3D navigation in the editor

GDevelop is not the best for 3D, mostly because there is no 3D navigation in the editor, just like in a 3D program. It would be nice to be able to activate some kind of 3D view when in the editor, that allows us to move around in the scene in 3D, as well as adding arrows to move objects, with the blue, green and red arrow of 3D.

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Yeah if I were making a game, I would just make my own map maker (separate game basically) then save the file as a JSON or something with all the info gathered from the map, but idk how to find the saved files or even make them stay in the project folders even when exported.

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I also want to ask for a 3D navigation in the editor. Are there any plans supporting full 3D viewport of editor like in Godot etc?

Currently its really a pain for our students, when we want to teach them 3D game development with GDevelop. It is very hard and demotivating that they can only see their 3D models from the top :frowning:

They are very disappointed calling GDevelop a “3D Game Engine” - because there is not even a real 3D Editor…

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Hello @RickstarEnergy. Thank you for your post and welcome to the community.
Wesley is not directly active on this conversation, so as an online interaction etiquette rule we do not tag people who are not actively participating on the topic.

I will edit your post to remove them, and I’m letting you know that your vote on the feature has been acknowledged (thank you for liking the original post).

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Yes I wish this be existed in the next update

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This feature is absolutely necessary. Creating a 3D environment is quite difficult currently.

Using the Z elevation in the object settings and typing it manually or scrolling throug its value greatly slows down the process compared to using the gizmo. This is also complicated by the fact that the scene is only visible from top-down view. Most of the time you have to guess the desired Z coordinate when placing objects, you cant really see if its clipping throug the ground or floating 1 pixel above it. Tons of problems arise because of this, not only that one.

This also creates the need to launch the game preview every time to check how your scene looks, instead of seeing it right away in the editor.

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Hello, I’m new to GDevelop. Been a Construct user for years… but when I heard GDevelop is now supporting 3d, that definitely got my attention. If GDevelop adds a 3d navigator, I will be a full user for life!!! I definitely know allot of 3d artists will start using GDevelop for this one feature. Hope it happens!!

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I personally only wanted it to be able to make a better 3D horror game. 3D navigation is only the first step, so. After that, if it hasn’t already been done, I’m planning to ask for 3D collision, which is currently quite hard to code.

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Nope, hasn’t been done before. or deleted. Who knows?

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Extension, it might be glitchy but ill update it soon. 3D physics extension make sure you watch the tutorial video

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Hello together, we also urgently need the feature for simple navigation in 3D space. We also use Gdevelop for teaching and at the moment it is still very difficult for our students to create 3D games because they can only work in the bird’s eye view in the editor.

Many thanks for the work of the developers at GDevelop :heart:

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Hello dev_with_passion!
I am letting you know that it is not allowed to ping people on the forum so I’ve deleted the paragraph on your message where you tagged me. :slight_smile:

As for your question:
The tool has been making their first 3D steps since last year (GDevelop used to be 2D only) and I can confirm that we have plans of making the 3D possibilites more robust (for example, allowing 3D physics) in the future to facilitate 3D interactions between objects.

However there are no immediate plans of adding 3D navigation at the moment.
3D navigation might deceptively look like a single feature but in practice is a scope made with multple features (like how will the UI navigate the space, if an object is dropped to the scene where would it land?.. etc)
Tho I do see why having this now would help 3D game creation. With your notes and observations I’ve noted that there are the common frictions regarding working with 3D with bird’s eye view only:

  • Hard to “guess” the Z position to know if the object is “sitting” properly, therefore…
  • Having to launch the preview every time to see if the objects are “sitting” properly

What other problems did you identify in your class? (future readers: feel free to reply to this message with the friction that you’ve also identified)
3D navigation might not be on the immediate timeline, but I can make tickets to resolve immediate frictions linked to the lack of 3D space navigation. :slight_smile:

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I am sy, I didn´t know it´s not allowed to mention people, who were already part of conversation.

The problems are exactly as you said and some more.

We did also face the following problems with our students due to missing 3D navigation:

  • Difficult and hard to understand different axis and movement of objects along them in 3D Space
  • Understand camera view and positioning of camera in 3D space, very confusing to switch between birds view in editor and game preview in 3D
  • Difficult to place and size 3D objects properly, students need to rerun preview every time in order to confirm their desired changes
  • Difficult to see and confirm details like desired lightning, texturing…
  • Hard to place objects on top of each other properly, must be done via z value instead of in the editor
  • Nearly impossible and very hard to place objects inside each other e. g. if you have an open building and you want to put an object like a table into the building…

My students and me would be very happy to see 3D navigation in 3D space soon. Our 2D games with GDevelop were great and make our students very happy.

Now we start developing 3D games with GDevelop and it´s often quite challenging.

Nevertheless we want to thank you and GDevelop development team for great work! :heart:

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I totally understand the reason why a 3d viewport would be to difficult to add especially to a 2d game engine. I have a thought that might be a solve fo 3d developers need to create there 3d games and something that may help the GDevelop team. The idea is to use the preview be the level editor. I came across this individual on youtube where he created a plugin that used the preview screen in Clickteam Fusion to be the level editor in 3d space. So you can no longer have to create your level in overhead view but in an actual 3d viewport I think this idea might solve allot of things cause now we can navigate in 3d space and we can edit our levels there without the Gdevelop team having to reprogram the entire UI. Just a thought and want to see what others think. thanks

Here’s the youtube link of the individual making the 3d editor in clickteam fusion.

GDevelop actually needs to make up their mind what they want to be: if they want to keep their marketing about being a 3D no-code engine, then they need to actually make it useable. It’s actually offensive to refer to this as a 3D engine in its current state. Please GDevelop, having the option to view scenes from a Perspective view instead of the horrible top-down view is literally the most basic feature any software claiming to have 3D features can have.

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When/if they add 3D navigation, I hope that they add in native 3D ragdoll and maybe even a built in 3D mesh animation like in unreal and godot.

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They’re not care about 3d
I mean they witch gdevelop’s developers

Yeah, I agree with that, it would be a lot more easy to use the editor when using 3d.

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YES we must convert you to gdevelopism
im kidding

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Well. Now that I think of it, procedural lighting would be amazing! I mean 2d lighting exists. It would also probably the best thing for the developers to do : try to work on the whole 3D aspect. it could bring a lot of new people in, including horror game developers like myself which prefer to make their games in 3D.
Not to put pressure on the GDevelop developers though, they’re already doing a great job with what I consider to be the best no-code game engine out there.

1 Like