Glimpse: See Behind Trees, Walls and Roofs in Godot 4

Glimpse is a Godot 4.7 addon with 48 styles for top down and 3/4 view 2D games. When a character walks behind a tree, a wall or a roof, the thing in front opens around them and the part still covered is drawn through it as a silhouette. A free lite with 12 of the styles is on this page.

Why it exists

The usual fix is to fade a tree whenever the player is near it, which also fades it when the player stands in front of it, and stops working once the trees are tiles. Glimpse uses the rule Godot itself draws by: a character whose feet are higher on the screen than an occluder's, and whose sprite overlaps it, is behind it. Everything else is left alone. A TileMapLayer opens only the tiles in front of someone, a roof opens while someone stands inside its footprint, and two characters behind one tree each keep their own silhouette in depth order.

48 styles in six families

• Cutouts: a clean window through the occluder, from Soft Circle and Keyhole to Porthole and Arched Window.
• Dither and print: the occluder dissolves in a pattern, such as Bayer, halftone, blinds or honeycomb.
• Whole object: the whole tree, wall or roof turns to glass, a wireframe, a blueprint or a pen sketch.
• Organic edges: leaves part, ink bleeds, smoke curls, frost and paper tear around the window.
• Silhouettes: the occluder stays solid and the hidden character is drawn through it, as X Ray, outline, glow, hologram or team colours.
• Combined: a window and a silhouette designed together, such as Spotlight, Magnifier, Neon or Night Vision.

A style is a look, never a recolour. Size, colours, softness and fade time are sliders on every style.

What is in it

Three nodes and three shaders, in plain GDScript and Godot shading language. GlimpseOccluder2D goes under a Sprite2D, an AnimatedSprite2D or a TileMapLayer. GlimpseWatcher2D goes under each character and follows its animation frames and flips. One GlimpseLayer per level, and up to 8 characters open windows at once. A demo grove lets you walk the hero behind each object and step through all 48 styles.

Both renderers, tested

Every style was photographed under Forward+ and Compatibility, the renderer web exports use, with zero engine errors. It was installed from the shipped zip into a blank Godot 4.7.2 project and measured on screen pixels under both renderers. Older Godot 4 versions were not run, so they are not claimed.

Licence and how it was made

Royalty free in your games, commercial use, no credit required. You may not resell or redistribute the files as an asset pack, addon or shader collection. The free lite is MIT. Made with AI tools: the scripts, shaders and demo sprites were written with AI, and every window and silhouette is drawn by that code at runtime from your own sprites and tiles.

Read the docs: the full guide is public.

More from the same studio

• CSAF Godot 4 Sampler, free presets from our Godot addons, to try before you buy.
• Gnomon, y sorted 2D shadows cast from your own sprites.
• Fogbank, 2D fog of war in 48 looks.