Last week, the Godot community celebrated the release of Godot 4.3, a milestone that brings a host of new features and improvements. At W4 Games, we're proud to have contributed several key updates specifically for Meta Quest headsets, ensuring that developers can leverage the full power of Godot for immersive and mixed-reality experiences. These advancements were made possible through our close collaboration with Meta, further enhancing Godot's capabilities on this platform.
Key Contributions
Our work on Godot 4.3 has focused on optimizing and expanding the capabilities of Meta Quest headsets within the Godot engine. Here’s a brief overview of the most significant updates:
- Composition Layers
We added support for composition layers, allowing for crisper and clearer 2D visuals by rendering Godot viewports directly to the headset. This minimizes blurriness in 2D content, especially text, enhancing the overall visual experience. - Vulkan Mobile Renderer Fix
A long-standing issue causing flickering on the Meta Quest 3 with the Vulkan renderer was finally resolved. Our team collaborated with the community and Meta to identify the root cause and implement a workaround, significantly improving the stability of VR applications on this platform. - Meta XR Simulator Support
Developers can now test XR applications more efficiently using the Meta XR Simulator on Windows and macOS. We worked closely with Meta to debug and refine this tool, which allows for iteration without needing to constantly wear the headset. - Enhanced Reference Spaces
We introduced support for the Local Floor reference space, which combines the benefits of Local and Stage spaces for a more accurate and immersive VR experience. Additionally, developers can now change the reference space dynamically during gameplay. - Advanced Passthrough
Passthrough features have been moved to the godot_openxr_vendors extension, enabling advanced functionality like mesh-based geometry instances and custom visual adjustments. - Unified Hand, Body, and Face Tracking System
We helped standardize hand, body, and face tracking systems, which are now available in Godot 4.3, providing more cohesive and accurate tracking for VR applications. - Scene Understanding
With support for scene understanding, Godot can now interpret real-world room layouts, allowing virtual objects to interact more naturally with physical spaces. This addition makes it easier to create engaging, mixed-reality experiences where virtual objects can be anchored and interact with the real environment. - Spatial Anchors
The support for spatial anchors allows virtual objects to maintain stable positions in mixed reality scenarios, enhancing the sense of immersion and consistency in AR applications.
Additional Details
- Composition Layers
- PR: https://github.com/godotengine/godot/pull/89880
- Meta Quest headsets provide some additional features for composition layers, some of which we added to the ‘godot_openxr_vendors’ extension.
- Tutorial: https://godotvr.github.io/godot_openxr_vendors/manual/meta/composition_layers.html
- Vulkan Mobile Renderer Fix
- Meta XR Simulator Support
- Feature page: Faster Iteration for Quest Developers with Meta XR Simulator (Experimental)
- PR: https://github.com/godotengine/godot/pull/94412
- Thank you Bastiaan Olij for writing the original patch!
- Reference Spaces
- The Local Floor Reference Space will work on any OpenXR runtime that supports the necessary OpenXR extension, but Godot can also emulate it on any OpenXR runtime that doesn’t support it.
- PR: https://github.com/godotengine/godot/pull/87235
- Passthrough
- PR: https://github.com/godotengine/godot/pull/87630
- Tutorial: https://godotvr.github.io/godot_openxr_vendors/manual/meta/passthrough.html
- Unified tracking systems
- Thank you Malcolm Nixon for implementing Meta’s body and face tracking!
- PR: https://github.com/godotengine/godot/pull/88639
- Scene Understanding
- Spatial Anchors
- API documentation, tutorials & Samples
- Created new documentation site which hosts API documentation and tutorials: https://godotvr.github.io/godot_openxr_vendors/
- Added numerous sample projects: https://github.com/GodotVR/godot_openxr_vendors/tree/master/samples