Rethink how we should handle themes when the node doesn't support it (e.g. Label3D)

[nathanfranke]

See discussion in godotengine/godot#62139

My proposal:

Remove Sprite3D and Label3D and add a new node that displays any arbitrary GUI in a 3d plane.

Internally, it will work something like this:

Viewport
→ GUI nodes
MeshInstance3D
→ QuadMesh
    → Material
        → ViewportTexture

(Our new node will either have to extend viewport or do something fancy to actually create this hierarchy)

Question about this, will the ancestor theme still be propagated even through a Viewport?

[h0lley]

are there common enough use-cases for GUI other than Label in 3D space?

[nathanfranke]

VR is going to be a huge use case. Would also be useful for anything more complex than a single label (e.g. a hboxcontainer with an icon and a label)

[AndreaTerenz]

You could also use this for "floating" UI like markers on targets/objectives/enemies

[Calinou]

You could also use this for "floating" UI like markers on targets/objectives/enemies

Sprite3D can already be used for markers in a 3D world. When used in tandem with Label3D, this covers a lot of use cases already 🙂

Progress bars can be emulated using two Sprite3D nodes or two Label3D nodes: godotengine/godot-demo-projects#761

[AndreaTerenz]

@Calinou yes but it's a bit limited (cant make a whole UI out of labels and sprites). Thankfully this demo exists