Txtquad

• A math library and Vulkan graphics pipeline to render textured quads in 3D, for Linux and Windows.
• A complete rewrite and extension of my best friend's eponymous engine for game jams.

Dependencies

• GLFW 3.3 (GLFW headers and library).
• Vulkan 1.2 (Vulkan loader, headers, validation layer, and supported driver).
• Shaderc (glslc, included with LunarG Vulkan SDK)

build.ninja

• You must have Ninja installed.
• There are build targets for Linux and Windows hosts.
• Before building, create the directory symlinks glfw and vulkan
  • These symlinks point to the installation directories containing the headers and libraries.
  • Windows PowerShell (Run as Administrator)
    • New-Item -Path glfw -ItemType SymbolicLink -Value C:\path\to\glfw
    • New-Item -Path vulkan -ItemType SymbolicLink -Value C:\path\to\vulkan
  • Linux Shell
    • ln -s /path/to/glfw glfw (hint: ln -s /usr glfw to use system installation)
    • ln -s /path/to/vulkan vulkan (hint: ln -s /usr vulkan to use system installation)
• Build the font editor and demo for your host platform
  • Windows ninja win
  • Linux ninja lin (default)
• Or build just the library for your host platform.
  • Windows ninja txtquad.lib
  • Linux ninja libtxtquad.so
• On Linux, the build uses libglfw.so by default
  • You can switch to libglfw3.a by changing -lglfw to -lglfw3
• Clang is used as a cross-platform C compiler. You can modify rule c and rule l to configure a different compiler and linker.

txtquad.h

• txt.quad points to the GPU-mapped quad buffer
  • It should contain txt.quads quads to be rendered.
• txt.viewproj points to the GPU-mapped view projection matrix.
• define Input before including to enable input.
• define InputUtil before including to enable the input utility, which automatically tracks inputs to poll based on which Key and Mouse macros you use.

input.h

• Has keyboard key and mouse button state polling.
• Has callbacks for unicode, mouse cursor position, and mouse scroll.
• Consult inputdefines.h for the available key and button names.

alg.h

• Math stuff (a technical term).
• Read font.c or demo.c to see the basics in action.
• Tries its best to abuse the C _Generic keyword.
• None of this is optimized.

font.c

• A bitmap editor to edit the PBM textures for the engine (try ./font font.pbm).

Windows

• To install the C/C++ toolchain on Windows 10
  • EITHER Install Visual Studio Community 2022
  • OR Install Visual Studio Build Tools 2022
  • I also built this with Visual Studio 2019 previously.
• Once the installation is complete, click the "Modify" button next to your installation, then click the "Individual Components" tab
  • Search for "MSVC v143 - VS 2022 C++" and select an appropriate version for your target platform (Latest is fine)
  • Search for "Windows 10 SDK" and select an appropriate version for your target platform (if in doubt pick the highest version number)
• To install Ninja
  • EITHER Select "C++ CMake tools for Windows" in "Individual Components" in the Visual Studio Installer (CMake comes with Ninja, obviously /s)
  • OR Download the Windows release of Ninja (usually ninja-win.zip) from the Ninja GitHub Releases, unzip it and make sure ninja.exe can be found in your Windows Path environment variable.
• To install Clang
  • EITHER Select "C++ Clang Compiler for Windows" in "Individual Components" in the Visual Studio Installer
  • OR Try your luck with a Windows release .exe from the LLVM GitHub Releases. My personal impression is that LLVM keeps messing with their Windows release packaging, and that their shit seems unstable and inadequately tested on Windows. The Visual Studio release configuration is probably significantly different, and possibly significantly more appropriate.
• To use the toolchain
  • EITHER Launch a "Native Tools Command Prompt for VS 2022" shortcut for your target architecture, for example x86 or x64. From that command prompt you can launch PowerShell by running pwsh if you prefer.
  • OR add the required executable paths to your Path user or system environment variable, and the required linker paths to your LIBPATH environment variable which is expected by lib.exe and normally defined by vcvarsall.bat. Check that your Path and LIBPATH are actually correct for your target architecture, since for example on x64, Microsoft distributes its toolchain as a x86/x64 cross-target toolchain.