Whiskers Engine

A modern C++ game engine with dual OpenGL/Vulkan rendering backends, designed for performance and extensibility. Built with ECS architecture and cross-platform compatibility.

Features

• Cross-Platform: macOS, Linux, Windows support
• Modern Graphics: OpenGL 3.3 Core → Vulkan migration path
• ECS Architecture: Entity-Component-System for flexible game object management
• Memory Safe: RAII patterns and smart pointer usage throughout
• Extensible Rendering: Plugin-based shader and resource management

Architecture Overview

System Context

graph TB
    Player[Player] -->|Input Events| GameApp[Whiskers Engine]
    GameApp -->|Rendered Frames| Display[Display Device]
    GameApp -->|Graphics Commands| GraphicsAPI[OpenGL/Vulkan]
    GameApp -->|Physics Simulation| PhysicsWorld[Physics System]

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Core Components

graph TB
    subgraph Core["Engine Core"]
        MainLoop["Game Loop"]
        ECS["Entity Component System"]
        ResourceMgr["Resource Manager"]
    end
    
    subgraph Rendering["Rendering Pipeline"]
        Renderer["Abstract Renderer"]
        GLBackend["OpenGL Backend"]
        VKBackend["Vulkan Backend (Planned)"]
        ShaderMgr["Shader Manager"]
    end
    
    subgraph Platform["Platform Layer"]
        Window["Window Management"]
        Input["Input Handling"]
    end
    
    MainLoop --> ECS
    MainLoop --> Renderer
    Renderer --> GLBackend
    Renderer --> VKBackend
    ECS --> ResourceMgr
    Platform --> MainLoop

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Roadmap

Phase 1: Foundation (Current)

• OpenGL 3.3 Core renderer
• Cross-platform build system (CMake)
• Basic ECS implementation
• SDL2 integration for window/input
• Unit testing framework
• Demo space ship game

Phase 2: Modern Graphics

• Vulkan backend implementation
• Compute shader support
• Multi-threaded command buffer recording
• Memory management optimization

Phase 3: Advanced Features

• AI-driven procedural content generation
• Neural network integration (ONNX runtime)
• Advanced lighting (PBR, ray tracing)
• Formal verification of critical systems

Quick Start

Dependencies

macOS

brew install sdl2 glm glfw cmake pkg-config

Ubuntu/Debian

sudo apt update
sudo apt install -y libsdl2-dev libglm-dev libglfw3-dev cmake build-essential pkg-config

Windows (vcpkg)

git clone https://github.com/Microsoft/vcpkg.git
./vcpkg/bootstrap-vcpkg.bat
./vcpkg/vcpkg install sdl2 glm glfw3 --triplet=x64-windows

Build & Run

# Clone and build
git clone <your-repo>
cd whiskers-engine
mkdir build && cd build
cmake ..
make -j$(nproc)

# Run demo
cd ../
./build/whiskers_demo

Demo

Development

Code Style

• Modern C++17/20 features
• RAII and smart pointers for memory management
• Header-only libraries where appropriate
• Consistent naming: PascalCase for classes, snake_case for functions

Contributing

1. Fork the repository
2. Create feature branch (git checkout -b feature/amazing-feature)
3. Commit changes (git commit -m 'feat: add amazing feature')
4. Push to branch (git push origin feature/amazing-feature)
5. Open Pull Request

Testing

# Run unit tests
cd build
ctest --verbose

# Run integration tests
./tests/integration_tests

Technical Details

Graphics Pipeline

• OpenGL: 3.3 Core Profile with VAOs/VBOs
• Shaders: GLSL 330 with automatic compilation/linking
• Textures: STB-based loading with automatic mipmap generation
• Future: Vulkan backend for explicit GPU control

Entity Component System

• Components: Plain data structures
• Systems: Pure functions operating on component data
• Entities: Lightweight ID-based handles
• Memory: Contiguous storage for cache efficiency

License

MIT License - see LICENSE for details.

Acknowledgments

• GLAD for OpenGL loading
• GLM for mathematics
• SDL2 for platform abstraction