ZEngine is an open-source 3D rendering engine written in C++ and using Vulkan as graphic API.

It can be used for activities such as:

• Gaming
• Scientific computation and visualization

Supported Platforms

• Windows
• macOS (under active revision)
• Linux (Debian or Ubuntu recommended, under active revision)

Projects

ZEngine ships as three components:

Component	Description
ZEngine	Core runtime — ECS, Vulkan renderer, physics, audio, VFS
Tetragrama	Editor built on top of ZEngine for scene authoring and asset management
Panzerfaust	Project launcher (C#/.NET) — creates, opens, and manages game projects. Hosted at ZodiacEngineHub

Setup

Clone the repository:

git clone https://github.com/JeanPhilippeKernel/RendererEngine.git

All dependencies are fetched automatically by CMake at configure time via FetchContent — no manual submodule initialization required.

Windows

• Install Visual Studio 2022 Community or Professional with "Desktop development with C++".
  • Include MSVC v143 — VS 2022 C++ x64/x86 build tools and Windows 10/11 SDK.
• Install PowerShell Core
• Install Python
• Install CMake 4.1.2 or later
• Install LLVM

macOS

• Install Xcode from the App Store.
• Install Homebrew:

/usr/bin/ruby -e "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/master/install)"

• Install CMake, NuGet, PowerShell Core, and ClangFormat:

brew update
brew install cmake nuget llvm@20
brew install --cask powershell

Linux

• Install build tools, CMake, and LLVM:

sudo apt update
sudo apt install build-essential cmake ninja-build llvm clang clang-format python3 nuget

• Install PowerShell Core for your distribution.

Building the engine

1. Start PowerShell Core and verify CMake is available: cmake --version
2. Change directories to the repository root.
3. Run the build script for the desired configuration:
   • Debug: .\Scripts\BuildEngine.ps1 -Configurations Debug -RunBuilds $True
   • Release: .\Scripts\BuildEngine.ps1 -Configurations Release -RunBuilds $True

Notes:

• -RunBuilds $False generates the build directory without compiling.
• Omitting -Configurations builds both Debug and Release.

Roadmap

See our roadmap here: Roadmap

Contributing

Contributions are welcome. Please read Contributing.md before opening a pull request.

Dependencies

All dependencies are fetched automatically via CMake FetchContent — no manual submodule initialization required.

Rendering & windowing

• Vulkan-Headers + Vulkan-Loader — Vulkan API
• VulkanMemoryAllocator — GPU memory management
• SPIRV-Cross + glslang + SPIRV-Tools — shader compilation pipeline
• GLFW — window creation and input

UI system

• FreeType — font rasterisation for ZUI
• rapidhash — O(1) widget key hashing in ZUI

Asset loading

• Assimp — legacy 3D asset import
• fastgltf — fast glTF 2.0 loader
• ufbx — FBX loader
• meshoptimizer — mesh vertex cache, overdraw, and LOD optimisation
• STB — image loading (PNG, JPEG, HDR)
• miniz — zip / deflate compression

Memory

• tlsf — O(1) dynamic allocator for variable-size engine slabs

Data formats

• nlohmann/json — JSON parsing
• simdjson — high-performance JSON for asset pipeline
• yaml-cpp — YAML configuration

Logging & utilities

• spdlog — structured logging
• fmt — string formatting
• stduuid — UUID generation
• CLI11 — command-line argument parsing
• Tracy — frame profiler (opt-in via ZENGINE_TRACY)

Testing

• GoogleTest — unit testing

License

ZEngine is licensed under the MIT License.