SilentDirge / Falcor

Real-time rendering research framework

Falcor 2.0 alpha

Falcor is DirectX 12 real-time rendering framework. It aims to improve productivity of reserach and prototype projects.
Its features include:

• Abstract many common graphics operations, such as shader compilation, model loading and scene rendering.
• VR support using OpenVR.
• Common rendering effects such as shadows and post-processing effects.

This is an alpha version. The interfaces are not final yet and there might be some performance/stability issues.
If you'd like OpenGL support, please consider using Falcor 1.0 ('rel-1.0' branch). Note that though Falcor 1.0 is not supported anymore, it is stable and optimized.

Prerequisites

• Visual Studio 2015
• Microsoft Windows SDK ver 10.0.14393.795
• Windows 10
• GPU that supports DirectX 12

NVAPI Support

NVIDIA's NVAPI SDK exposes a set of GPU features that are not part of the DirectX spec. Using it with Falcor is not mandatory. However, Falcor does abstract some of those features. For example, the SceneRenderer VR mode relies on Single Pass Stereo support. If you want to use it:

• Please download the NVAPI SDK
• Unzip the content of the package to Framework\Externals
• Rename the folder to 'NVAPI'

Creating a New Project

• If you haven't done so already, create a visual-studio solution and project for your code. Falcor only supports 64-bit builds, so make sure you have a 64-bit build configuration.
• Add Falcor.props to your project (Property Manager -> Right click your project -> Add existing property sheet).
• Add Falcor.vcxproj to your solution.
• Add a reference to Falcor in your project (Solution Explorer -> Right click your project -> Properties -> Common Properties -> References -> Add new reference -> Choose Falcor).

Sample Class

This is the bootstrapper class of the application. Your class should inherit from it and override its protected methods which serve as the callback functions.
A good place to start would be the ModelViewer sample.

Build Configurations

Falcor has two build configurations:

• Debug - This configuration will create an OpenGL debug context. By default, file logging and message boxes are enabled, and there is a lot of runtime error checking.
• Release - This configuration creates a regular, non-debug context. Logging and most runtime error checks are disabled. Use this configuration to measure performance.

Falcor Configuration

FalcorConfig.h contains some flags which control Falcor's behavior.

• _LOG_ENABLED - Enable/disable log messages. By default, it is set to false for release build and true for debug builds.
• _PROFILING_ENABLED - Enable/Disable the internal CPU/GPU profiler. By default, it is set to true.

Data Files

Data files include shader files, textures and models.
By default, Falcor looks for data files in the current locations:

• The working directory. In some cases this is not the same as the executable directory. For example, if you launch the application from Visual Studio, by default the working directory is the directory containing the project file.
• The executable directory.
• An optional environment variable named FALCOR_MEDIA_FOLDERS. It is a semicolon-separated list of folders.
• Any directory that was added to the data directories list by calling addDataDirectory().
• A directory called "Data/" under any of the above directories.

To search for a data file, call findFileInDataDirectories().

Deployment

The best practice is to create a directory called "Data/" next to your project file and place all your data files there (shaders/models). If that directory exists, Falcor will copy it to the output directory, making the output directory self-contained (you can zip only the output directory and it should work). If not, you will have to copy the data files yourself.

Citation

If you use Falcor in a research project leading to a publication, please cite the project. The BibTex entry is

@Misc{Benty16,
author = {Nir Benty},
title = {The {Falcor} Rendering Framework},
year = {2016},
month = {08},
url = {https://github.com/NVIDIA/Falcor},
note= {\url{https://github.com/NVIDIA/Falcor}}
}