stradek / zenengine

Zen Engine

NOTE: This repository has been archived. I fell into the same rabbit hole as other starting core tech engineers - I did not set up realistic goal. Don't be like me in the past. I also changed my interest a little bit and started new game engine project which should be highlighted on my Github profile. Cheers!

Description

Zen Engine is my hobbyist long-term C++ game engine project, a testament to my passion for creating exceptional high-performance, real-time game engines. In this iteration, I'm focused on building a robust foundation for my future, more advanced iterations on this game engine.

All systems are subject to change in the future.

Key Features

• custom memory allocators
• decoupled game and editor projects, as well as engine and it's systems
• custom, in-engine runtime performance measurement system
• simple cmake setup
• tracy integration
• spdlog integration

Project Objectives

• (In Progress) Memory Management: Implement memory management with custom memory allocators: GeneralAllocator, SlabAllocator, PoolAllocator...
• (In Progress) Multithreading: Develop simple job system. NOTE: Would like to integrate the one I developed in CoreMatrixToolkit.
• Game Genre: Create a 2D platformer game.
• Core Game Mechanics: Implement jumping, running at constant speed, and collecting points.
• Game Level Design: Design levels with straightforward platform layouts, combining horizontal and vertical segments. Emulate classic arcade gaming simplicity.

Prerequisities

1. Visual Studio 2022
2. CMake (look for proper version in CMakeLists.txt)

Configuration

1. $ git clone https://github.com/Stradek/ZenEngine.git
2. $ cd .\ZenEngine\
3. $ .\BuildSolution-VS2022.bat
4. $ .\OpenSolution-VS2022.bat
5. Build & Run Game project
6. Enjoy!

Repositiory Directory Structure

• Binaries/ - compilation artifacts(libraries and symbolos) and executables
• Build/ - project build directory
• Development/ - Zen Engine and Game development related directory
• Development/External - external libraries
• Development/Internal - internal libraries and tools
• Development/Scripts - automation scripts supporting development process
• Development/Source - Zen Engine and Game source code

License

MIT License

Copyright (c) 2023 Piotr Stradowski

Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:

The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.

zenengine's Issues

Add first iteration on game engine's rendering using SDL2

Implement Engine Interface Class to implement by Game and Editor

engine needs interface Game class, that later needs to be implemented by the game and sent to engine as game instance

Merge Date and Time implementation into one DateTime class

On milestone-1 branch there will be Date class implemented. As I already have Time class implemented, I would like to merge them together and refactor a bit to make it way simpler.

Fix dependencies include and linking scopes in CMake builds

Add popup functionality to Common project

Create Logging System using spdlog

• add logging system with functions like: LOG(), ASSERT(), WARN(), ERROR(), CRITICAL(), DEBUG_BREAK()
• add configurable pattern for logging messages
• output log messages to command line/vs output, and also saves it to log file
• in case of crash or runtime error, save error and callstack to log file or, preferably, save to crash log file

Clean up and simplify CMakeLists.txt

Create Event System - sync events between Systems updates (push messages to showDebugLog with FPS counter etc.)

Add memory allocation systems and various memory allocators

Move core profiling code from Debug to Core

Debug will be only for Debugging systems - not for tracing and profiling performance

Finish SlabAllocator impelmentation

Engine UpdateScheduler class - schedule update ticks of systems and track next time when they should update next.

Also keep track of every engine subsystem update frequency

Fix ObjectHandle implementation

Add general pool allocator class

Save runtime error and callstack to log file and crash log file

In case of crash or runtime error, engine has to save error and callstack to log file or, preferably, also crash log file

Leftover from Milestone 1 as it is not crucial right now - I am mostly using Debug configuration where I am attached with debugs to executable as Release doesn't have any functionality yet.

Add counters functionality to Performance Profiler

Implement TaskScheduler class that will be used to update PerformanceMonitor data to the console in time intervals

tracks time, condition or other triggers, and then starts previously set task or function like update or render.
Can be expanded later for concurrency support etc

Initializing data only memory with std::memcpy

I should use std::memcpy when working with Plain Old Data (POD) types or trivially constructible types

Replace typedef with using

Fix one missing update in the first 60 updates in engine main loop

Add allocation info block to pool allocator

Would be best to know PoolAllocator:

• chunkSize
• chunkCount
• freeChunksCount

so I need to add additional memory chunk with PoolAllocator info before memory pool itself.

and

Would be best to track each PoolAllocator allocation/deallocation request to save those properties on Debug configuration:

• allocation/deallocation request line
• allocation/deallocation request file

Change PerformanceProfiler::UpdateCounterPerSecond() to UpdatePerformanceDataPerSecond()

I think I don't need to use circular buffers here, as I can just use calculate delta for counters and frame timing data each second.
So I can just call in DebugManager::Update(): GetPerformanceProfiler()->UpdateCounterPerSecond(); every second, so it will be updated with use of m_debugUpdateClock every second.

Create “develop” branch

It's pain to have automated compilation job after each commit on every branch. I should create develop that is set up to run automated jobs before merging each pull request. It should have blocked push at first. That way, I will be creating changes on feature branches, when finished I will create PR, if there will be something broken - I will need to fix it, and if everything is working - it will be submitted to development branch. When I will think that it's good to send it to main - I will push.
I can also do the same without develop, so I will do PRs to main.
I need to think about both approaches, which will work better for me.

Split Core into Core and Memory directories

Add PIX support

Finish script for no copyright detection in: Development\Scripts\NoCopyrightSearch.bat

Create GameEngine config system - loading systems ticksPerSecond values etc from .ini config files

Use libraries from vcpkg instead of submodule recompilation

We shouldn't need to recompile all submodules nor configure cmake solution longer because of that. We can just use their dlls, headers and other dependencies if necessary. KISS.

Replace redundant date and time internal classes with std

For more straightforward usage. Don't want to spend too much time on designing perfect API for this kind of stuff, when it's not necessary, and there are more important topics to work on.

Figure out some wrapper for Update/Render clock operations and updating counters/duration variables

Add delete branch workflow

I need to create trigger after merge to remove branch that is not “main” or “develop”

Implement UpdateScheduler

UpdateScheduler class - tracks time, condition or other triggers, and then schedules certain functions to update or render

Leftover from Milestone 1 as it is not crucial right now - I want to keep it simple for now and expand when there will be need to.

Add Win32, Win64 and other platforms to Defines.h

Create allocators for dynamic objects such as std::vector or std::unordered_map etc.

Verify custom allocator implementation of GameEngine instance is freed after Closing the engine

I need to know if after implementing custom allocators and allocating there GameEngine instance - everything is freed properly after closing the engine.

Implement DebugController class with Performance Monitor

This class will be a hub for all debug tools and profilers.
Modules that I need to move to it are:

• PerformanceMonitor class - monitor the performance of game engine, measures and stores the time of certain operations - needs to be implemented by reusing current GameEngine code

Add formating functionality to ENGINE_ASSERT and ENGINE_FATAL_ASSERT

It should work like ENGINE_LOG, so
ENGINE_ASSERT(m_engineBootingState != bootingState, "Engine booting state is already set to: {}. Can't set the same booting state.", m_engineBootingState);

Split classes from Memory.h to other files

Create MemoryManager class as memory allocation interface

It should have template for allocating different objects from different classes and recognize where to allocate it.
For example:
MemoryManager::Allocate() should allocate it in engine systems pool.
MemoryManager::Allocate() should allocate it in proper pool for textures
etc.

Update files from CMakeProjectTemplate

Create Game Engine Class without keeping everything in GameEngine.cpp

Implement proper shutdown mechanism for GameEngine and test it properly