Like how Half-life 2 (etc.?) used a font for weapon icons. I’m guessing TF2 and CSGO (smart way to easily use it wherever supports text). Though it’s difficult finding info on this without info about basic text instead.
No-color unicode ( 🛠 ) works everywhere, and can be made with Font Forge*, a bit clunky to me though. I wonder if newer node-based editors like Graphite/PixiEditor are better… or for (M)SDF fonts/textures.
I prefer textmesh** for the look… though color emojis ( 🎈 ) don’t work with this (even with a vertex-color-as-albedo material, trying SVG emoji fonts). Plus FontForge doesn’t handle color as far as I can see.
Label3D does support color, pixels instead of polygons (high scale or oversampling are options, but M.SignedDistance breaks color emojis). (also modulate_color_glyphs import setting seems to work in only 2D though)
* I’ve also tried Inkscape, didn’t like how glyphs are created/managed (also, text width)
** I want a low-poly font anyway, though even smooth fonts look interesting with a high curve-step
Not strictly necessary (I’m already using Blender for simple models with vertex colors, and polygons+labels also work for 2D or 3D via canvas layer), but fonts are a more interesting workflow. Easier HUDs or text grid map maybe.
Well, I now definitely have nothing useful to add to this, you’ve explored this whole area much more in depth than I have!
If you do come up with a kind of optimal paradigm you find very useful, I would highly suggest adding/uploading a generalized version of it it to the … godot ‘market’, whatever its called, as an addon or template!