A simple software renderer for C.
Basic rendering logic is provided in the header and a simple demo program is provided (it just prints a simple scene in ASCII and accepts rotation parameters).
To do things like display textures or render in a window you'll need to add some extra code.
- Does most of the work required for a useful software renderer
- Very simple (only a couple of hundred lines of code)
- Should compile just about anywhere (only depends on libc/libm)
- Doesn't assume any particular memory management environment (only uses stack allocation internally, other structures are always allocated by the caller)
Some of these might be addressed better in the future:
Only 3x3 transformation matrix is provided (although it would be pretty easy to swap out with a more complex one)- 4x4 matrix with translate/rotate/scale is now implemented
- No textures (each triangle just has a "pixel" value, although textures should be easy to add given the position in the triangle is already calculated)
- No pixel blending is provided (although it would be easy to add at the point where the pixel is set)
- No lookup for which triangle is at a certain position for mouse clicks (although that would be easy to add as a special case of the renderer)
- Not very well-optimised
- No high-level/convenience API
(e.g. you have to initialise a matrix yourself)
The demo program just renders a scene made of triangles (with ASCII "pixels"), accepting one or two rotation parameters.
############################################################
############################################################
############################################################
#################################c##########################
###############################ccb##########################
############################ccccbbb#########################
###########################ccccbbbb#########################
##########################ccccbbbbb#########################
##########################cccbbbbbbb########################
#########################cccbbbbbbbb########################
#########################cccbbbbbbbb########################
#########################ccbbbbbbbbbb#######################
########################ccbbbbbbbbbbb#######################
########################cbbbbbbbbbbbb#######################
#######################cbbbbbbbbbbbbb#######################
#######################bbbbbbbbbbbbbbb######################
################################bbbbbb######################
############################################################
############################################################
############################################################
- I mostly used this tutorial as a reference: http://blog.rogach.org/2015/08/how-to-create-your-own-simple-3d-render.html
- For a more robust (but still fairly simple) 3D engine, try: https://github.com/LukasBanana/PicoRenderer
- Another cool project over at GitLab is https://gitlab.com/drummyfish/small3dlib