RodEngine is a C++23 game engine and editor with OpenGL rendering and C# scripting. It supports 2D and 3D scenes, editor play mode, and exporting scenes to a standalone runtime.
The engine is in early development; physics, audio, animation, and prefabs are not implemented yet.
- Dockable editor with a viewport, entity hierarchy, property inspector, and content browser.
- Viewport entity picking through framebuffer IDs, transform gizmos, and drag-and-drop support for scenes, textures, and models.
- ECS scenes with UUIDs and YAML serialization. Play mode runs a copy of the scene so runtime changes do not affect the editor scene.
- Batched 2D sprite rendering.
- Static GLB mesh rendering with material controls, directional lights, and shadow maps.
- GLSL shader compilation and SPIR-V caching.
- .NET 9 hosted from C++ for C# entity scripts, with fields editable in the inspector and assembly reloading while the editor is running.
- Script access to entities, transforms, cameras, rendering components, input, and logging.
- A standalone runtime and editor export for packaging a scene with its assets.
Windows and Linux are supported. Linux uses X11 or XWayland; native Wayland support is not available. Rendering requires OpenGL 4.6.
| Area | Technology |
|---|---|
| Languages | C++23, C# |
| Build | CMake, MSVC or Clang, Ninja |
| Rendering | OpenGL 4.6, shaderc, SPIR-V |
| Editor UI | Dear ImGui, ImGuizmo |
| ECS | EnTT |
| Scripting | .NET 9 |
| Scene serialization | yaml-cpp |
| Asset loading | tinygltf, stb_image |
| Logging | spdlog |
Common requirements: CMake 3.25+, Git, Python 3, and the .NET 9 SDK.
| Platform | Build tools and dependencies |
|---|---|
| Windows (MSVC) | Visual Studio 2022 with the Desktop development with C++ workload |
| Windows (Clang) | The same Visual Studio workload, plus LLVM and Ninja on PATH |
| Linux (Clang) | Clang with a C++23 standard library, Ninja, X11 development headers (Xrandr, Xinerama, Xcursor, XInput), OpenGL development headers, and Zenity for file dialogs |
git clone --recursive https://github.com/Plecaj/RodEngine.git
cd RodEngine
python RodEngine/vendor/shaderc/utils/git-sync-depsShaderc requires the dependency sync above in addition to the recursive submodule checkout. After updating an existing clone, run git submodule update --init --recursive and repeat the sync.
Run CMake from the repository root:
| Toolchain | Configure | Debug build |
|---|---|---|
| Windows MSVC | cmake --preset vs |
cmake --build --preset vs-debug |
| Windows Clang | cmake --preset windows-clang |
cmake --build --preset windows-clang-debug |
| Linux Clang | cmake --preset linux-clang |
cmake --build --preset linux-clang-debug |
Windows Clang requires an x64 Visual Studio developer shell with LLVM and Ninja on PATH.
Build presets provide Debug, Release, and Dist configurations through the -debug, -release, and -dist suffixes.
For a runtime-only build, configure with -DROD_BUILD_EDITOR=OFF and build the Rod-Runtime target explicitly.
Executables are written to build/vs/bin/<configuration> for MSVC and build/clang/bin/<configuration> for Clang. Run Rod-Editor (Rod-Editor.exe on Windows) from that directory so it can find its assets.
The bundled assets/scenes/Example.rod and Example3D.rod scenes can be opened through File > Open and run in play mode. Rod-Runtime loads assets/scenes/Startup.rod, falling back to the 3D example when no startup scene is present.
File > Export Game writes the current scene and its assets to exports/RodGame relative to the editor's working directory.
The CMake export target packages the bundled 3D example instead of the current editor scene:
cmake --build build/clang --config Debug --target RodGame-ExportUse build/vs for MSVC. Output goes to <build-directory>/export/RodGame; run RodGame (RodGame.exe on Windows) from that directory.
The test suite covers math, scene operations, and scene serialization. Dedicated presets use separate build directories and build only the test executable and its dependencies:
cmake --preset windows-clang-tests
cmake --build --preset windows-clang-tests
ctest --preset windows-clang-testsUse vs-tests for MSVC or linux-clang-tests for Linux. Catch2 is fetched during the first test configuration.
GitHub Actions runs the same Debug test presets for all three toolchains on pull requests and pushes to main. Test reports and CTest logs are available as workflow artifacts.
RodEngine is licensed under Apache-2.0. Third-party dependencies and bundled assets retain their own licenses.