Why does viewport look differently to an in-game scene

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1

Godot Version

v4.6.3.stable.nixpkgs [35e80b3a8]

Question

I bet everyone knows this - when you make a new scene, without light and without environment - the scene looks absolutely pitch black in game, even though it looks alright in the editor.

Observed experiments:

  • No Light3D, no WorldEnvironment: The scene is absolutely pitch black in the game, visible in editor
  • No Light3D, yes WorldEnvironment: The scene is … better in game, still not plenty visible
  • Yes Light3D, yes WorldEnvironment: The scene looks pretty much the same as editor

Now I think I understand the why - Godot wants the editor to be reasonably usable even when in-game the environment may be dark, or the programmer just didn’t add light yet.

Example repo: GitHub - richard-hajek/godot-lightning-sample · GitHub

My question is:

  • What exactly is the mechanism? Does Godot add a special light if one is not present and a special WorldEnvironment if one is not present?
    • Where would I find the exact definitions of the WorldEnvironment and Lightining it injects into the scene? Because it looks alright
  • Can I convince the editor view to not do this? In case I want the scene to look as closely as possible to the in-game visuals

Thanks!

2

There’s always a default sun and environment for a 3D scenee. You need to add these to your scene to be able to modify them.

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You can also just toggle both with the two little icons at the top (the sun and the little globe icon)

3

Oh wow, thanks I didnt notice those buttons!

There’s always a default sun and environment for a 3D scenee

I don’t think that’s true? If you don’t add them, the scene (for example when you press Run Current Scene) is still black. But thats a nitpick

4

They are always present in the editor.