Defold logo
Blog Posts
Blog Posts
2026-01-12

⇠ More posts

Defold release 1.12.0

By Björn Ritzl on Jan 12, 2026

Tagged as: Release notes


Defold 1.12.0

Summary

  • BREAKING CHANGE: (#11491) Rearrange component’s update (by ekharkunov)
  • NEW: (#11386) Added new camera functions for converting between world and screen coordinates. (by AGulev)
  • NEW: (#8309) Added engine throttle performance Lua api (by JCash)
  • NEW: (#9981) Add sys.get_config_boolean() (by appsoluut)
  • NEW: (#10948) Added support for .astc texture format in gui.new_texture() (by JCash)
  • NEW: (#7277) Introduce late_update script function (by ekharkunov)
  • NEW: (#8763) Added sound group mute functionality to C++ dmSDK (by deurell)
  • NEW: (#9844) Added support for text shaping (by JCash)
  • NEW: (#11184) WelcomeScreen: Enter keybinding to open selected project (by JosephFerano)
  • NEW: (#11334) Check ENV and validate DM_SERVICE_PORT (by JosephFerano)
  • NEW: (#3868) Save and Restore open tabs (by JosephFerano)
  • NEW: (#10999) Build runtime-generated fonts from the editor (by matgis)
  • NEW: (#11508) Improve Model rendering performance in Scene View (by matgis)
  • FIX: (#10971) New sound backend for iOS and macOS: AVAudio (by AGulev)
  • FIX: (#11416) Make sure ASTC used in maximum possible cases in HTML5 bundle (by AGulev)
  • FIX: (#10312) Fixed Crash when using raycasts under certain conditions (by DarkRavenStar)
  • FIX: (#11464) Add astc encoding context destruction to deallocate memory (by JCash)
  • FIX: (#9917) Fix frustrum culling for sprites with pivot point (by ekharkunov)
  • FIX: (#11519) ASTC encoder fixes (by AGulev)
  • FIX: (#11419) Added Microsoft Xbox Series S X Controller for Linux (by paweljarosz)
  • FIX: (#11537) Add multithreaded encoding for ASTC encoder (by AGulev)
  • FIX: (#11632) Fix text metrics width calculation (by britzl)
  • FIX: (#11728) Fix memory leak / fragmentation in PreStepEmscripten (by meehaul)
  • FIX: (#11743) Remove validation of glyph order (by britzl)
  • FIX: (#11379) Allow typing tilde (~) on Swedish keyboard layout (by vlaaad)
  • FIX: (#11377) Repaint up to last visible minimap row (by JosephFerano)
  • FIX: (#10891) Update Java version to 25 (by vlaaad)
  • FIX: (#11400) Show errors from exceptions thrown during tile source texture layout (by matgis)
  • FIX: (#11166) Produce user-friendly build errors from invalid Tile Sources (by matgis)
  • FIX: (#11452) Fix exceptions from removed nodes when getting overridden properties (by matgis)
  • FIX: (#11457) Localize resource type labels (by vlaaad)
  • FIX: (#11465) Localize form views (by vlaaad)
  • FIX: (#11462) Fix editor exception when double-clicking on a Build Error from a resource with an empty Outline (by matgis)
  • FIX: (#11487) Localize editor scripts and bundle dialogs (by vlaaad)
  • FIX: (#11461) Fix outline re-ordering (by vlaaad)
  • FIX: (extender#802) Update JDK to 25 (Docker image only) (by ekharkunov)
  • FIX: (extender#801) Fix extension build errors when PodSpec has more than 2 level of subspecs (by ekharkunov)
  • FIX: (extender#806) Rework health report collection (by ekharkunov)
  • FIX: (doc#590) Updated Application Lifecycle for Defold 1.12.0+ and added new diagrams. (by paweljarosz)

Engine

BREAKING CHANGE: (#11491) ‘Rearrange component’s update’ by ekharkunov ⚠️ ⚠️ ⚠️ Possible breaking change ⚠️ ⚠️ ⚠️ Our Lua script update order has changed, and fixed_update() is now called before update(). We’ve also added late_update() which happens last in the engine frame, just before the render script is called.

For each engine update, you will now get:

* fixed_update(fixed_dt) -- zero or more times *
* update(dt)             -- one time
* late_update(dt)        -- one time

In terms of how components are updated in relation to those functions. Between each of these steps, we also flush any posted messages, it’s just left out here to make the description more compact:

  • Engine Component Fixed Update (zero or more steps)
    • Lua fixed_update(fixed_dt)
      • Lua Flush Messages
    • …
    • Physics Fixed Update(fixed_dt) *
    • …
  • Engine Component Update
    • Lua update(dt)
      • Lua Flush Messages
    • …
    • Physics Update(dt) *
    • …
  • Engine Component Late Update
    • Lua late_update(dt)
      • Lua Flush Messages
    • …

*) Note that fixed_update() is only called if you’ve enabled it in project settings “Use fixed timestep”

For further information regarding life cycle, and component update order, we’ll refer to the documentation

NEW: (#11386) ‘Added new camera functions for converting between world and screen coordinates. ‘ by AGulev Adds three camera-space conversion helpers to the Lua camera module:

  • camera.world_to_screen(world_pos, [camera])
  • camera.screen_xy_to_world(x, y, [camera])
  • camera.screen_to_world(pos, [camera]) 
    -- Place objects at the touch point.
function on_input(self, action_id, action)
if action_id == hash("touch") then
    if action.pressed then
        local world_position = camera.screen_xy_to_world(action.screen_x, action.screen_y)
        go.set_position(world_position, "/go1")
    end
end
end

-- Place objects at the touch point with a random Z position, keeping them within the visible view zone.
function on_input(self, action_id, action)
    if action_id == hash("touch") then
        if action.pressed then
            local percpective_camera = msg.url("#perspective_camera")
            local random_z = math.random(camera.get_near_z(percpective_camera) + 0.01, camera.get_far_z(percpective_camera) - 0.01)
            local world_position = camera.screen_to_world(vmath.vector3(action.screen_x, action.screen_y, random_z), percpective_camera)
            go.set_position(world_position, "/go1")
        end
    end
end

-- Convert go position into screen position
go.update_world_transform("/go1")
local world_pos = go.get_world_position("/go1")
local screen_pos = camera.world_to_screen(world_pos)

NEW: (#8309) ‘Added engine throttle performance Lua api’ by JCash This api allows the developer to skip engine updates altogether, except input detection.

  • No update or rendering will occur once the engine is throttled
  • Any input will wake up the engine again
  • The engine will be throttled again after the cooldown period

Api:

sys.set_engine_throttle(false) -- No throttling, full engine updates + rendering (default)
sys.set_engine_throttle(true, 1.0) -- Throttling with a cooldown. Engine will wake up for 1 second after each input
sys.set_engine_throttle(true, 0.0) -- Throttling with a cooldown. Engine will wake up for 1 frame after each input.

NEW: (#9981) ‘Add sys.get_config_boolean()’ by appsoluut Allow to get the config parameter as a boolean in Lua. Converts only 1 and 0 to their boolean counterparts.

NEW: (#10948) ‘Added support for .astc texture format in gui.new_texture()’ by JCash This allows for using compressed textures in gui.

There are some restrictions on the input .astc file:

  • Format should be RGBA
  • The flip parameter is not supported, so make sure texture is already flipped

Example:

local path = "/assets/images/logo_4x4.astc"
local buffer = sys.load_resource(path)
local n = gui.new_box_node(pos, vmath.vector3(size, size, 0))
gui.new_texture(path, 0, 0, "astc", buffer, false)
gui.set_texture(n, path)

NEW: (#7277) ‘Introduce late_update script function’ by ekharkunov New script function late_update(self, dt) was introduced. That function runs after regular update(self, dt) function. All in-games messages are dispacthed in between update(self, dt) and late_update(self, dt). You can safely update game object’s transforms in late_update(self, dt) because components will update inner transforms after script execution.

NEW: (#8763) ‘Added sound group mute functionality to C++ dmSDK’ by deurell Add functionality to mute sound groups from extensions.

NEW: (#9844) ‘Added support for text shaping’ by JCash Added support for

  • Text shaping
  • Font Collections

Deprecated support for the extension-font native extension. Most that code has moved into the core engine, along with major improvements to the workflow.

We added the Lua script functions:

  • font.add_font(font_hash, ttf_hash) – associate .ttf font with .fontc
  • font.remove_font(font_hash, ttf_hash)
  • font.prewarm_text(font_hash, text, callback) – generate necessary glyphs before rendering.
  • font.get_info(font_hash) - print info about the .fontc

Text shaping

This feature adds support for unicode text shaping at runtime. For instance proper pair kernings, ligatures and right-to-left text.

The overhead of the extra engine code is around 22%, which means ca 178kb size increase on Wasm target (brotli compressed). That should be compared to the prerasterized font textures in our ligacy system, and the new system where it includes the raw .ttf fonts. We feel that this is an acceptable cost to pay, for the return value of getting better support for different languages.

Prewarming glyph cache

As the text layout system considers the internal glyph indices of a font, it is no longer sufficient to specify a list of code points to use for prewarming the glyph texture cache. Instead, add an example text is currently recommended

Asynchronous

On systems that support threading, the glyph image generation is handled on a worker thread. Due to this fact, and the fact that the font resource glyph cache may not yet contain your needed glyphs, we also added helper functions to prewarm the font glyph cache.

The helper has a callback function, which is useful to let you know when the glyphs have landed in the cache, and it’s safe to show the text on screen.

local font_hash = hash("/assets/fonts/roboto.fontc")
font.prewarm_text(font_hash, "Some text")

Font Collections

To help with localization, we added support to our font resources to associate multiple .ttf files with a single font resource. It allows for easier memory management. E.g. only load the language fonts you need.

local font_hash = hash("/assets/fonts/roboto.fontc")
local ttf_hash = hash("/assets/fonts/Roboto/Roboto-Bold.ttf")
font.add_font(font_hash, ttf_hash)

How to use in your project

You need to…

  • set the font.runtime_generation = 1 in game.project to use .ttf fonts at runtime.
  • use an app manifest, selecting the “Font Layout” feature.

FIX: (#10971) ‘New sound backend for iOS and macOS: AVAudio’ by AGulev This new backend replaces the deprecated OpenAL backend on iOS and macOS.

FIX: (#11416) ‘Make sure ASTC used in maximum possible cases in HTML5 bundle’ by AGulev Because of a Chromium-side issue, Defold uses a workaround that disables ASTC compression when the issue is detected, falling back to ETC2 - which offers lower visual quality.

This update narrows the fallback to ETC2 so it only applies to paged atlases in affected cases.
As a result, single-paged atlases now use ASTC for maximum texture quality, while multi-paged atlases remain visible even on devices impacted by the Chromium problem.

FIX: (#10312) ‘Fixed Crash when using raycasts under certain conditions’ by DarkRavenStar This fixes a crash when the length of a 2D or 3D raycast is zero. This fix specifically takes into account the case when the ray length becomes zero after applying the physics.scale setting in game.project.

FIX: (#11464) ‘Add astc encoding context destruction to deallocate memory’ by JCash Added memory fix when using ASTC texture compression. It previously leaked memory after each compressed image.

FIX: (#9917) ‘Fix frustrum culling for sprites with pivot point ‘ by ekharkunov Fixed culling for sprites with pivot points. Also implemented some optimization on how geometry data calculated and stored between batches. So now it should be a bit faster in terms of calculation but consume some memory to store cached information.

FIX: (#11519) ‘ASTC encoder fixes’ by AGulev

  • Updated the ASTC encoder to version 5.3.0
  • Enabled the release flag to ensure full performance
  • Fixed the ASTC 4x4 RGB build
FIX: (#11419) __‘Added Microsoft Xbox Series S X Controller for Linux’__ by paweljarosz
Added gamepad mapping for the Microsoft Xbox Series S X controller for Linux to the built-in default.gamepads.

FIX: (#11537) ‘Add multithreaded encoding for ASTC encoder’ by AGulev Speed up the ASTC encoder using a few threads per image (in addition to encoding a few images at the same time)

FIX: (#11632) ‘Fix text metrics width calculation’ by britzl This change fixes an issue with resource.get_text_metrics() calculation where the width of the last character of a string of text is incorrect. This leads to problems when placing words one by one or align other objects next to words.

FIX: (#11728) ‘Fix memory leak / fragmentation in PreStepEmscripten’ by meehaul Fixed a memory leak on every frame with Emscripten builds, resulting in significant heap fragmentation and usage.

FIX: (#11743) ‘Remove validation of glyph order’ by britzl This fixes a crash when using fonts in the BMFont format when the glyphs of the font are not sorted in increasing order.

Editor

NEW: (#11184) ‘WelcomeScreen: Enter keybinding to open selected project’ by JosephFerano Currently pressing ENTER in the welcome screen to select a project doesn’t do anything. This PR adds the ENTER keybinding so it opens the currently selected project.

NEW: (#11334) ‘Check ENV and validate DM_SERVICE_PORT’ by JosephFerano Editor used to ignore DM_SERVICE_PORT and always use a dynamic port. Now the editor can read the port when the environment variable supplied.

NEW: (#3868) ‘Save and Restore open tabs’ by JosephFerano Currently, when a user has open tabs and assigned to different panes, when they close the editor, they are all closed out and require opening them up again. This PR will restore all previous open tabs, in the correct order, and in the proper splits.

NEW: (#10999) ‘Build runtime-generated fonts from the editor’ by matgis The editor now respects the font.runtime_generation setting in game.project. Previously only Bob would produce runtime-generated fonts when this setting was enabled for the project.

NEW: (#11508) ‘Improve Model rendering performance in Scene View’ by matgis The editor responsiveness in scenes that feature Models has been drastically improved, especially when per-instance vertex attributes are involved.

Partially adresses #9817.

FIX: (#11379) ‘Allow typing tilde (~) on Swedish keyboard layout’ by vlaaad Now it’s possible to enter the tilde character (~) when using the Swedish keyboard layout by pressing ⌥ ^ followed by space or another character.

FIX: (#11377) ‘Repaint up to last visible minimap row’ by JosephFerano The minimap in the code editor wasn’t syntax highlighting all the lines visible in larger files. Now the minimap will have syntax colors all the way through.

FIX: (#10891) ‘Update Java version to 25’ by vlaaad Defold Java version is updated to 25 (from 21). If you are only using the editor, you don’t need to do anything, but if you use bob.jar (e.g., in a CI pipeline), you’ll need to update Java from 21 to 25.

The update gives us a small, but noticeable performance and memory use improvement:

  • memory usage when opening a big project decreased by 5% (7.4Gb -> 7Gb)
  • time to open a big project decreased by 17% (4m34s -> 3m47s)
  • time to build a big project decreased by 10% (8m18s -> 7m20s)

FIX: (#11400) ‘Show errors from exceptions thrown during tile source texture layout’ by matgis

FIX: (#11166) ‘Produce user-friendly build errors from invalid Tile Sources’ by matgis

  • All invalid properties in Tile Sources now generate clickable build errors.
  • Highlight Tile Source Animations with invalid properties in the Outline View.
  • Render errors in the Scene View will now report the source file when the error originates from a substructure node.
  • Fixed Exception in the editor when setting the Tile Source Tile Margin to a negative value.
  • Tile Source Tile Width and Height must be positive.
  • The error tooltip for the Sprite Default Animation field now refers to the correct Image property label.

FIX: (#11452) ‘Fix exceptions from removed nodes when getting overridden properties’ by matgis

FIX: (#11457) ‘Localize resource type labels’ by vlaaad

FIX: (#11465) ‘Localize form views’ by vlaaad

FIX: (#11462) ‘Fix editor exception when double-clicking on a Build Error from a resource with an empty Outline ‘ by matgis

  • Fixed exception in the editor if the user double-clicked a Build Error originating from a resource whose Outline view was empty after opened.
  • Fixed empty Outline view for Tile Sources whose tile count couldn’t be determined as a result of invalid property values. This was a regression introduced by #11442.

FIX: (#11487) ‘Localize editor scripts and bundle dialogs’ by vlaaad

FIX: (#11461) ‘Fix outline re-ordering’ by vlaaad We introduced a regression in 1.11.2 during the outline refactor that made re-ordering behavior erratic. Now the issue is fixed.

Other

FIX: (extender#802) ‘Update JDK to 25 (Docker image only)’ by ekharkunov The base Docker image has been updated to use JDK 25

FIX: (extender#801) ‘Fix extension build errors when PodSpec has more than 2 level of subspecs’ by ekharkunov This change fixes issues when building extensions with certain Cocopod dependencies, for instance Appmetrica.

FIX: (extender#806) ‘Rework health report collection’ by ekharkunov Improved how the data for the build server status page is collected.

FIX: (doc#590) ‘Updated Application Lifecycle for Defold 1.12.0+ and added new diagrams.’ by paweljarosz


⇠ More posts