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0 pointsjesse__4mo ago0 comments

I've been working on a 3D voxel-based game engine for like 10 years in my spare time. At this point it's getting pretty close to being shadertoy for voxels.

https://github.com/scallyw4g/bonsai

I recently ported the terrain generators to the GPU, and increased the visible volume to 1 billion voxels cubed. I did a short YouTube video about it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bLfgjWsM1PI

I also wrote a metaprogramming language which generates a lot of the editor UI for the engine. It's a bespoke C parser that supports a small subset of C++, which is exposed to the user through a 'scripting-like' language you embed directly in your source files. I wrote it as a replacement for C++ templates and in my completely unbiased opinion it is WAY better.

https://github.com/scallyw4g/poof

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cutlilacs4mo ago

Awesome, looking forward to use this. What was the hardest part of this project? What motivated you to attempt creating this?

jesse__OP4mo ago

> Awesome, looking forward to use this

Stoked to have another user!

> What was the hardest part of this project?

Fuck.. that's a hard question. I'm almost always trying to push at least one of three boundaries; voxel engine techniques, engine performance, my mechanical programming skill. Trying to push those boundaries, often in tandem or tridem, is always hard. Different jobs are often hard for different reasons, but overall it's been a difficult project for most of it's existence. That said, doing hard projects is what I enjoy, and it's a great feeling when you sit down to, for example, optimize something, and end up making it 20x faster!

> What motivated you to attempt creating this?

It started out as a learning exercise; a safe space where I could just 'fuck around and find out'. When I started, I never expected to spend nearly as much time on it as I have.

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