pouët.net

Blog post alert!

This was a pipe cleaner for my current demo engine project. I like SDL3 GPU API and will probably stick with it. However, I had to port my existing SDL3 codebase from Rust to Zig, because it's hard to ignore how much nicer Zig is for rapid 3D engine code development and how simple it is to just use proven, minimal C libraries directly without any broken abstraction or unsafe-blocks everywhere. The Zig engine is even better, actually, because the render configuration is processed and validated mostly at compile time from ZON, and not parsed at runtime from RON. Combined with dynlib reloading and zig build --watch, it's a very neat workflow where I can develop shaders and render code live, without having to restart the demo executable or even manually invoke any compiler(s).

The visuals here are kind of half-baked. I was aiming for a much lower frequency and slighly lower contrast background 2D effect, but this plasma shader was all I had time for now. The octahedra also need more variation and pattern(s), expect to see more of that effect down the line. The sync was done with just conditionals in render/shader code, and if I had more time, there should have been something else at the end than just sticking with the "main effect".

The zip file also contains an aarch64-linux-gnu -build, which will probably run on a Raspberry Pi 5 pretty well, but I haven't confirmed that, so no Raspberry Pi platform tag this time.