Blender and Godot in Game Development with Simon Thommes - Software Engineering Daily Recap

Podcast: Software Engineering Daily

Published: 2025-12-25

Duration: 35 minutes

Guests: Simon Thommes, Joe Nash

Summary

Blender Studio, in collaboration with Godot, developed the micro game Dogwalk using a fully open-source pipeline. Lead Technical Artist Simon Thommes shares insights into the development process and the integration of Blender and Godot.

What Happened

Blender Studio, the creative division of the Blender Foundation, showcases the capabilities of Blender through open projects like films and games. Their recent release, Dogwalk, is a micro game where players control a dog building a snowman with a child in a snowy forest, developed entirely using open-source tools such as Blender, the Godot engine, and Krita.

Simon Thommes, a Lead Technical Artist at Blender Studio, played a crucial role in the development of Dogwalk. He was primarily involved in programming and implementing the pipeline between Blender and Godot. The game focuses on the dynamic interaction between the dog and the child, with gameplay mechanics that influence the emotional state of the child, all within a 20-minute play session.

The choice of art style for Dogwalk was a blend of physically based rendering with a stylized papercraft look. This decision aimed to leverage Blender's strengths in creating visually appealing content while maintaining a unique aesthetic. Blender Studio's approach ensured that artists could work primarily within Blender, using Godot mainly for validation, thanks to the custom extensions made to Blender's GLTF export functionality.

Blender Studio has been at the forefront of open-source development for nearly two decades, constantly integrating new features and bug fixes into Blender, often before official releases. The studio's use of a full open-source pipeline, including sharing short films under a Creative Commons license, exemplifies its commitment to openness and community contribution.

The collaboration with Godot developers is part of Blender Studio's future plans to improve interoperability and enhance pipeline features. Thommes noted the democratic and agile nature of Godot's open-source development, contrasting it with Blender's more centralized approach, where most code is written by employees of the Blender Institute.

Simon Thommes expressed his admiration for Godot's extensibility, particularly its signal functionality, which allows custom functions to be connected to the engine. This extensibility is something he hopes to bring more of into Blender, enhancing its capabilities for both game and non-game projects.

Key Insights