For People Trying To Learn Godot

General
1

EDIT: This Humble Bundle is no longer available, though you can still get the courses from Zenva.

I just purchased this Humble Bundle, and I thought I’d mention it. I specifically got it for the Publishing to Steam for Godot Projects course because I’ve been struggling with that. However for anyone who is new to Godot, they have a full layout of introductory courses and then more complex game types. These courses will answer a LOT of questions that we answer on here daily. Things like how do collisions work, what kind of nodes should you use for different objects.

Even though I mainly was interested in the one course, I bought the whole thing for a couple of reasons. First is like I said, the course on how to publish to Steam. That was enough for me to spend $28.96. I also honestly enjoy following tutorials when I’m stuck. I find it meditative to just do something and get a game working. Finally, even if I know how to do something, I often pick up new tips and tricks from courses. These completed projects then become things I reference.

For example, there was a course I did through GameDev.tv about making a 3D RPG. I learned about viewports in that, and whenever I want to see how I put a 3D model in an inventory, I can go back and check that out in code that I wrote. (That particular project is often helpful when answering questions on here because a lot of what people ask, I did in that project so I can open it to refresh myself.)

In general, I recommend going to Humble Bundle once a month and seeing what they have in the software section. I often find great deals on 3D models, 2D graphics, music, sound effects, and Godot and Blender courses. Usually for around $20. (At $28+ this bundle is on the expensive side.) I have a massive music and sound effect collection from doing this, as well as a backlog of courses in Blender.

*I am in no way connected to Zenva or GameDev.tv.

9 Likes
3D games made with Godot on GitHub ( Mac OS )
[Godot 4.4] How to Make a Player Limit Area Globe
Resources for backend-focused Godot project (mobile app)
2

So I’ve been through one course now, 3D Action-Adventure Game in Godot - Unit 1. It uses KayKit models, which I think is great. The course goes really in-depth with how to use an AnimationTree with BlendSpaces and AnimationStateMachines, and I was frankly blown away with how much I learned. It also has a nice little detour on the math of jumping physics which I found quite interesting. I also learned things about structuring CSG nodes - I didn’t even know there was a CSGCombiner3D node.

I also really connected the dots on something I’ve been trying to do with KayKit models for a while now. I did a class a while back from GameDev.tv I really liked (Godot 4: Build an Action Combat RPG | GameDev.tv by Bramwell). One of the things he did in that course was have multiple 3D rigs for NPCs. I could never figure out how to easily make that happen importing other 3D models - specifically KayKit’s models which I really like.

This lesson solved that problem. The most important thing I learned was that after importing a model, I could right-click on it and select Make Unique. This allows you to delete nodes and modify Animations in the editor. This is something I’ve been doing through import scripts and saving animations locally. Now, it does mean that you can’t change and re-import with just a click, but it does mean that for models I’m not modifying outside the editor, things became a whole lot easier.

Having said that, while I think it teaches a number of great things and creates a function start to a 3D RPG (Except for one bug I found that was easily fixable), I found the coding practices to not be ideal. This is only my personal opinion, but I wanted to lay it out there.

First, the swap between static typing and duck typing a lot. I personally prefer static typing all the time, but I feel the inconsistency could be confusing to new developers.

#Static typing
func foo(bar: int) -> void:
	pass

#Duck typing
func foo(bar):
	pass

My other main issue was the lack of @onready variables when referring to nodes. It’s certainly easier and is less lines of code, until one starts changing code and has to do a find and replace instead of updating one variable declaration. (Though I will say I learned that straight $NodeName references are ready before @onready variables during node construction - which I found interesting.)

#Good practice IMO
@onready var my_label: Label = $MyLabel

func foo(bar: String) -> void:
	my_label.text = bar


#Bad practice IMO
func foo(bar):
	$MyLabel.text = bar

Those issues aside, I found it a really good course. Each lesson was quick, and I didn’t realize how nice that was until I experienced it. The instructor talked at a normal speed, relying on the student using the tools for slowing video down, or rewinding if things were missed. This made the videos shorter. There were also no intros or outros in the videos, which meant no wasted time, and each video flowed right into the next. Sometimes I didn’t even realize we were in a new lesson for a beat (in a good way).

I’m only partway into the second lesson, and I’ve yet again learned new things about Control nodes. I had no idea there was a Custom option for Anchors, which means you need less MarginContainers. Overall I’m very happy with all that I’ve learned in just one lesson, and I’ve been using Godot for a few years now.

2 Likes
How to trigger 2 animations?
3

I’ve finished all three units for 3D Action-Adventure Game in Godot. I learned new things in every one of them. There’s a day left on the bundle, so I thought I’d let people know that I think it’s worth the money.

1 Like
4

I saw it by chance yesterday and got it. So far, the only paid tutorials I’ve tried out are Zenva’s from Humble Bundles. Maybe 4 or 5 courses in total. It’s nice to be able to follow along and learn about new things or even just seeing that OK, this problem that I solve like this can be solved like that as well. I don’t think the courses are very good on average though, even though I could probably learn useful things from almost any of them. Could be that I have taken below average quality courses, but it seems to me that half assed quick solutions are standard with Zenva. I sometimes find myself expecting a “but this is a very fragile and convoluted approach - it’s better to…” but it rarely happens.
The worst part is how they will name some of their courses stuff like “Crafting an inventory management system” and then 90% of the course is about how to create a simple platformer and 10% about how to add an inventory, perhaps even using a plugin. For a course with such a specific name, I would expect it to focus almost entirely on that specific thing but in my experience they never do.

Still very good value and its possible to learn a lot but I think they would gain from raising the minimum level of acceptable quality and from having premade projects for the more specific courses, so that more focus can be given to the specific thing the course claims to be about.

1 Like
5

Just for the people who think this important to consider:
Humble Bundle (as great as some bundles are) is owned by Ziff Davis, a tech/gaming/entertainment publishing house and the advertised bundle here has “npower” listed as the charity benefiting this sale.

Zenva offers a monthly subscription for the same price directly with their service, too. Hard to watch everything the bundle offers during that time, of course, but maybe you can afford supporting them.

From personal experience: I started learning Godot with Zenva and their courses helped me a lot. I can recommend them just as heartly as @dragonforge-dev does :slight_smile:

1 Like
6

I’m getting that feeling too, in comparison to GameDev.tv - who I think makes much higher quality courses. But even there I’ve had issues with architectural and coding practice decisions they make. Regardless, I have found paid courses to (in most cases) be of a higher more consistent quality than YouTube tutorials. Another reason I like them is they finish the course before uploading it.

Agreed.

I’m not sure how this is an issue. Perhaps I’m just missing something. Personally, I cannot currently afford the things that show up in Humble Bundle in other ways. So even if I am feeding a corporate beast, there’s nothing I can do about it.

As for the donation side, that’s always a scam. You’re giving a big corporation a tax write-off and they’re preying on guilt and the feelings people get when giving to a good cause. But since every gas station does that too, I just ignore it. I already give to charities that I choose. When I use Humble I pay the minimum and move on with my life. I can’t control the $1 that goes somewhere else.

TBH I hate subscriptions. I have lots of classes that I don’t have time for in the moment from a number of different services. I get to them when I have time. A subscription would be money I don’t have out the window. Though I do agree that if you can support people directly it’s better to do so.