Tweak the default project icon

[Calinou]

This only affects newly created projects.

• Use a 128×128 resolution to make the icon look crisp on hiDPI displays.
  • If you need to go back to 64×64, you can set the Max Size property to 64 in the Import dock and click Reimport.
• Darken the icon's outside area and remove the border, as the contrast rate between the icon and its background is now sufficient.

This different design also allows distinguishing projects that were made with Godot 3.x from projects made with Godot 4.0.

Using the SVG directly in the project is an interesting idea, but I'd prefer to explore it in a future PR as it could potentially break some specific uses of the icon.

This closes godotengine/godot-proposals#1436.

Testing project: test_default_project_icon_2_2.zip

Preview

2D scene prototype

Version with the grayscale icon redesign

3D scene prototype

Version with the grayscale icon redesign

[Mickeon]

One minor side effect of this, I personally feel, is that it makes new projects look "outdated" on a first glace. Perhaps marking pre-4.0 projects in some way would prevent this oddity.

[SilencedPerson]

I agree with Mickeon. Is there any reason why the default Icon couldn't be modulated in the project manager if it is not overridden?

[Calinou]

I agree with Mickeon. Is there any reason why the default Icon couldn't be modulated in the project manager if it is not overridden?

Godot copies the default project icon to every new project you create, so the icon is actually always overridden unless you delete icon.png from the project.

Distinguishing projects from an old Godot version is already being done, but improving this display is something that should be tackled separately from this PR.

[mischiefaaron]

Solving a problem that doesn't exist. If someone wants the blue to be red or green, they can just as easily use a bucket tool in any graphic application and it will look way better too.

[Mickeon]

I wonder if it could be a good idea to keep the icon coloured but the surrounding square is monochrome.

[SilencedPerson]

Solving a problem that doesn't exist. If someone wants the blue to be red or green, they can just as easily use a bucket tool in any graphic application and it will look way better too.

It is a problem worth solving. There is thousands of test projects that use the default Godot Icon as placeholder, in fact, there is so many of them that it is well known meme. The icon sees lot of use it because exactly because people don't need to do precisely what you described.

[Mickeon]

Forgive the poor mock-ups, I just thought that returning some of that recognisable blue tint to the logo would be nice, but I understand the argument about modulation, and how these would kind of break how the logo should be presented(?).

[YuriSizov]

Maybe instead of trying to make the default project icon good for prototyping, we could introduce a special type of texture that would use a built-in "blocking" texture with a few settings, like modulation, stretch/repeat, etc. Grayscale icon doesn't work well for its main purpose, the project icon. It looks disabled in the list.

A "blocking"/prototyping texture of unit size wouldn't be more than a couple of kilobytes and additional code would not be that much of a burden either. We could even just embed Kenney's prototype pack: https://www.kenney.nl/assets/prototype-textures (and, hell, add grayscale Godot for fun and recognition). In vector those amount to about 55 Kb.

[Zireael07]

Actually, embedding prototype textures such as Kenney's is a very good idea.

[ghostbutter-games]

I would advise against this, as well-intended as it is: Grayscale makes the project look 'inactive' or 'outdated', it would be confusing.

[Calinou]

I amended this pull request to use the colored design I made instead.

[mhilbrunner]

Approved in editor PR meeting

[YuriSizov]

Thanks!

[golddotasksquestions]

This totally fucks over all default values we had thus far. Makes it necessary for all those defaults to be reevaluated. TileMap cell size, physics gravity, shape extends ....

64x64 also was at least kind of useable in a pixelart context without having to reimport it.

I'd so much rather Godot would just ship with the svg icon file (so anyone can just import bigger or smaller sizes however they like) and default inport to 64x64 which is at a sweetspot compromise between HD art and pixelart.

[YuriSizov]

I'd so much rather Godot would just ship with the svg icon file

That's the plan, but we decided it can be done in a follow-up.

[Calinou]

To migrate existing projects, you can set Max Size to 64 in the Import dock as mentioned in OP. This works on all textures imported by Godot. This will not allow you to resize the texture to a larger size than its original value, but it's probably not needed often.

I think the default gravity is still OK with the new default icon size. Tilemap cell size is something I'm neutral about – most 2D projects use 64×64 tiles if not smaller, with 128×128 tiles probably being less common except in games with high-resolution artstyles.

Still, I agree that having the icon as a SVG in the project is a good idea. It should work with Android/iOS/HTML5 exports as these save their own PNG icons based on the project icon from memory: #43369

Edit: Done in #64637.