance, especially on low-end hardware, with easy project implementation by re-importing optimized meshes.