Voxel Engine

A high-performance C++20 Voxel Game Engine built from scratch.

Overview

This project is a custom game engine tailored for voxel-based rendering and gameplay, inspired by Minecraft. It is built using modern C++20 and focuses on performance, modularity, and clean architecture.

The engine features a modular core decoupled from game logic, a centralized configuration system, and optimized rendering techniques like aggressive face culling and multithreaded chunk generation.

Key Features

• Modern C++20 Architecture: Modular design with organized subdirectories:
  • core/ - Engine subsystems (graphics, rendering, scene, atmosphere, settings)
  • world/ - Game logic and voxel systems
  • ui/ - User interface components
• High-Performance Rendering:
  • OpenGL 4.6 Core Profile.
  • Aggressive Face Culling (internal faces are never rendered).
  • Frustum Culling for optimized rendering.
  • Multithreaded Chunk Generation and Meshing.
• Dynamic World:
  • Infinite procedural terrain using 3D Perlin Noise (FastNoiseLite).
  • Biome System (Plains, Mountains) with smooth transitions.
  • Cave Systems: Spaghetti caves with natural entrances and water flooding.
  • Destructible Terrain: Raycast-based block breaking and placing.
• Visuals:
  • Dynamic Day/Night Cycle with celestial bodies (Sun/Moon with lunar phases).
  • Directional Lighting with Per-Vertex Ambient Occlusion (AO).
  • Screen-Space Ambient Occlusion (SSAO) for enhanced depth.
  • Shadow Mapping with stabilized cascades.
  • Transparent Water rendering with proper blending.
  • Volumetric Clouds (Fast 2D / Fancy 3D modes).
  • Distance Fog for atmospheric depth.
  • Weather System (Rain/Snow particles).

Demo

Surface Exploration

Cave Generation

Tech Stack

• Language: C++20
• Build System: CMake 3.28+
• Windowing/Input: GLFW 3.4
• Graphics API: OpenGL 4.6
• Loaders: GLAD
• Math: GLM 1.0.1
• Noise: FastNoiseLite 1.1.1
• Image Loading: stb_image
• JSON: nlohmann/json

Getting Started

Prerequisites

• C++20 compatible compiler (GCC, Clang, MSVC)
• CMake 3.28 or higher
• OpenGL 4.6 capabilities

Build Instructions

# Clone the repository
git clone https://github.com/berkay2002/voxel-project.git
cd voxel-project

# Configure the project
cmake -B build -S .

# Build the project
cmake --build build -j$(nproc)

Running

./build/VoxelEngine

Testing

The project includes automated unit tests using Google Test. Tests cover core components like:

• Ray calculations and transformations
• Chunk block storage and retrieval
• Heightmap generation
• Block registry and configuration loading
• Voxel raycasting (DDA algorithm)

Running Tests

# Build tests
cmake --build build --target VoxelTests

# Run all tests
./build/tests/VoxelTests

# Run with verbose output
./build/tests/VoxelTests --gtest_filter=* --gtest_color=yes

Continuous Integration

Tests are automatically run on every push and pull request via GitHub Actions. Check the build status badge at the top of this README for the current test status.

Controls

• WASD: Move Camera
• Mouse: Look Around
• M: Toggle Mouse Capture
• Left Click: Break Block
• Right Click: Place Block
• Shift: Sprint / Fly Down
• Space: Jump / Fly Up
• K: Toggle Weather (Rain/Snow)
• O: Toggle SSAO
• H/J: Rewind/Fast-forward Time
• Esc: Close Application

License

This project is open source and available under the MIT License.