Line Renderer

A Godot Plugin implementation of a line renderer in Godot 4.0, useful for rendering cylindrical volume such as lasers, trails, etc. Based on the Godot 3.0 version by @dbp8890, which is based on the helpful C# implementation by @paulohyy and forked from to a Godot 4 port by @LemiSt24 with some addtional creature comforts. Made to a plugin by @betalars.

Installation and Usage

Reccomended:

1. Get this via the Built-in Godot AssetLib. Do not install the Demo Folder, when you don't need it.
2. Activate the Plugin in your Project Settings.
3. Add a new LineRenderer3D to your scene.

To edit the line's points, simply edit the points member variable of the line renderer, and add/remove points from the array (see demo project for details). This can also be done via the editor in Godot.

Features

• Start thickness/end thickness: how thick to make the line, which will be interpolated between each segment.
• Corner smooth/cap smooth: how much smoothing to apply to the line's corners/caps. Generally, values around 5 work well. A value of 2 results in pointed corners/caps.
• Draw caps/corners: Enables/disables drawing caps or corners separately.
• Global coords: If enabled, the line's points are assumed to be global coordinates, which are independent of the line's transform or its parent. To have the line move/rotate with either itself or its parent, uncheck this so that the points are local.
• Scale texture: Checking this box tiles the texture, automatically repeating in the line's axial direction. Unchecking this box stretches the texture instead along the line's segments.

Limitations

• Since this effectively uses camera-facing billboards, as with most billboards, certain angles can break the illusion of cylindrical volume.
• Corners and caps currently have suboptimal UV mapping, but textures formed in the shape of a line should generally work well.
• Texture scaling doesn't connect neatly to each segment at the moment; however, this is not very noticable in most cases.
• Does not yet have gizmos

Demo Instructions

To use the demo, click anywhere on the screen to add a line segment. The camera automatically orbits around a point; use the arrow keys to change direction.

License

1. MIT License (credit to @dbp8890, @paulohyy and @LemiSt24 for initial implementations)