CGL (C Game Library) is a multipurpose library mainly for recreational coding / demo scenes / prototyping / small games / experimentation.

Jaysmito101 Jaysmito101 Last update: Nov 13, 2023

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CGL

CGL (C Graphics Library) is a multipurpose library mainly for recreational coding / demo scenes / prototyping / small games / experimentation. This has a lot of utilities for graphics. And best of all all of it is inside a single header file cgl.h. Also CGL is made purely in C but is also compatible with C++.

NOTE : Do not think that header only means its going to increase compile time as the implementation needs be enabled only for 1 file using #define CGL_IMPLEMENTATION. See Examples


Target Platforms

  • Windows
  • Linux
  • MacOS (untested)
  • WebAssembly (Beta)
  • Android (Coming Soon)

What does CGL Provide?

  • cgl-rs

  • cgl-py

  • Windowing library (Optional)

    • You can completely disable it by #define CGL_EXCLUDE_WINDOW_API
    • This windowing library is primarily a wrapper GLFW along with a few extra functionalities. Example : In case you are using some library like nuklear for GUI it will mess up all glfw callbacks so with CGL you can restore the CGL callbacks with a call to CGL_window_resecure_callbacks
  • Utility functionalities

    • Reading/Writing files
    • Random float/int/bool/vec2/vec3/color generation
    • CRC32/CRC64
    • ROT13 encryption
    • General Purpose Hashing Functions refer here
    • Colored printf (red, green, blue, gray/yellow)
    • Point/Triangle intersection check
    • 3D transform API (matrix calculation, etc)
    • TODO: [ MD5 / SHA 256 / SHA 128 / AES ]
  • Noise API

    • Multiple faster Alternatives to libc's rand
    • Procedural Coherent Noise Algorithms
      • Perlin's Noise (Improved Version)
      • OpenSimplex2
      • Value Noise
      • Worley Noise (or Cellular Noise)
    • Fractals like FBm, Rigid, Billow, PingPong
    • Parameters for Octaves/Lacunarity/Weighted Strength/Gain
  • Triangulation

    • Bower Watson Algorithm for Delaunay Triangulator
  • Artificial Intelligence

    • Neural Netowrks
    • Backpropagation
    • Serializing/Deserializing networks
    • Multi Variable Linear Regression
  • Graph Algorithms

    • A* Path Finding (general purpose)
    • N Dimensional Spatial Partition and Localization (n dimensional version of a quad tree)
  • Data structures

    • List(dynamic array) + Stack (implemented together)
    • Hashtable -> This hastable is general purpose. Key can be string or a n-bit buffer. The value can be anything int, string, float, custom types, ...
      • Hashtable Iterator -> Iterate through the hashtable using a simple API
  • Logger

    • Can be enabled/disabled by #define CGL_DISABLE_LOGGER
    • Log to multiple log files simultaneously
    • Log to console with colored output for seperate log levels
    • Logger with auto timestamps
  • Cross Platform Networking (Optional)

    • You can disable all networking by #define CGL_EXCLUDE_NETWORKING
    • Low-level sockets
    • SSL sockets (optional) (requires OpenSSL)
    • HTTP/HTTPS request (beta)
  • General Purpose Markov Chains (Optional) Example

    • Can work with any type of data ( text / image / etc. )
    • Train/Generate with 3 - 4 lines of code
    • Trainer implemented for text generation (n-gram based)
    • Custom trainer API for custom scenarios
  • Cross Platform Threading

    • Threads
    • Mutex
    • Condition Variables (TODO)
    • NOTE: Implemented using Win32 Threads on Windows and pthread on Linux. (on Linux you need to link pthread to build)
  • Bloom

    • Apply bloom to any tuxtures with just 1 line of code
    • Implementation based of Unity's bloom
    • Custom thresholding
    • Custom downsample/upsample passes
    • Entirely done in Compute Shaders
  • 2D Collision Detection

    • Detect collisions between 2D polygons
    • Generate Seperating Axes for polygons
    • Get Overlap distance
    • GJK (Gilbert–Johnson–Keerthi distance algorithm)
    • EPA (Expanding Polytope Algorithm)
    • SAT (Seperate Axis Theorem)
  • Marching Square

    • Fully Customizablt Marcher
    • Linear Interpolation supported
    • Generates 2D Mesh (Triangles) for CGL
  • Toon Post Processor

    • Outline Effect
    • Toon Shading Effect
    • Hatching Effect
    • All in a single post process call ( no per object calculation)
    • Completely implemented in Compute Shader
    • Customizable
  • CGL Ray Cast

    • Fast 2D Ray Cast
    • Custom Walls
    • Bake to Triangle Mesh
    • Public ray cast functions
  • CGL Node Editor

    • Very fast as its powered by CGL Widgets
    • Custom nodes, pins, links
    • Minimal & Powerful
    • Render your own nodes & links type API
    • Zoom In/Out
    • Global Offsets
  • CGL Audio API

    • Cross Platform (OpenAL backend)
    • Simple API
    • WAV File Loader/Sampler
  • CSV API

    • CSV parser
    • CSV serializer
    • CSV document data structure
  • CGL Widgets (Optional)

    • You can disable it by #define CGL_EXCLUDE_WIDGETS
    • API Like p5.js
    • Text widgets (render high quality crisp text without loading or baking any font)
    • Batch Renderer backend (very fast even for a large number of widgets)
    • draw (filled or stroked) :
      • triangle [CGL_widgets_add_triangle]
      • general quad [CGL_widgets_add_quad]
      • rectangle [CGL_widgets_add_rect CGL_widgets_add_rect2f]
      • line [CGL_widgets_add_line]
      • circle [CGL_widgets_add_circle CGL_widgets_add_circle2f]
      • oval [CGL_widgets_add_oval, CGL_widgets_add_oval2f]
      • arc
    • Plot
      • Scatter plot
      • Bar Graph (vertical/horizontal)
      • Pie Chart
      • Plot a function
    • font based text widgets (load custom font for high quality text rendering with widgets api)
    • Surrport for rendering 3D meshes with widgets API
    • Support for Textures to Widgtes API (efficient)
    • Advanced Bezier Curve( lines or dotted) widget
    • Add individual vertices
    • Adjust stroke color/thickness
    • Customize Batch renderer max vertices capacity (for low memory systems)
  • Math library

    • Advanced Matrix Library (this is seperate from matrix lib for graphics)
      • Linear Algebra for matrixx math
    • vec2/vec3/vec4
    • mat3/mat4 (for graphics)
    • add/sub/mul/div/scale/length/normalize/lerp/min/max/equal for vec2/vec3/vec4
    • rotate_x/rotate_y/rotate_z for vec3
    • scale/translate/rotate_x/rotate_y/rotate_z/add/sub/mul for mat4
    • perspective for mat4
    • transpose for mat4/(mat3 TODO)
    • Rotation Matrices using Goldman's Method
    • look_at matrix
    • Quaternion math
    • Transform vectors
    • NOTE: Most of math functions are implemented via macros so will be totally inclined and quite fast without any unnecessary function calls
  • High Level OpenGL API for (Optional)

    • You can completely disable it by #define CGL_EXCLUDE_GRAPHICS_API
    • Texture (2D / 2D Array / Cube map)
    • Framebuffers
    • SSBO (Shader Storage Buffer Object)
    • UBO (Uniform Buffer Object)
    • Shaders
      • Vertex & Fragment (Geometry Shader not included as its not very widely used)
      • Compute Shader API
  • CGL Mesh API

    • CGL has a high level API for handling meshes
    • 2 types of meshes are there
      • CPU mesh -> stores the data also used for mesh operations like
        • generate triangle
        • generate quad
        • load OBJ (beta)
        • generate cube
        • generate plane
        • generate cylinder
        • generate sphere
        • generate mesh out of any parametric surface function refer here
        • calculate normals
        • perform operation on meshes
          • add 2 meshes
          • offset vertices
          • etc .
      • GPU mesh -> the pointer to the data stored on GPU side (internally handles the Vertex buffer, Index buffer, Vertex Array) and can used for
        • render
        • render instanced
        • render wireframe
        • render wireframe instanced
  • CGL camera

    • CGL provides a proper camera abstraction
    • Perspective & Orthographic
    • It internally handles all matrix calculations (just input the position and rotation)
    • Auto calculates the Up, Right, Front vectors
  • Text Rendering (Optional) (Requires FreeType2)

    • You can completely disable it with #define CGL_EXCLUDE_TEXT_RENDER
    • Load Fonts from .ttf files
    • Bake bitmaps for characters
    • Bake textures from strings
  • Trail Renderer

    • Fast 3D Trail Renderer
    • Bake to mesh
    • Custom Shader support
    • Fully customizable
  • Sky Renderer (Optional)

    • You can completely disable it with #define CGL_EXCLUDE_SKY_RENDERER
    • Supports both a Sky Box (cube mesh) and Sky Sphere/Dome (sphere mesh)
    • Supports Cube map Textured Sky
    • Supports Realtime Procedurally Generated Sky ( + procedural clouds)
    • Render a beautiful sky with just 3 - 5 lines of code
  • Phong Renderer (Optional)

    • You can disable it via #define CGL_EXCLUDE_PHONG_RENDERER
    • It has:
      • Phone Pipeline -> it is the pipeline holding shader data and global engine data. Options available are
        • enable/disable blinn correction
        • enable/disable depth test
        • enable/disable gamma correction
        • setup ambient lighting
        • add/remove lights
      • Phong Light -> It can be of 3 types:
        • Directional -> it takes (direction, color, intensity)
        • Point -> it takes (position, color, itensity, constant, linear, quadratic)
        • Spot (TODO)
      • Phong Material
        • dissuse texture/color
        • specular texture/color
        • shininess
        • normal maps (TODO)
  • Tilemap Renderer (Optional)

    • You can disable it with #define CGL_EXCLUDE_TILEMAP_RENDERER
    • Renders a NxN tilemap with a single line of code
    • Each tile can have following states
      • clear (transparent or disabled)
      • solid color
      • texture -> Texture can be supplied via:
        • texture 2d array -> you need to provide depth for each tile
        • tileset or texture atlas -> you have to provide bounds (normalized 0.0-1.0) of the area of the alas to be used on tile
    • NOTE: this tile render renders only 4 vertices and has only 1 draw call (not a instanced call so its quite fast

Things that are being worked on:

  • PBR renderer (optional)
  • IBL (optional)

Showreels

Checkout out: here

**For more see Examples


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