Nebula engine

Get in contact on Discord! https://discord.gg/wuYPxUF

Check out the documentation (WIP) here: https://gscept.github.io/nebula-doc/

Requirements

1. OS: Windows and Linux(WIP)
2. Compiler with support for C++17.
3. GPU and drivers supporting Vulkan 1.2+
4. CMake 3.13+
5. Python 3.5+
   • Python requirements (Windows):
     1. Matching architecture (64-bit if you're building for 64-bit systems)
     2. Installed for all users
     3. Added to PATH
     4. Installed with debugging symbols and binaries

Setup

Setup config

1. ./fips set config vulkan-win64-vstudio-debug in your project directory

Build project

In your project directory:

1. fips fetch
2. fips physx build win-vs16 (if you are running VS 2017, use win-vs15 instead)
3. fips anyfx setup
4. fips build
5. fips physx deploy

Set environment variables

Remember to run fips nebula verb to set work and toolkit directory registry variables:

• fips nebula set work {PATH}
• fips nebula set toolkit {PATH}

Features

Nebula is being developed continuously, which means that features keep getting added all the time. Currently, we support this:

• Completely data-driven design from bottom to top.
• Data structure suite, from containers to OS wrappers, everything is designed for performance and minimal call stacks.
• Multithreading.
• SSE-accelerated and intuitive maths library.
• Full python supported scripting layer.
• Advanced rendering framework and shaders.
• Test-benches and benchmarking.
• Profiling tools.

Rendering

A lot of effort has been made to the Nebula rendering subsystem, where we currently support:

• Unified clustering system - fog volumes, decals and lights all go into the same structure.
• Screen-space reflections - working condition, but still work in progress.
• SSAO - Horizon-based ambient occlusion done in compute.
• Physically based materials and rendering.
• Multi-threaded subpass recording.
• Shadow mapping for local lights and CSM for global/directional/sun light.
• Volumetric fog and lighting.
• Geometric decals.
• CPU-GPU hybrid particle system.
• Skinning and animation.
• Scripted rendering path.
• Vulkan.
• Tonemapping.
• Asynchronous compute.
• Virtual texturing using sparse binding.
• Fast and conservative GPU memory allocation.

Entity system

Nebula has historically had a database-centric approach to entities. With the newest iteration of Nebula, we've decided to keep improving by adopting an ECS approach, still keeping it database-centric.

• Data-oriented
• Data-driven
• Minimal memory overhead per entity.
• High performance without compromising usability or simplicity
• Blueprint and template system for easily instantiating and categorizing entity types.
• Automatic serialization and deserialization

Screenshots

Deferred Lighting using 3D clustering and GPU culling. Geometric decals, culled on GPU and rendered in screen-space. Volumetric fog lighting. Local fog volumes. Profiling tools.