Console-Renderer

A single-header C++20 3D render engine that renders directly to the terminal console via ANSI escape codes. No GPU, no external graphics API — just pure CPU rasterization to printf.

Features

• Single header — #include "render_engine.h" and you're done
• Multi-threaded — tile-based rendering with work stealing
• Anti-aliasing — SSAA, FXAA, TAA (with Halton sequence jitter)
• Blinn-Phong lighting — ambient, diffuse, specular with multiple lights
• Triangle rasterization — scanline fill with perspective-correct interpolation
• Z-buffer — per-pixel depth test + hierarchical Z-buffer (Hi-Z) occlusion culling
• OBJ + MTL loader — Wavefront .obj with material library support
• FPS camera — WASD + QE movement, mouse look
• 2D overlay — Layer2D with 5×5 bitmap font for UI/HUD
• Rubik's Cube demo — built-in demo with keyboard controls

Usage

#define RENDER_ENGINE_IMPLEMENTATION
#include "render_engine.h"

int main() {
    Renderer r;
    r.set_camera_pos({ 0, 10, -20, 1 });
    r.set_aa(AA::SSAA);

    auto mesh = Mesh::Cube({ 0, 0, 0, 1 }, 5, { Vec3(200, 200, 200) },
                            Material{ 0.4f, 0.8f, 0.3f });
    r.add_meshes({ mesh });
    r.add_lights({ { { 0, 80, 0, 1 }, { 255, 255, 255 }, 1500 } });

    r.launch();
    while (true) {
        r.controller();
        r.update();
    }
}

Camera Controls

Key	Action
W/S	Move forward/backward
A/D	Strafe left/right
Q/E	Move up/down
Mouse	Look around

Build

cmake -B build
cmake --build build

Requires C++20 and a terminal that supports ANSI escape codes / virtual terminal sequences.

Examples

File	Description
example/2048.cpp	2048 game rendered to console
example/galaxy.cpp	500-planet galaxy simulation with orbital rotation
example/stress_test.cpp	Performance stress test with hundreds of cubes