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Why is the negative Z-axis considered to be facing forward in Godot?
(lemmings.world)
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this post was submitted on 25 Apr 2025
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Arbitrary and historical reasons.
A good overview about why and who: https://ahmetburul.medium.com/coordinate-systems-of-3d-applications-guide-ddfa2194ed88
Personally, I'm super annoyed that Z is not up. but that's just me coming from Blender and Unreal. It makes programming 3D games more annoying, imo
Edit to add: With Godot having its origins in 2D, Z is "into the screen". and that orientation basically stuck. Why they used negative, I'm not sure
I think especially in 2d, using the negative direction makes sense, as things that are "higher" (closer to the screen) should occlude things that are "lower". It's the same in HTML/CSS.
Yeah, while initially writing my terrain generator I thought it weird to have a X,Z grid of tiles. Odd decision for Godot team. But I am used to it now.