Kaleido3D

Introduction

Kaleido3D is a cross-platform graphics library, which provides:

• Next-Gen Graphics API Agnostic Layer (NGFX) for Metal, Vulkan and DX12
• Multi-Threaded Rendering
• GLTF as Internal Mesh Format
• Experimental Real Time Ray-tracing Support (DXR/RTXVK)

NOTE: This project is heavily under development currently.

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Requirements

• Iris Build System
• Python 2.7 (x64)
• Visual Studio 2017+
• iOS Build Environment (Build iOS App on Windows)
• NDK 14+
• Xcode 8+

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Features

• Unity3D ShaderLab parser located in src/NGFX/Private/ShaderLab
• D3D12 & Vulkan graphics backend for NGFX (new) src/NGFX/D3D12 & src/NGFX/Vulkan
• Ray tracing
• Old-style RHI with vulkan backend in src/RHI

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Repository Layout

Top-level directories

• .github/: GitHub workflows and repository automation.
• .vscode/: Workspace settings for local development.
• build/: Generated build trees, intermediate files, and platform-specific outputs.
• dev/: Developer-facing tools, editors, project generators, and experimental utilities.
• docs/: Design notes, API difference documents, screenshots, diagrams, and static site assets.
• scripts/: Shared helper scripts, mainly CMake modules and build utilities.
• src/: Main source tree for the engine, rendering stack, platform code, and supporting modules.

Major modules under src/

• src/Core/: Foundational runtime layer, including containers, math, threading, reflection/runtime helpers, networking utilities, and cross-platform abstractions.
• src/Engine/: High-level engine systems such as scenes, cameras, materials, asset loading, render resource management, and gameplay-facing engine context.
• src/Entity/: Scene/entity definitions for lights, terrain, sky, vehicles, water, and other world objects.
• src/Launcher/: Application entry point used to bootstrap the engine/runtime.
• src/Log/: Logging interfaces and implementation.
• src/Metal/: Metal-related tooling and translation code, including shader conversion (metal binary ir to vulkan spirv) and backend support utilities.
• src/Network/: Networking and HTTP module implementations with unit tests.
• src/NGFX/: The newer graphics abstraction layer, including public headers, backend implementations, generated IDL interfaces, tests, and samples.
• src/NGFX_rust/: Rust experiments and bindings around NGFX concepts.
• src/Physics/: Physics integration and vehicle-related helpers.
• src/Platform/: Platform-specific application, window, and input code for Android, Apple platforms, Linux, and Microsoft platforms.
• src/Render/: Experimental software-rendering components.
• src/Renderer/: Higher-level renderer implementation built on top of the rendering abstractions.
• src/RHI/: Older rendering hardware interface and backend-specific implementations such as D3D12, Vulkan, OpenGL, and Metal.
• src/Script/: V8-based scripting integration and script-side test applications.
• src/ShaderCompiler/: Shader compilation and cross-compilation pipeline for multiple graphics APIs.
• src/UI/: UI canvas, layout, text layout, and device-facing UI helpers.

Developer tooling under dev/

• dev/Android/: Scripts for generating Android project and Gradle scaffolding.
• dev/ArtServer/: Asset-processing utilities related to shaders and textures.
• dev/CppReflector/: Reflection/code-generation tooling for C++ types.
• dev/Editor/: Editor applications and node/material editing tools.
• dev/IrisBuild/: Bundled Iris Build executables and helper scripts used by legacy build/code-generation workflows.
• dev/MayaDCC/: Autodesk Maya integration and plugin sources.
• dev/mixdevice/: Rust-based device communication tooling for Android/iOS workflows.
• dev/Mobile/: Mobile device bridge and performance-monitoring utilities.
• dev/ResourceCompiler/: Resource conversion and compilation tools.
• dev/VSVisualizer/: Visual Studio debugger visualizer assets.
• dev/WebConsole/: Browser-based web console/debug UI assets.

Documentation assets under docs/

• docs/images/: Screenshots, icons, and visual assets referenced by documentation.
• docs/book/: Longer-form book-style documentation sources.
• docs/javascripts/ and docs/stylesheets/: Static site assets for the generated documentation pages.

Note: the repository contains both newer NGFX-based rendering code and older RHI-era modules. Some directories are experimental or preserved for legacy tooling and platform support.

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Wiki

See Wikis

Currently, NGFX headers and sources are generated by an C++11-like IDL compiler (inside iris build toolbox)

See the differences of NGFX implementation across graphics backends here.

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Unit Tests

1.Triangle(Basic)

2.TexturedCube(Basic)

3.Compute Particles(Intermediate)

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Contact

If you have any suggestion, please contact me via email or join the QQ Group/Discord to discuss on this project. Framework development discussions and thorough bug reports are collected on Issues.

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Credits

ThirdParty Libraries:

• ZLib (Core)
• Robin-Map
• VOLK (Meta loader for Vulkan API )
• Vulkan Memory Allocator (NGFX)
• Glslang (ShaderCompiler)
• SPIRV-CROSS (ShaderCompiler)
• SPIRV-TOOLS (ShaderCompiler)
• LLVM (Reflection)
• Clang (Reflection)
• GoogleV8 (Script)
• GoogleTest (Unit Test)
• imobiledevice (MobileDevice)