Polygons and polygon accessories

[insomniacUNDERSCORElemon]

Currently 2D polygons are usable if you have a very simple style and needs, otherwise the lack of proper editors (and certain features for workflow and capability) makes using the existing capability clunky at best.

For some specific feature suggestions, I have some in-depth ideas/explanation here: https://github.com/godot-extended-libraries/godot-ideas/issues/14

It's in that same thread, but I'll repost it here again, the most artistic thing I've made with polygons:

Note that I'm neither an artist nor a gamedev. I specifically designed it as an example of something that'd be tedious to edit later if you decide you want a different base color (though it will happen with many designs, particularly whenever color is blended in any way or used in complex designs), but I also originally wanted a design on the balloon but gave up on that when it was too complicated working with the mesh trick (for hard-edge colors, such as the hexagon/beach-ball example) to get a design that looked good.

Also, if the capability was there (and I think the ideas in the linked issue thread would be enough) I don't think it'd be too odd to use Godot as a 2D polygonal art program. Particularly as I'm not aware of dedicated software (on Linux at least) that fills that niche. Sure you could do it with Blender and planes, but that's not quite the same (particularly for people who aren't skilled with Blender).

[Xrayez]

Polygon features are my favorite, although I've never got to experience to do vertex painting with those. If those features can be implemented via the editor alone, I think it has its place in Goost (might be even easier to implement given the C++ part has access to more editor capabilities compared to what GDScript plugins can offer).

Normal/specular map painting would be quite useful as well (not sure if related).

But if there's something which cannot be done via module alone, I'm afraid that Goost would have to re-implement Polygon2D functionality from scratch, which is something I'd like to avoid (major limitations should be resolved in Godot first).

If you've seen recent additions like PolyNode2D, those indeed have normal maps which Polygon2D don't have at the moment. One could also say that PolyNode2D is another version of Polygon2D, except that its use case is geared more towards to CSG-like behavior as in CSG 3D nodes in Godot.

[insomniacUNDERSCORElemon]

If you've seen recent additions like PolyNode2D, those indeed have normal maps which Polygon2D don't have at the moment

Nice to have (same with specular), but I'm more interested if those are implemented as vertex color rather than pixel (I forgot to mention that in the idea issue, but did mention it in the GIP comment).

I've mentioned that the editor for internal faces could be much faster (or even auto-generated), CSG isn't very useful here unless you're doing level design or maybe geometric art (something like Kurzgesagt), and even then you're not getting a smooth result (particularly visible with circles) without bezier curves so it doesn't seem worth it to me.

Though maybe 2D polygon CSG would be worth it if I could still do the low-poly aesthetic with it, for instance having a low vertex count to get something like my balloon example with a few shapes (circles/ovals). Forgive me if that's already possible.

[insomniacUNDERSCORElemon]

@Xrayez I just added an edit to a comment on my clip children issue:

Just to be clear I think the blend mode used here should exclusively use alpha. No color blending of any other kind (unless it can be configurable or a different blend type), maybe call this alpha mask/alpha-only mask or alpha inherit.

For polygons: the non-polygon space inside the bounding box should be interpreted as fully transparent (similar to textures that don't use the entire canvas), if such a thing can be done here.

Aside from the obvious engine improvements* my reason for posting this here was I was wondering if a similar bounding-box technique could be used to make all polygons fully compatible with 2D shaders designed for textures (something that can't be done with a dummy texture, such as a glow or border around the object).

Though I could see backbuffer being needed (and thus incompatibility with clip children or canvasgroups) and thus not viable.

*= in 4.0 fixing the blending of clip children, or in general altering blend modes to work better (more+better blend modes, blend modes (or an option?) that work better without backbuffer(?))

EDIT: Forgot to say if it is possible to add pixel shader support for polygons, it'll be useful if you have an option to grow the bounding box. Because obviously the bounding box is touching some of the vertices and thus your shader will get cut off prematurely. A perfect square would give you NO space for the shader, a square rotated 45 degrees would give you a lot of area for the shader but would cut off the shader at the corners of the square (chamfered square).