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HRE :: Hybrid (Clustered Forward/Deferred) Rendering Engine

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HRE was a real-time, Physically based, Clustered renderer built with OpenGL and based on the techniques described on the paper Clustered Deferred and Forward shading by Ola Olsson, Markus Billeter and Ulf Assarsson. The aim of this project is to build a testing framework to showcase deferred and forward graphics techniques (hence the hybrid part) and to examine the strengths of Clustered shading. I wrote a lengthy blog post full of cool animations that can serve as an introduction to efficient rendering algorithms as well as a detailed guide of my implementation of Clustered Shading, so make sure to check it out here!

This algorithm was selected for its two major benefits over traditional deferred/tiled solutions: it allows for more freedom to choose forward or deferred shading paths as desired and is a better long term fit for the modern GPU performance trends. It has already been succesfully implemented in some of the best looking games of the last couple of years, with some notable examples being: DOOM 2016, Just Cause 3 and Detroit: Become Human.

Project is now on hold :(

Unfortunately this project is no longer maintained. I got hired to work at Rockstar Games as a Graphics Programmer shortly after posting this and don't have the time to work on a sideproject of this size anymore. I plan on keeping it up (as well as my other major graphics project SSGE) so others can see what it took me to break into the industry. I will still be helping anyone who runs into any issues with it or has any questions about it. Feel free to reach me here or at my twitter about this or any other GFX topic you'd like to talk about! Thanks to everyone who checked this project out! :D

Download

Stable builds can be found on the HRE releases page.

Currently only Windows platforms are supported.

Render Samples

helmetcrop

waterbottlefixed

metallicspheres

sponza correct colors

<center> <h4>Cluster z slices</h4> </center>

Main Features

Rendering

Engine

Development Timeline & Planned Features

Alas, I am unfortunately unable to work on this project anymore and won't be updating it any time soon. I am still keeping this section in here as a record in case I ever do return and as proof of my naive optimism. Thanks to everyone who checked out this project! :)

The first development cycle began September 2018 and concluded December 2018 with the inclusion of Image Based Lighting and the release of the first stable version: HRE 0.01 "Aachen". For the next couple of months I'll be tackling the issues outlined in the Projects section beginning with fixes for the remaining non-critical bugs and then moving on to a major re-write of the material system. The following is a a list of the engine features I aim to include over the coming months, it's obviously subject to change and all that stuff.

Update #1: Materials & Shadow Mapping

Update #2: Deferred / Screen Space Effects

Update #3: Cluster Optimizations

I'll be writing accompanying blog posts at the end of each major milestone, outlining the new features and their implementations and any complications I found along the way. Meanwhile, Here's the first post which contains an overview of other traditional rendering algorithms and builds the case for Clustered rendering.

Repository structure

Hybrid Rendering Engine
|-- assets              
|   |-- models              # Meshes and textures
|   |-- scenes              # Scene description files in JSON format
|   |-- shaders             
|   |   |-- computeShaders  # Compute shaders for clustered forward
|   |   |-- OldShaders      # Shaders not currently in use
|   |   `-- currentShaders  # Shaders for the current rendering pipeline
|   `-- skyboxes            # Skyboxes in either cubemap or equirectangular map form
|-- build                   # CMake compile  
|-- include                 # Project header files
|-- libs                    # Check dependencies section for descriptions & links
|   |-- ASSIMP               
|   |-- Dear imgui           
|   |-- Glad 
|   |-- Json c++            
|   |-- GLI 
|   |-- GLM 
|   |-- stb_image 
|   `-- SDL2 
|-- modules                 # CMake lib setup scripts
|-- src                     # C++ implementation files
`-- CMakeLists.txt          # CMake build script

Dependencies

In my previous project, SSGE, I made an effort to reduce the amount of dependencies to a minimum. This time however, the pendulum has swung the other way and I've made no restriction whatsoever (within reason) as to what libraries I could include in the project. I did this because I wanted to get more comfortable with the process of including and working with external libraries in C++.

Here's a list of the libraries currently included in the project:

Here's a list of the libraries not included:

All included libraries are represented here under their respective licenses which can be found in the links above or in the licenses.txt doc in the libs folder.

References

There's a comprehensive indexed list of references for the project that I keep more or less up to date in this page of the wiki. However, I find myself constantly returning to a subset of them for further reading or when I need inspiration, so I've added links below to share them and spread the word of their awesomeness. Check them out!

Acknowledgements

Models & Textures

Thank you to all the 3D & texture artists who have made their assets free to use and so beautiful to look at. If it weren't for you guys I'd probably still be staring at the same old boring utah teapot all damn day!

If I've mis-acknowledged, misattributed, or missed any references, please, create a new GitHub issue or send me a DM on Twitter and I'll make sure to fix it immediately.

Graphics Programming Community <3

Shout-out to Kostas Anagnostou and Eric Arnebäck for taking the time to answer all of my questions for the last couple of months, your explanations made understanding every daunting topic so much easier!

License

MIT License

Copyright (c) 2018 Angel Ortiz

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.