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Carrie Sloane @carriesloane.bsky.social · 1h

I wrote up my main proposals here if you are curious: carriesloane.com/godotproposals

carriesloane.com

GodotProposals — Carrie Sloane

Godot Proposals

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Carrie Sloane @carriesloane.bsky.social · 1h

Also I wrote up my main proposals here if anyone is curious: carriesloane.com/godotproposals If you are a Godot tech art expert I'd appreciate an eye on these, to make sure they don't already have this functionality where I can't see it!

carriesloane.com

GodotProposals — Carrie Sloane

Godot Proposals

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Carrie Sloane @carriesloane.bsky.social · 1h

I know some things are already in development, so wanted to check about that - but also wanted to talk about how best to get a proposal approved or actually looked at

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Carrie Sloane @carriesloane.bsky.social · 1h

@clayjohn.bsky.social Hi there! I am a 3D/tech artist who wants to try to improve Godot's visual shader functionality. I have a bunch of feature tweaks/additions I'd like to propose based on trying it out for the past few days, and was told to check in with you :) Can I DM you my list?

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Carrie Sloane @carriesloane.bsky.social · 1h

I truly really believe in trying things out and proposing how to improve them, instead of just saying they don't work!! I want a world where Godot is more viable

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Carrie Sloane @carriesloane.bsky.social · 1h

- For Multiply to work like it does with colors in Unity/Unreal/Substance Designer, *it needs to be done with a VectorOp mode (since the colors are Vector3s/4s w/ alpha)*, NOT Multiply node.

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Carrie Sloane @carriesloane.bsky.social · 1h

- Instead of Lerp, Godot uses Mix. You may need to set this to Color instead of its default, Scalar. - Instead of Vector3 for colors, Godot uses Color Parameter

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Carrie Sloane @carriesloane.bsky.social · 1h

Here's some tips from moving from Unreal/Unity to Godot, for tech artists: - Creating a texture parameter is a bit more involved than in Unreal/Unity. Add a Texture2DParameter node *with the type set to Color*, hook it up to a Texture2D's sampler2D input. The Texture2D should be set to SamplerPort.

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Carrie Sloane @carriesloane.bsky.social · 1h

So for now I will be continuing to use UE5 for my personal project, but I will not be updating to UE6 unless Epic changes their stance on AI being the path forward. I will also be contributing to Godot's development for 3D/visual shaders.

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Carrie Sloane @carriesloane.bsky.social · 1h

There are too many features that are missing or broken for it to be viable to switch without significant time investment to create those features. I will be proposing/linking to additions of those features and will link below as I do so.

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Carrie Sloane @carriesloane.bsky.social · 1h

More info: I use visual shaders*, and with Godot’s implementation it is POSSIBLE for me to achieve parity in results, but every step is frustrating, difficult, and time-consuming compared to other engines. *No, I cannot make shaders with code. Visual shader systems should be equally supported.

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Carrie Sloane @carriesloane.bsky.social · 1h

So I really wanted to switch to Godot but unfortunately, after testing it for the past few days, my conclusion is that it is still not yet viable for 3D/tech artists coming from a background of using Unreal or even Unity. I plan to contribute proposals to try to improve this, documented here!

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Carrie Sloane @carriesloane.bsky.social · 2h

Sigh, I had to change the UVfunc from panning to scaling. Okay, that's how to do it. It seems like Godot has more multi-purpose nodes in some instances, like this, but in other instances they are more specific (ie multiply vs vectorop). Hard to figure out.

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Carrie Sloane @carriesloane.bsky.social · 2h

Okay Godot people! How do I set up a parameter for tiling a texture, like this in Unreal? Everything I can find online is way more complex than this, but I want it to be simple like this. Second image is what I have in Godot, why does this not work?

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Carrie Sloane @carriesloane.bsky.social · 3h

unfortunately for me, my career focus is on 3D and tech art :PPP

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Carrie Sloane @carriesloane.bsky.social · 3h

Okay cool! My plan is to finish trying to port this visual shader, and then write up all my proposals from that. Will run by folks first

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Carrie Sloane @carriesloane.bsky.social · 4h

Yeahhhh, I’m a senior 3D/tech artist who’s been using UE for like 12 years. I really want to switch but I don’t know if I can, I think I may need to stay on UE5 for my personal projects while also proposing some of these features to Godot. Do you have any experience proposing features?

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Carrie Sloane @carriesloane.bsky.social · 4h

Damm okay, I use this all the time, so it’s not really feasible to not have it. Will propose this as a suggestion

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Carrie Sloane @carriesloane.bsky.social · 4h

I guess I’m just not sure how to make things when I can’t preview aspects of those things as I’m doing it (lack of shader preview, buffer visualization modes). How did you get around that?

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Carrie Sloane @carriesloane.bsky.social · 4h

Or well technically looks like I have something hooked up but it’s a black texture. Maybe that’s what’s wrong, I shall test. Any idea about how to visualize shader buffers like metallic/roughness etc in editor?

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Carrie Sloane @carriesloane.bsky.social · 4h

Ah it looks like it’s just for scripted shaders. I think I have some things I will propose as updates including this

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Carrie Sloane @carriesloane.bsky.social · 4h

Oh so for context, this is a rock! So it’s not metallic, or at least I have nothing hooked up to metallic (so I assumed that means it’s set to 0, maybe incorrect!)

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Carrie Sloane @carriesloane.bsky.social · 5h

Sorry for the reply spam here, I want to give this engine a fair shot but there are a few things that aren’t working as I would expect them to. I appreciate your other point about looking for new workflows, but there are some engine features I feel like I can’t work efficiently without

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Carrie Sloane @carriesloane.bsky.social · 5h

And a few more things - any solutions for buffer visualization modes à la my post here? bsky.app/profile/carr... And any idea why Unshaded mode does this? Is it a bug? bsky.app/profile/carr...

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Carrie Sloane @carriesloane.bsky.social · 5h

This makes sense! There’s a few things I’m really struggling with, one of them is ability to preview a step of a material along the way (right click > live material preview in UE). It’s pretty important to my workflow. Is there a godot equivalent aside from just hooking that part up to output?

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Carrie Sloane @carriesloane.bsky.social · 5h

I thought the phrasing was weird but I assumed that was due to the goblin persona

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Carrie Sloane @carriesloane.bsky.social · 20h

Also not sure about the second one, I did see the website preview once and went along my merry way making things, but then when I did something else and came back the icon was gone. What's the best way to test this?

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Carrie Sloane @carriesloane.bsky.social · 20h

No, alas I am clicking the carrot and I do not see it!

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Carrie Sloane @carriesloane.bsky.social · 20h

Hi! This is very cool. I'm on Windows and I noticed the little heart icon in the system task/status bar does not consistently appear. It goes away after closing the program, and at first if I reran the executable it came back but it's gone again. How can I ... make it stay there?

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Carrie Sloane @carriesloane.bsky.social · 23h

Wait I figured it out, to use Multiply for color purposes you need a VectorOp like this (makes sense, the colors are vector3s as far as I understand)

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Carrie Sloane @carriesloane.bsky.social · 23h

Okay, delving into this a bit more and I think another core issue is Godot and Unity seem to calculate Multiply differently. Here's a visual with shaders + unlit mode. Substance Designer also does it the same way Unreal does, so I'm very used to this. Is this a Godot bug?

Visual showing UE vs Godot multiply nodes

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Carrie Sloane @carriesloane.bsky.social · 23h

(actually, this eye appears to not be a preview of the shader at that stage, just of the texture being shown there)

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Carrie Sloane @carriesloane.bsky.social · 13/10/2026

also, for this one - in theory I/one could make these and publish them as add-ons. Perhaps I will!

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Carrie Sloane @carriesloane.bsky.social · 13/10/2026

and with that, it is time for lunch, will come back after lunch to attempt to debug the texture blend!

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Carrie Sloane @carriesloane.bsky.social · 13/10/2026

3. Lack of more complex nodes like CheapContrast, FlattenNormal, etc. Tried to recreate CheapContrast here according to a thing I found online but it's a little wonky. All should be able to be recreated just... more annoying to do from scratch

Exploration to recreated unreal's CheapContrast

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Carrie Sloane @carriesloane.bsky.social · 13/10/2026

2. Organization into frames is more difficult. A bunch of things written down here that I may officially request - i.e.: Would like the ability to select several nodes + right click, add frame, and have it include all those nodes in the frame. Better than dragging them all in one by one etc.

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Carrie Sloane @carriesloane.bsky.social · 13/10/2026

1. It's difficult to preview shader steps along the way to debug issues The show/hide eyeball exists, but less helpful than UE right click > preview because it is 2D, so doesn't have 3D info like my worldspace texture. Image 1: UE material preview Image 2: Godot material preview (at same stage)

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Carrie Sloane @carriesloane.bsky.social · 13/10/2026

Trying to get the mask blending working now to blend the height with a tiling texture to add variation. Running into a few issues but I think my larger issues are:

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Carrie Sloane @carriesloane.bsky.social · 13/10/2026

Hey I got basic height-based material setup working! I had to set the Mix node to Color from its default Scalar.

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Carrie Sloane @carriesloane.bsky.social · 13/10/2026

Another interesting difference - in UE, a color parameter is just a Vector3. In Godot, there are separate color + Vector3 parameters. I wonder how they're different

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Carrie Sloane @carriesloane.bsky.social · 13/10/2026

TBF this same thing is called Blend in Substance Designer so... it is a function of many names

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Carrie Sloane @carriesloane.bsky.social · 13/10/2026

Wait it's just called Mix in Godot! Okay, I can deal with that!

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Carrie Sloane @carriesloane.bsky.social · 13/10/2026

Uh oh, Godot visual shaders don't have lerp... lerp, my beloved!!! (also I can't find an add-on)

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Carrie Sloane @carriesloane.bsky.social · 13/10/2026

Oop, my UE shader relies on pixel normal worldspace; Godot just has screenspace. But I found an add-on that does worldspace! Pretty cool!

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Carrie Sloane @carriesloane.bsky.social · 13/10/2026

Okay, got the base setup, going to try adding in the height-based stuff now

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Carrie Sloane @carriesloane.bsky.social · 13/10/2026

Okay I think I figured out the problem, there was no texture in the "instance" material. (Which is weird because I set it earlier, but it got reset I guess?). Working as desired now

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