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To get started, head over to official Godot download page and download the appropriate version for your operating system. Godot is available for Windows, macOS, and Linux (+ Even for Android).
Once the download is complete, extract the files to a folder on your computer. Godot doesn’t require installation—it’s a self-contained executable.
Once installed, launch Godot. You'll be greeted with the project manager window, which will allow you to create or open projects.
Godot project manager window
Creating a new Godot project is really easy:
- In the Godot project manager and click on the "New Project" button.
- Name your project (Ex: "HelloGodot") and choose a directory to save it.
- Ensure the renderer is set to "Mobile" for mobile apps, which is optimized for rendering in mobile devices.
- Click "Create & Edit" to enter the main editor.
Create new project
When you launch the Godot editor for the first time, you’ll encounter its well-organized, user-friendly interface. Here's a breakdown of the key sections you'll use:
- Scene Tree: This is where all your app’s elements, controls, and other components are listed. It displays a hierarchical structure of the current scene.
- Inspector: This panel shows properties and settings for the currently selected node.
- Viewport: The viewport is the central work area where you visually design your user interface, place controls, and preview your app.
- File System: This pane will show all the files, resources and scripts in your project.
Godot interface
A node is a fundamental building block in Godot. Each node represents an element of your app, such as a sprite, sound, physics body, or UI element. Nodes have properties, methods, and signals, and they are organized hierarchically. Every scene in Godot is built using nodes, and the relationships between them form a scene tree.
Example node types: Sprite, KinematicBody, Label, Camera, etc. Nodes can inherit functionality from other nodes.
Nodes in the Scene tree
A scene is a collection of nodes organized in a tree. In Godot, a scene can represent anything from a UI element, or a complete page. Scenes can be reused and combined to create complex structures.
Scenes are a way to group nodes that work together. You can load and instance scenes during runtime, making them highly modular.
Instancing refers to the process of creating a copy (or instance) of a scene to use multiple times in your app. Instances are useful for reusing elements without having to duplicate code or assets. You can modify each instance individually if needed.
Resources are data containers that can be reused across different nodes or scenes. They are used to store things like graphics, scripts, sounds, and more. Resources can be shared between scenes, reducing memory usage and improving performance.
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Add root node: Click on "User Interface", the root node holds all the child node in the composition. Here we are creating a user interface, so we add a "User Interface" node as the root.
This creates a basic control node as the root node.
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Build the scene: Now that we have a root node, we can add other nodes into the scene and build the interface we need.
Click on "+" button to add a child node.
This shows "Create New Node" window where you can search for different types of nodes Godot provides and add them to your scene.
Lets add a Button
This adds a small button to the scene as a child of the root node
Increase the size of the button by clicking and dragging on one of the corners, and move the button to the center of the scene.
The text of the button can be changed by inputing the text you need to the Text input box in the Inspector.
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Save the scene: Now that we have added the nodes we need, let's save the scene.
Gove a name to the scene and click "Save", here I have saved my scene as "main.tscn".
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Run the Project: Click on "Run Project" button in the top right corner to run the project.
This will ask you to select the main scene. Click on "Select Current".
Tada! You have just created your first Godot project and run it!
This basic walkthrough showed you how to create a simple Godot project, add components and build the UI and run the project. In the next lessons we will dig more deeper and learn the tools Godot provides to build Games/UIs.
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