Nikreon Engine

Nikreon Engine is a C++20 Vulkan game engine project. The current repository is in the bootstrap stage: it has the build system, dependency manifest, and upgrade roadmap needed to grow into a modular renderer/game engine.

The long-term direction is documented in ENGINE_UPGRADE_PLAN.md: modern 3D rendering for Blender GLB/glTF assets, batched 2D rendering, text, UI/HUD, debug overlays, materials, lighting, shadows, physics, audio, scripting, and editor tooling.

The external/NikreonUI submodule is split into reusable NikreonUI::Core and optional NikreonUI::Vulkan targets. Its surface-local UIFrame API is shared by editor UI and game HUD code without pulling editor configuration into the library. See external/NikreonUI/README.md for sample usage.

Current Stack

• C++20
• Vulkan headers plus volk
• GLFW
• GLM
• EnTT
• tinygltf
• stb
• FreeType
• OpenAL Soft
• miniaudio
• Jolt Physics
• spdlog
• nlohmann-json
• CMake
• vcpkg manifest mode

Repository Layout

.
|-- CMakeLists.txt
|-- Makefile
|-- vcpkg.json
|-- src/
|   `-- main.cpp
|-- scripts/
|   |-- bootstrap-deps.ps1
|   |-- build.ps1
|   |-- run.ps1
|   |-- bootstrap-deps.sh
|   |-- build.sh
|   `-- run.sh
|-- docs/
|   |-- BUILDING.md
|   `-- DEPENDENCIES.md
`-- ENGINE_UPGRADE_PLAN.md

Quick Start

Install dependencies:

make deps

Build:

make build

Run:

make run

Pass engine arguments through RUN_ARGS:

make run RUN_ARGS="--frames 180"

Performance / fake Release build

The default make build and make run use CONFIG=Debug so debug iteration stays unchanged. Debug builds usually disable optimization, such as -O0 on GCC/Clang or /Od on MSVC, so they are not suitable for FPS benchmarking.

For optimized FPS testing with debug symbols, use the release-style wrapper:

make run-rel

run-rel builds in REL_BUILD_DIR=build-rel with REL_CONFIG=RelWithDebInfo. Standard CMake build types enable optimization for release-style configs: RelWithDebInfo normally uses optimized code with debug info, and Release normally uses optimization such as -O2/-O3 on GCC/Clang or /O2 on MSVC. These configs also define NDEBUG.

To benchmark a plain Release build:

make run-rel REL_CONFIG=Release
make run-rel REL_BUILD_DIR=build-release REL_CONFIG=Release

On Windows, make run builds the executable and then launches it from the build folder. If Windows Application Control blocks NikreonEngine.exe, the build is still valid, but the machine policy must allow unsigned local debug builds, allowlist the output folder, or run the project from an approved developer path.

Windows Without make

If make is not installed on Windows, use the PowerShell scripts directly:

powershell -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -File scripts/bootstrap-deps.ps1
powershell -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -File scripts/build.ps1
powershell -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -File scripts/run.ps1

The configure and build scripts automatically initialize a missing external/NikreonUI Git submodule checkout before running CMake. They also bootstrap a missing local vcpkg checkout and fetch a local CMake tool when neither cmake on PATH nor the vcpkg tool cache is available.

Platform Defaults

The Makefile chooses a vcpkg triplet automatically:

• Windows: x64-windows
• Linux x64: x64-linux
• Linux ARM64: arm64-linux
• macOS Intel: x64-osx
• macOS Apple Silicon: arm64-osx

Override it when needed:

make deps TRIPLET=arm64-osx
make build TRIPLET=arm64-osx

Fresh Dependency Install

To remove generated files and redownload dependencies:

make distclean
make deps
make build

More Documentation

• Build details: docs/BUILDING.md
• Dependency details: docs/DEPENDENCIES.md
• Engine roadmap: ENGINE_UPGRADE_PLAN.md

Notes

external/vcpkg, build, and vcpkg install output are intentionally ignored by git. They can be regenerated from vcpkg.json.