Hex Renderer

An experimental C++ hex-world renderer using SDL3's GPU API. It includes procedural terrain generation, instanced hex and glTF model rendering, hex picking, and integration with RmlUi for GUI.

Requirements

• CMake 3.26 or newer
• Ninja, if using the included presets
• SDL 3.4 and SDL_image 3.4 development packages
• Vulkan SDK, including glslc, for shader compilation
• Git for fetching the dependencies during first configure

SDL, SDL_image, and Vulkan are discovered using paths stored in CMakeUserPresets.json, for example:

{
  "version": 6,
  "configurePresets": [
    {
      "name": "local-dev",
      "inherits": "dev",
      "cacheVariables": {
        "SDL3_DIR": "/path/to/SDL3/cmake",
        "SDL3_image_DIR": "/path/to/SDL3_image/cmake"
      },
      "environment": {
        "VULKAN_SDK": "/path/to/VulkanSDK"
      }
    }
  ]
}

Configure the local preset, then build and test through the shared presets:

cmake --preset local-dev
cmake --build --preset dev
ctest --preset dev

The release preset disables benchmarks. Tests are controlled by CMake's standard BUILD_TESTING option, and benchmarks by HEX_RENDERER_BUILD_BENCHMARKS.

Dependencies and assets

Fetches FreeType, RmlUi, fastgltf, doctest, and nanobench from pinned commit hashes. Point SDL, SDL_image, and the Vulkan SDK remain external toolchain dependencies.

Three small source dependencies are vendored under third_party: Handmade Math, SimplexNoise, and tph_poisson. See those files for the associated licences.

EB Garamond (assets/fonts/EB_Garamond) is redistributed under the SIL Open Font License. Runtime shaders and assets are staged beside the executable by CMake.