Implement built-in classes Vector4, Vector4i and Projection.
* Two versions of Vector4 (float and integer).
* A Projection class, which is a 4x4 matrix specialized in projection types.
These types have been requested for a long time, but given they were very corner case they were not added before.
Because in Godot 4, reimplementing parts of the rendering engine is now possible, access to these types (heavily used by the rendering code) becomes a necessity.
**Q**: Why Projection and not Matrix4?
**A**: Godot does not use Matrix2, Matrix3, Matrix4x3, etc. naming convention because, within the engine, these types always have a *purpose*. As such, Godot names them: Transform2D, Transform3D or Basis. In this case, this 4x4 matrix is _always_ used as a _Projection_, hence the naming.
* Allows calling into native extensions directly with a pointer
* Makes it easier to implement some APIs more efficiently
* Appears with a "*" in the documentation for the argument.
* Implementing the pointer handling is entirely up to the implementation, although the extension API provides some hint.
* AudioStream has been implemented as an example, allowing to create NativeExtension based AudioStreams.
* Deprecates GDNative in favor of a simpler, lower level interface.
* New extension system allows registering core engine classes.
* Simple header interface in gdnative_interace.h
Happy new year to the wonderful Godot community!
2020 has been a tough year for most of us personally, but a good year for
Godot development nonetheless with a huge amount of work done towards Godot
4.0 and great improvements backported to the long-lived 3.2 branch.
We've had close to 400 contributors to engine code this year, authoring near
7,000 commit! (And that's only for the `master` branch and for the engine code,
there's a lot more when counting docs, demos and other first-party repos.)
Here's to a great year 2021 for all Godot users 🎆
ptrcall is now also used to optimize calls in GDScript, on top of the existing
use by the GDNative and Mono modules.
It no longer makes sense to make it optional.
reduz
Rémi Verschelde
George Marques
Marcel Admiraal
Aaron Franke
Hugo Locurcio