Show HN: Consol3 – A 3D engine for the terminal that executes on the CPU • Hacker News Board

Show HN: Consol3 – A 3D engine for the terminal that executes on the CPU

#1

Post by victormeriqui » Sat, Feb 24, 2024, 2:17 AM UTC

Hi all

This has been my hobby project for quite a few years now

It started as a small engine to serve as a sandbox to try out new 3d graphics ideas

After adding many features through out the years and re-writing the entire engine a few times, this is the latest state

It currently supports loading models with animations, textures, lights, shadow maps, normal maps, and some other goodies

I've also recently added voxel raymarching as an alternative renderer, along with a fun physics simulation :)

Show HN: Consol3 – A 3D engine for the terminal that executes on the CPU
github.com

Re: Show HN: Consol3 – A 3D engine for the terminal that executes on the CPU

#2

Post by Guestmodinfo » Sat, Feb 24, 2024, 2:52 AM UTC

Wow. I love the concept so much

Re: Show HN: Consol3 – A 3D engine for the terminal that executes on the CPU

#3

Post by jareklupinski » Sat, Feb 24, 2024, 3:10 AM UTC

"I don't even see the code anymore. All I see is: noob... aimbot... afk..."

Re: Show HN: Consol3 – A 3D engine for the terminal that executes on the CPU

#4

Post by mysterydip » Sat, Feb 24, 2024, 3:36 AM UTC

Really nice, thanks for sharing! I like the pseudo-shader implementation. What kind of framerate were you seeing and how many triangles could you push?

Re: Show HN: Consol3 – A 3D engine for the terminal that executes on the CPU

#5

Post by paramu » Sat, Feb 24, 2024, 6:58 AM UTC

Rummy wealth

Re: Show HN: Consol3 – A 3D engine for the terminal that executes on the CPU

#6

Post by raytopia » Sat, Feb 24, 2024, 7:16 AM UTC

This is so unbelievably awesome! Projects like these are why I browse HN

Re: Show HN: Consol3 – A 3D engine for the terminal that executes on the CPU

#7

Post by raytopia » Sat, Feb 24, 2024, 7:18 AM UTC

raytopia wrote: post #6

This is so unbelievably awesome! Projects like these are why I browse HN

And it has shaders. Can't get any cooler

Re: Show HN: Consol3 – A 3D engine for the terminal that executes on the CPU

#8

Post by lukan » Sat, Feb 24, 2024, 8:43 AM UTC

raytopia wrote: post #7

raytopia wrote: post #6

This is so unbelievably awesome! Projects like these are why I browse HN

And it has shaders. Can't get any cooler

What am I missing here? Why is it cool to not use the fast GPU and instead do everything slow in a software renderer on the CPU? It surely is interesting to do it for the sake of it, but are there any practical use cases?

Re: Show HN: Consol3 – A 3D engine for the terminal that executes on the CPU

#9

Post by Blahah » Sat, Feb 24, 2024, 9:17 AM UTC

lukan wrote: post #8

raytopia wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And it has shaders. Can't get any cooler

What am I missing here? Why is it cool to not use the fast GPU and instead do everything slow in a software renderer on the CPU? It surely is interesting to do it for the sake of it, but are there any practical use cases?

Running it remotely on a cloud instance? Or on any machine without a GPU.

Re: Show HN: Consol3 – A 3D engine for the terminal that executes on the CPU

#10

Post by teaearlgraycold » Sat, Feb 24, 2024, 9:41 AM UTC

lukan wrote: post #8

raytopia wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And it has shaders. Can't get any cooler

What am I missing here? Why is it cool to not use the fast GPU and instead do everything slow in a software renderer on the CPU? It surely is interesting to do it for the sake of it, but are there any practical use cases?

It's much easier to debug. And CPUs are actually fast enough to do real-time rendering of simple scenes. Because writing for the CPU is so different, and so much easier than writing for the GPU, a pure software stack allows you to explore new ideas.