How to add a loading screen with a progress bar in Godot 4
The default get_tree().change_scene_to_file() works fine for small scenes — but once your scenes grow (packed tilemaps, many enemies, heavy resources), the player will see a frozen frame before anything appears. The fix is threaded loading with a real progress bar. How Godot 4 threaded loading works Godot 4's ResourceLoader can load a scene in a background thread while your loading screen stays…
The loading screen with a progress bar in Godot 4 is essential when dealing with complex scenes that may cause freezing during scene changes. The threaded loading feature in Godot 4 allows the scene to load in the background while maintaining an interactive loading screen. The load_threaded_request(path) function queues the load, load_threaded_get_status(path, progress_array) polls every frame to fill the progress_array[0] with a float value between 0.0 and 1.0, and load_threaded_get(path) retrieves the finished PackedScene once the status is THREAD_LOAD_LOADED.
To create the loading screen scene, start with a CanvasLayer root node, and add a ColorRect and a ProgressBar as children. Set the ProgressBar's Min Value to 0, Max Value to 100, and anchor it full-width near the bottom or center. Enable the Show Percentage option on the ProgressBar. Attach the provided script to the LoadingScreen.
Initialize the next_scene_path variable and load the threaded scene using load_threaded_request(next_scene_path). Implement the _process(delta) function to monitor the loading progress and update the ProgressBar accordingly. Switch scenes once the loading is complete, ensuring a minimum display time to prevent a jarring transition.
When triggering the scene change from any other scene, preload the LoadingScreen scene, instantiate it, set its next_scene_path to the desired level's .tscn file, and add it as a child to the Tree. Ensure the minimum display time is enforced to avoid any jarring transitions. Finally, to create a smoother fade-out effect before switching scenes, use a tween to modify the CanvasLayer's modulate alpha property to 0 before performing the scene swap.
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