SolEngine

A C++20 / Vulkan game engine with a Qt6 + ImGui editor and Lua scripting.

Concern	Library / Technology
Rendering	Vulkan (custom PBR renderer)
Editor	Qt6 + Dear ImGui
Scripting	Lua 5.4 (LuaBridge)
Physics	Jolt Physics
Audio	miniaudio
Math	GLM
Assets	cgltf (GLB / GLTF)
Scenes / JSON	nlohmann/json

Features

Rendering

• Vulkan PBR renderer — Cook-Torrance BRDF, metallic/roughness workflow
• IBL — Image-Based Lighting from procedural sky or HDR panorama, always on
• Cascaded Shadow Maps (CSM) — PCF / PCSS soft shadows, temporal stabilisation
• SSAO — Screen-Space Ambient Occlusion
• SSR — Screen-Space Reflections
• TAA — Temporal Anti-Aliasing (YCoCg AABB, Catmull-Rom history)
• Bloom — Kawase multi-pass bloom
• Volumetrics — Fog / light scattering pass
• HDR pipeline — RGBA16F, ACES / AgX / Reinhard tonemapping, configurable exposure
• Procedural sky — gradient + sun disk, or equirectangular HDR panorama

Editor (sol_editor.exe)

• Scene Hierarchy — tree view, drag/drop, duplicate, rename, multi-select
• Inspector — per-node field editor with undo/redo and gizmo transform
• Material Editor — PBR property editor + live preview sphere (GGX/Lambert)
• Asset Browser — project file tree with asset preview
• Script Editor — embedded Lua editor with syntax highlighting
• World Settings — sky, IBL, SSAO, SSR, TAA, bloom, volumetrics all in one panel
• Viewport toolbar — Lit / Unlit / debug views, gizmo mode switcher
• Console — log viewer with level filters
• Multi-tab scene editing — open multiple scenes simultaneously

Scene System

• 17 node types — organised in categories with Add Node menu + search
  • Node3D, MeshNode, ModelNode, Camera3D
  • DirectionalLight, PointLight
  • RigidBody3D, StaticBody3D, CharacterBody3D, CollisionShape3D, Area3D
  • ScriptNode, LuaComponent
  • AudioStreamPlayer, AudioStreamPlayer3D
  • WorldEnvironment, SceneInstance
• .solscene JSON format — deterministic, human-readable
• ResourceCache — engine-wide asset deduplication (meshes + textures)

Lua Scripting

• on_ready, on_update, on_destroy lifecycle hooks
• Raycast API — Physics.raycast(origin, dir, max_dist)
• Collision callbacks — on_collision_enter/exit on rigid bodies
• Area3D callbacks — on_body_entered/exited, get_overlapping_bodies()
• Node instantiation — Scene.create_node(type), Scene.instantiate_model(path)
• Full node property access — transform, material, light, audio, etc.
• Input via Input.is_action_pressed / just_pressed / just_released

Physics & Audio

• Jolt Physics — rigid bodies, character controllers, raycasts, collision shapes
• miniaudio — 3D positional audio, OGG/WAV/MP3 streaming

Quick Start (Windows)

Build from source:

build.bat

Launch the editor:

editor.bat

Run the FPS demo directly:

runDemo.bat

Wipe build outputs:

wipe.bat

First build clones all dependencies via CMake FetchContent — expect ~300 MB and 10–15 min.

Bat Files

File	What it does
build.bat	CMake configure + full build (engine + editor + demo)
editor.bat	Incremental build then launch sol_editor.exe
runDemo.bat	Incremental build then launch the FPS demo
install.bat	Install built binaries to %LOCALAPPDATA%\SolEngine\bin\
wipe.bat	Delete build/ for a clean rebuild

Architecture

sol_editor.exe   — Qt6 + ImGui editor (loads sol_engine.dll)
sol_engine.dll   — all engine subsystems: Vulkan renderer, physics, audio, Lua, scene
runtime/         — standalone runtime for shipping games
demo/            — FPS demo project (scenes, scripts, assets)

Engine/Editor split

The engine is a DLL (sol_engine.dll). Both the editor and the runtime load it at startup. Game logic lives in Lua scripts — no recompilation needed.

Project Layout

engine/
  include/sol/        public API headers
  src/
    render/           Vulkan renderer, shaders, PBR, shadow, post-process
    scene/            scene manager, 17 node types, GLTF loader, serialiser
    physics/          Jolt wrapper, raycasts, callbacks
    script/           Lua engine, LuaBridge bindings
    audio/            miniaudio wrapper
    asset/            ResourceCache, texture/mesh upload
editor/
  src/                Qt6 + ImGui editor application
demo/
  scenes/             .solscene files
  scripts/            Lua game scripts
  assets/             models, textures, audio
cmake/
  Dependencies.cmake  FetchContent for all third-party libs

Lua Scripting Quick Reference

-- Script attached to a node
local node = {}

function node.on_ready(self)
    print("Node ready: " .. self:get_name())
end

function node.on_update(self, dt)
    -- Raycast example
    local hit = Physics.raycast(Vec3(0,1,0), Vec3(0,-1,0), 100)
    if hit then
        print("Hit: " .. hit.node:get_name())
    end

    -- Spawn a node
    if Input.is_action_just_pressed("spawn") then
        local box = Scene.create_node("MeshNode")
        box:set_position(Vec3(0, 5, 0))
    end
end

return node

Documentation

Full documentation at solengine.dev (or see Website/).