VK Game Engine

A modern Vulkan game engine written in C++20, designed with next-generation rendering techniques in mind.

Features

• Bindless Architecture: Utilizes Vulkan 1.2 Descriptor Indexing (VK_EXT_descriptor_indexing) to drastically reduce CPU overhead during draw calls. An unbounded array of 100,000 descriptors allows for virtually limitless textures and materials mapped directly via PushConstants.
• Offline Asset Compiler: Custom asset pipeline utilizing fastgltf and tinyobjloader to process .obj and .gltf source files into optimized, single-binary .glb payloads.
• Embedded Textures & Meshlets: The compiler natively reads raw PBR texture files (JPEGs/PNGs) and packages them dynamically into the .glb buffers, and uses meshoptimizer to append partitioned Meshlets (vertex/triangle arrays) for high-performance geometry culling.
• Dynamic Asset Pool: Robust texture and model pooling system preventing duplicate GPU uploads and seamlessly switching between raw JPEG/PNG loading (using stb_image) and compressed formats.
• PBR Materials: Complete physical based rendering foundation with Cook-Torrance BRDF (Albedo, Normal, Metallic, Roughness) via SSBOs.
• Mesh Shaders & Advanced Culling: Uses VK_EXT_mesh_shader for sub-mesh geometry culling (Frustum, Cone Backface, and Hi-Z Occlusion) driven entirely on the GPU.
• Perfect Memory Packing: Uses GL_EXT_scalar_block_layout to map C++ structs exactly to GPU memory without any padding overhead.

Roadmap & Upcoming Features

1. Visibility Buffer: Decouple geometry rasterization from heavy material evaluation by outputting ID buffers and shading via a compute pass.
2. Hardware Ray Tracing: Leverage VK_KHR_ray_tracing_pipeline (RT cores) for precise shadows, reflections, and ambient occlusion.
3. ReSTIR DI / GI: State-of-the-art reservoir spatiotemporal importance resampling for real-time direct and global illumination.

Check out the full roadmap for detailed progress and upcoming milestones.

Code Architecture

For a complete breakdown of every directory, component, and the GPU pipeline flow, see the File Architecture Documentation.

Visualizing the Engine: We also have an interactive Mermaid.js diagram showing exactly how data moves from CPU to GPU. Check out the Pipeline Flowchart.

Note: When viewing the chart on GitHub, be sure to click the Fullscreen button (the expanding arrows icon in the top right of the diagram box) so you can easily read the nodes and use the view controls.

Images

Build Instructions

Prerequisites

• CMake 3.20+
• C++20 compliant compiler (GCC/MinGW, MSVC, or Clang)
• Vulkan SDK 1.2+

Building

The project uses CMake to fetch dependencies (like fastgltf, glfw, glm, imgui) automatically.

mkdir build
cd build
cmake ..
cmake --build .

Running

To run the offline model compiler to package your assets (put source models in assets/models/obj):

./build/model_compiler.exe

To run the engine itself:

./build/VK_game_engine.exe

Credits & Dependencies

• Vulkan
• fastgltf
• tinyobjloader
• meshoptimizer
• stb_image
• GLFW
• GLM
• Dear ImGui