Virtual3D

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                 VIRTUAL3D ENGINE & EDITOR FEATURE LIST

                        (Updated August 2026)

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[Pre-Beta Code] - More Features to be added daily. Check back.

-NOTE - You must install the OpenAL Redist for audio to work. And you must install net 11 release 1 runtimes for the editor/engine.

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                     GAME ENGINE CORE

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[ Vulkan & DirectX 12 Graphics ]

• Dual Graphics Backends: Choose between Vulkan (primary) and DirectX 12 at runtime from the Editor Hub. Both backends drive a deferred PBR raster pipeline with shared scene and material systems.

• Hardware Ray Tracing: Full support for GPU-accelerated ray tracing on Vulkan. Constructs Bottom-Level and Top-Level Acceleration Structures (BLAS/TLAS) and handles Shader Binding Tables (SBT) to run custom ray-gen, closest-hit, and miss shaders.

• Hybrid Render Pipeline: Combines traditional rasterized passes with ray-traced effects, giving you ultra-realistic shadows and reflections without tanking your framerate.

• Dynamic Shader Compiler: Compiles GLSL/HLSL shader code into GPU binaries at runtime, allowing rapid prototyping and hot-swapping visual assets from the Material Editor and Post Process Designer.

• Triple-Buffered Swapchain: Low-latency frame presenting with automated surface format matching, frame syncing, and synchronization semaphores.

• HDR Display Output: Supports scRGB and HDR10 present modes with configurable paper-white nits and UI brightness for high-dynamic-range monitors.

• TSR, FSR 3 & DLSS Upscaling: Built-in Temporal Super Resolution (TSR3) compute upscaler using motion vectors and sub-pixel jitter. AMD FidelityFX FSR 3 is supported in shipped builds. DLSS is available as a render-setting option; native vendor SDK upscalers are skipped in the editor to reduce GPU load.

• MSAA: Configurable multisampling for the 3D scene viewport and UI overlay passes.

• Automatic Mesh Simplification & LOD System: Integrates C++ meshoptimizer via native bindings to automatically generate optimized Level of Detail (LOD) groups for static 3D meshes. Swaps levels dynamically at runtime using distance thresholds to minimize poly count and draw calls. Includes a session-based diagnostics logger that records LOD level transitions, camera distances, and fallback occurrences in real time to optimize asset budgets.

[ OpenCL Retro Raycasting Engine ]

• 2.5D Raycasting Pipeline: A retro-style 3D rendering pipeline capable of rendering textured walls, floors, ceilings, and dynamic lighting.

• OpenCL GPU Acceleration: High-performance GPU-accelerated raycasting powered by OpenCL. Parallelizes column casting on the GPU using custom OpenCL kernels, texture atlases, and tile-map metadata buffers.

• Multi-Threaded CPU Fallback: A robust, multi-threaded CPU fallback renderer that utilizes a concurrent texture cache and scales across available processor cores.

• Raycast Editor: A dedicated editor workspace for designing 2.5D grid-based levels with real-time light placement and hot-swappable CPU/GPU render previewing.

[ Lighting & Global Illumination ]

• Procedural PBR Sky: Physically based procedural sky with astronomy-driven sun position, time-of-day presets (dawn, morning, noon, dusk, night), volumetric cloud settings, and configurable latitude/day-of-year.

• Volumetric Fog & Atmospheric Lighting: Simulates physical light scattering through air and dust using a 3D Froxel grid (160x90x64), creating beautiful light shafts and foggy environments.

• Dynamic Point, Spot & Directional Lights: Lightweight, fully dynamic light sources with real-time shadow mapping (directional cascaded shadow maps, spot 2D, point cubemaps), customizable ranges, color blending, and spot angle controls.

• OpenCL GPU Lightmap Baker: A blazing-fast, built-in light baker that calculates direct shadows and multi-bounce global illumination using native OpenCL GPU raycasting and automatic xatlas UV unwrapping.

• Image-Based Lighting (IBL): Generates realistic environmental reflections and diffuse ambient light using high-dynamic-range (HDR) skybox cubemaps.

• Ground-Truth Ambient Occlusion (GTAO): Half-resolution screen-space ambient occlusion with configurable radius, intensity, and quality tiers, integrated into the deferred lighting pass.

[ Real-Time Post-Processing ]

• Screen-Space Reflections (SSR): Computes high-fidelity reflections dynamically from the depth buffer and material properties, polished with bilateral blur filters. Cinematic SSR variant for timeline-driven shots.

• Screen-Space Global Illumination (SSGI): Adds soft, natural ambient occlusion and indirect light bounces in screen space to make crevices and corners pop.

• Cinematic Color Grading & Tone Mapping: Includes ACES film-style tone mapping, exposure control, saturation adjustments, and custom color wheels to establish your game's unique aesthetic.

• Atmospheric Scattering & Fog: Recreates physical sunlight scatter for realistic sky gradients, horizon haze, and depth-based distance fog.

• Defocus Depth of Field: Simulates physical camera lenses by splitting foreground/background layers and applying a smooth bilateral depth-weighted bokeh blur.

• Motion Blur & Lens Flares: Renders smooth velocity-based motion blur alongside anamorphic flares that react dynamically to bright light sources.

• Bloom & Emissive Bloom: Configurable bloom pass with separate emissive contribution for glowing surfaces.

• Graph-Driven Post-Process Stack: Author custom post-effect chains in the Post Process Designer and assign them per camera or cinematic track.

[ Entity Component System & World Management ]

• Modular ECS Framework: A decoupled, memory-friendly architecture that keeps game data and logic systems separate for maximum CPU cache efficiency.

• Scene Graph: Hierarchical GameGraph with GraphNode transforms, component attachment, serialization, and play-mode snapshot/restore.

• 3D Navigation & Pathfinding: Bakes walking meshes directly from scene geometry, supports custom agent settings, and runs dynamic navigation path searches with NavAgent components.

• Bounding Volume Hierarchies (BVH): Builds accelerated spatial index trees for meshes and scene objects to speed up line-of-sight raycasts and frustum culling.

• GPU Mesh Picking: GPURaycaster for accurate viewport selection and interaction in the 3D Scene Editor.

• Particle Systems (2D & 3D): Spawns and simulates massive batches of CPU/GPU particles with custom sprite sheet animations. 3D GPU compute simulation supports billboards, ribbons, lightning, force fields, afterburner effects, and a template preset catalog. Scene ParticleFXNode loads `.pfx` effect documents.

• Skeletal Animations & 2D Blend Spaces: Decoupled skeletal system that deforms mesh vertices using interpolated bone weights. Supports 2D blend spaces that interpolate dynamically between multiple skeletal animations (e.g. idle, walk, run) based on 2D parameter coordinates (speed, direction) with configurable coordinate smoothing.

• Water Simulation Component: A grid-based water rendering system with customizable dimensions and subdivisions. Features a specialized PBR water shader with dual scrolled normal maps for dynamic surface ripples, real-time depth-fade light absorption, and screen-space refraction.

• Terrain System: Multi-layer splat terrain with albedo/normal/specular per layer, paintable influence maps, procedural noise generation, heightmap image import, and Jolt height-field physics colliders on play.

• Quake 3 BSP Level Loader: Imports and parses legacy Quake 3 BSP level structures from `.pk3` packages. Rebuilds mesh faces, bezier patches, billboards, lightmap coordinates, entities, and collision brush boundaries directly into engine world coordinates.

• V3D Proprietary Scene Format: A binary scene serializer (`V3D1`) that packages hierarchy structures, meshes, skeletons, animations, PBR materials, and camera settings into a compact, unified file format. JSON `.scene` files are also supported for editor workflows.

[ Physics ]

• 3D Physics (Jolt): Full rigid-body simulation with cube, sphere, capsule, tri-mesh, convex hull, and terrain height-field colliders. Configurable friction, restitution, collision FX, and impact sound triggers.

• 2D Physics (Aether Physics2D): Tile and sprite colliders on 2D maps with static and dynamic bodies.

• FPS Controller: Built-in first-person controller component with capsule collider and movement input handling.

[ Gameplay Systems ]

• Node Interactions: Attach Use, click, and double-click interaction handlers to scene nodes with scriptable NodeInteraction subclasses.

• Game Events: `.event` files with ordered action lists, triggerable from cinematics, logic graphs, or gameplay code. Full Event Editor in the 3D Scene Editor and Map Editor.

• Branching Conversations: `.conv` dialogue trees with text lines, duration timing, audio paths, and player choices. Runtime conversation playback with Cinematic narration track integration.

• Logic Graph Runtime: Evaluates custom `.lgraph` node graphs on scene nodes — branches, loops, timers, overlap checks, actor spawning, and variable storage — to control interactive events without raw code.

• Video Playback: YUV-decoded video with OpenAL audio sync, usable in cinematics and gameplay via CineVideoTrack overlays.

[ Audio & Sound Design ]

• 3D Spatial Audio: An OpenAL-based audio engine that positions sound effects dynamically in 3D space relative to the listener, with EFX support.

• Software DSP Filters: Applies real-time digital signal processing directly to audio streams to create effects like echoes, delay loops, and environmental reverb.

• Audio Streamer: Handles multi-channel music files, loops background tracks, and supports smooth volume cross-fades.

• Cinematic Audio Tracks: Dedicated timeline tracks for 2D music, 3D positional sound, and narration-driven dialogue playback.

[ Visual Shader Nodes & Logic Scripting ]

• Visual Material Compiler: Compiles visual node trees into optimized Vulkan GLSL / DX12 HLSL shader code on the fly. Node library includes constants, textures, UV ops, math, noise, triplanar/parallax, scene color sampling, MatCap, HSV, blur, and built-in surface inputs. Output types: full PBR, simple, post-process, and ray-tracer.

• Math & Texture Mapping Nodes: Provides a rich library of mathematical functions, vector math, procedurally generated noise, and dynamic UV coordinate offsets.

• C# Scripting with Roslyn Hot-Reload: All project `*.cs` scripts compile in-memory via Roslyn every ~2 seconds on file change. Subclass GameNode, GameComponent, GameScriptObject, GameSprite, NodeInteraction, State, and custom event classes. Visual Studio solution generation provides external IDE IntelliSense.

[ User Interface System ]

• Modular UI Toolkit: A core library of flexible layout controls (VBox, HBox, scrollboxes, dropdowns, and text boxes) to build game menus and editor panels.

• GUI Designer Workspace: Visual editor for authoring `.ui` layout files — control palette, UI tree, viewport, properties panel, and transform gizmos.

• Custom Styling & Theme Engine: Supports hot-swappable interface skins with ten built-in presets: Light, Dark, DarkPro, Beauty, One, Arcade, Sky, Solid, Station, and Metal.

• Procedural Vector Icon Library: A built-in repository of over 60 programmatically generated high-resolution vector icons (representing actions, tools, transport controls, and entities) that scale and recolor dynamically according to the active UI theme.

[ Localization ]

• Editor & UI i18n: Phrase-catalog localization with English, French, Brazilian Portuguese, and Japanese. `Loc.T()` / `Loc.Tf()` API with enum dropdown localization. Language selector in the Editor Hub.

[ Import Formats ]

• 3D Models: `.fbx` (skeletal + static, Mixamo-friendly), `.obj` (static meshes)

• Engine Native: `.v3d`, `.v3dmesh`, `.scene`, `.cine`, `.pfx`, `.lgraph`, `.event`, `.conv`, `.ui`

• Maps: `.pk3` (Quake 3 BSP packages)

• Textures: `.png`, `.jpg`, and common image formats via Tex2D

• Environment: `.hdr` cubemaps for IBL

• Audio: `.wav`, `.mp3`

• Fonts: `.ttf`, `.otf`

• Scripts: `.cs` gameplay and material source files

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                     GAME EDITOR TOOLSET

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[ Editor Hub & Workspace Launcher ]

• Unified Editor Hub: A localized workspace launcher with categorized cards, search, pinned workspaces, theme selector, graphics backend selector (Vulkan / DX12), and language selector.

• Dockable Workspaces: Each editor opens as a full-screen state with persistent floating/docking window layouts, tab groups, command palette, undo/redo history, and customized hotkeys.

| Workspace              | Description                                              |

|------------------------|----------------------------------------------------------|

| 3D Scene Editor        | Author levels, place entities, preview gameplay          |

| Material Editor        | Create and tune shaders, textures, surface properties    |

| Project Manager        | Manage projects, builds, and content packaging           |

| S3D Particle FX        | Author 3D GPU particle effects with scene preview        |

| GUI Designer           | Build menus, HUD layouts, and interactive UI screens     |

| Logic Graph Editor     | Wire gameplay logic with visual node graphs              |

| Code Editor            | Edit C# gameplay scripts with syntax highlighting        |

| Map Editor             | Design 2D tile maps and world layout (legacy, hidden)    |

| FX Designer            | Create & tweak 2D particle emitters (legacy, hidden)     |

| Post Process Designer  | Tune bloom, color grading, screen-space effects          |

[ Workspace & Project Management ]

• Project Manager & Launcher Hub: A standalone registry manager that discovers the engine editor, tracks active projects (names, authors, descriptions, and custom thumbnail covers), runs templates, configures workspace asset directories, and generates C# Visual Studio solutions.

• Virtual File System (VFS) Browser: An asset manager with drag-and-drop support, showing models, materials, textures, and maps at a glance.

• Secure Asset Packaging (YPAK): A resource pack system that bundles project files into highly optimized `data.content` and `data.index` archives. Supports Deflate compression and robust AES-GCM cryptographic encryption with embedded engine and project-specific keys to secure assets in shipped builds.

• Build & Export Pipeline: Pack Content encrypts project assets into `game/data/` YPAK archives. Create Build exports a standalone player with encrypted content, content key, `game.info`, prebuilt GamePlayer binaries, StartPlayer launcher, and Settings app. Test Project runs an in-editor preview via GameRunner.

[ Visual Designers & Graph Editors ]

• Material Graph Designer: Wire up PBR textures and math nodes in a visual grid, with real-time preview rendering on 3D meshes (FBX/OBJ import).

• Logic Flow Scripting: Build interactive game events, narrative choices, and triggers using visual node paths instead of writing raw code.

• Post-Process Designer: An interactive interface to reorder, tweak, and stack camera post-effects in real time.

• 2D Blend Space Editor: Map skeletal animations to a 2D coordinate grid and preview blended poses dynamically on character models in real time.

• Dialogue & Conversation Editor: A branching conversation builder featuring a tree-based dialogue node structure. Developers can design complex narrative choices, input text lines, configure duration timing, and link audio paths directly to specific conversation nodes.

• Event Editor: Author `.event` action sequences with built-in and custom script event classes, save/load support, and integration with the 3D Scene Editor and Map Editor.

• Integrated Scripting IDE: A built-in Code Editor workspace featuring real-time C# compilation and semantic analysis powered by Roslyn. Provides syntax highlighting, an interactive IntelliSense autocomplete popup, tabbed file editing, project tree browser, and error diagnosis for rapid gameplay scripting.

[ World Building & Level Design ]

• 3D Level Designer (Scene Editor): Place tiles, sculpt layouts, paint textures, and position meshes using a grid-snapping viewport with play/pause/stop preview.

• Docked Panels: Scene View, Scene Graph, Properties, Content Browser, and Console windows with saved layout persistence.

• 3D Gizmos: Interactive viewport overlays to translate, rotate, scale, and align models naturally in 3D space — local/world space, snap steps, and omni gizmo modes.

• Constructive Solid Geometry (CSG) Brushes: Build complex architectural layouts directly in the editor using boolean operations (Add, Cut, Intersect, Split, and Carve) to sculpt, carve, and combine static mesh geometry.

• Terrain Tools: Create flat, heightmap, or procedural-noise terrain. Multi-layer paint brushes with albedo/normal/specular splatting and influence-map editing.

• Retro 2.5D Raycast Editor: A dedicated design environment for creating classic 2.5D grid-based levels, featuring texture mapping, real-time light placement, and hot-swappable CPU/GPU render previewing.

• 2D Map Editor: Tile painting (select, line, rect, circle, fill, smart fill), 2D viewport, tile manager, map graph, 2D lighting/shadows, physics debug, and integrated conversation/event/cinematic/blend-space editors.

• AI & Physics Preview: Test navigation meshes, bake collision boundaries, and adjust active pathfinding setups directly inside the editor. Play-in-editor snapshots and restores scene state on stop.

• Create Menu: Quick-add cameras, FPS controllers, 3D sounds, point/directional/spot lights, primitive shapes (cube, sphere, plane, torus, capsule, pyramid), and terrain presets.

[ C# Scripting ]

• Extend and script your game using C# classes you can inherit from — GameNode, GameComponent, GameScriptObject, GameSprite, NodeInteraction, State, and custom GameEvent subclasses.

• Roslyn hot-reload recompiles all project scripts automatically (~2 s scan interval) while the editor is open. Errors surface in the Console and Event Editor.

[ Cinematics & Special Effects ]

• Cinematic Timeline & Narration System: Arrange camera paths, audio cues, actor skeletal animations, and post-processing properties along a visual multi-track time grid. Track types include 3D node transform, camera, camera shot cuts, skeletal animation, sprite, particle FX (with param tracks), audio (music), 3D sound, narration (conversation-driven), video overlay, text/credits, game events, post-process, script, time/speed, and markers. Features folder lanes, skip-on-click, loop, edit vs playback mode, and `.cine` save/load.

• Advanced Narration Track: Renders typewriter-style scrolling subtitles with character-by-character fading and alignment controls, driven by conversation assets.

• FX Designer (2D): Create and tweak 2D particle emitter behaviors on tile maps — emitter hierarchy, sprite sheet animation, and live viewport preview.

• S3D Particle FX Workspace: Dedicated 3D particle authoring environment with template browser, FX scene graph, GPU pass toggle, and isolated preview renderer.

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                     RUNTIME & SHIPPING

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[ GamePlayer Standalone Runtime ]

• Launches from StartPlayer.exe or exported project executable.

• Initializes OpenAL, Vulkan engine, encrypted VFS content key, and loads initial State from `game.info` / `project.info`.

• Applies game-build render defaults (upscaling, post-process, physics).

[ Settings App ]

• Bundled with shipped builds for end-user graphics and audio configuration.