pudnax/pilka

Another live-coding tool for creating shader demos, Vulkan+Wgpu powered.

pilka 🔩

Pilka is a cross-platform live-coding tool for creating shader* demos, similar to Bonzomatic, KodeLife or sh4der-jockey.

Available features:

• Hot-reload
• Saving shaders
• Taking screenshot
• Record video
• Compute pipeline for post processing

How

In current state pilka tries to seek shaders folder with the files shader.vert and shader.frag, on fail pilka will generate default setup for you. Then open shader in your favourite code editor (VS, emacs, vim, ed etc.) and pilka would fetch changes after each save.

Controls

• F1: Print help
• F2: Toggle play/pause
• F3: Pause and step back one frame
• F4: Pause and step forward one frame
• F5: Restart playback at frame 0 (Time and Pos = 0)
• F6: Print parameters
• F7: Toggle profiler
• F8: Switch backend
• F10: Save shaders
• F11: Take Screenshot
• F12: Start/Stop record video
• ESC: Exit the application
• Arrows: Change Pos

Parameters

(per-draw-update)

name	type	range
position	vec3	(-∞, ∞)
time	float	[0, ∞)
resolution	vec2	[0, a]
mouse	vec2	[-1, 1]
mouse_pressed	bool
frame	uint
time_delta	float
record_period	float
prev_frame	texture

Flags

• --record f32 - Specify duration of recorded video
• --size u32xu32 - Specify window size and lock from resizing
• --wgsl - Creates template for wgsl shaders

Choosing backend

You can select which backend to start with with the PILKA_BACKEND variable. Currently two backends are available: "wgpu" and "ash". If the value of the variable is incorrect, the default backend "wgpu" will be rolled back.

Requirements

Vulkan SDK is required.

On recent macOS, to allow sound input to be captured (for FFT textures to be generated), you need to: Open up System Preferences, click on Security & Privacy, click on the Privacy tab then click on the Microphone menu item. Make sure pilka is in the list and ticked... erm, probably. I don't have macOS.

Installation

cargo install pilka

You also can install the application by to downloading the source code and build locally.

# or through ssh [email protected]:pudnax/pilka.git
git clone https://github.com/pudnax/pilka.git
cd pilka
cargo install --path .

Dependencies

winit is the "default" window library in Rust ecosystem. And it covers the most of cross-platform issues for you.

png is used to encode screenshots into png files.

notify is a file watcher and maintains the hot-reload.

naga is used to compile GLSL shaders on the runtime.

ash is a Vulkan bindings. I choose ash because I see pilka as a learning project and want to touch the maximum untouched Vulkan. For the same reason I didn't use vulkano, erupt, vulkanism, vkvk.

wgpu is save GPU abstraction over different graphics API like Vulkan, Metal, OpenGL and used for primary backend aside of ash.

puffin is scoped profiler written in Rust by EmbarkStudios and I baked it to pilka for fast performance checking.

pollster is smol blocking executor and needed for eliminating async wgpu API.

Ffmpeg is used to record videos. For my concerns it's temporary solution after which I switch to rav1e on it's release.

Places of inspiration (from where I steal code):

• piet-gpu
• https://github.com/w23/OpenSource

Examples

You can run any example by executing pilka inside of the folder

cd examples/cube
cargo run

cube	cellular automata	line segment
dithering	circle pattern	menger sponge
path tracer	lasers	oblique slices

pilka's Issues

Choose reasonable format or seive out UNDEFINED.

Consider using VkFFT or make bindings for it

Switch to wgpu variant.

Add breadx or/and miniquad as optional window backends.

I'm still not happy with winit compile times.

Need only one

I'm forgetting to destroy shader module on compilation error

Ffmpeg: Crashes when resolution % 2 != 0

Improved CLI

Would you be open to pull requests adding an improved CLI using the clap crate?

I've been looking around for a similar tool and this one looks pretty nice so far. :D

Choose reasonable format or seive out UNDEFINED.

Move surface extensions into `VkInstance`

Cargo install pilka fails on Windows 10

Compiling pilka_ash v0.7.4
error[E0308]: mismatched types
--> C:\Users\Mike Lee.cargo\registry\src\github.com-1ecc6299db9ec823\pilka_ash-0.7.4\src\pvk\instance.rs:144:49
|
144 | unsafe { ash_window::create_surface(&self.entry, &self.instance, window, None) }?;
| ^^^^^^^^^^^ expected struct ash::entry::Entry, found struct ash::Entry
|
= note: expected reference &ash::entry::Entry
found reference &ash::Entry
= note: perhaps two different versions of crate ash are being used?

error[E0308]: mismatched types
--> C:\Users\Mike Lee.cargo\registry\src\github.com-1ecc6299db9ec823\pilka_ash-0.7.4\src\pvk\instance.rs:144:62
|
144 | unsafe { ash_window::create_surface(&self.entry, &self.instance, window, None) }?;
| ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ expected struct ash::instance::Instance, found struct ash::Instance
|
= note: expected reference &ash::instance::Instance
found reference &ash::Instance
= note: perhaps two different versions of crate ash are being used?

error[E0277]: ? couldn't convert the error to ash::vk::Result
--> C:\Users\Mike Lee.cargo\registry\src\github.com-1ecc6299db9ec823\pilka_ash-0.7.4\src\pvk\instance.rs:144:93
|
144 | unsafe { ash_window::create_surface(&self.entry, &self.instance, window, None) }?;
| ^ the trait From<ash::vk::enums::Result> is not implemented for ash::vk::Result
|
= note: the question mark operation (?) implicitly performs a conversion on the error value using the From trait
= note: required because of the requirements on the impl of FromResidual<std::result::Result<Infallible, ash::vk::enums::Result>> for std::result::Result<surface::VkSurface, ash::vk::Result>

error[E0308]: mismatched types
--> C:\Users\Mike Lee.cargo\registry\src\github.com-1ecc6299db9ec823\pilka_ash-0.7.4\src\pvk\instance.rs:148:13
|
148 | surface,
| ^^^^^^^ expected struct SurfaceKHR, found struct ash::vk::definitions::SurfaceKHR
|
= note: perhaps two different versions of crate ash are being used?

Some errors have detailed explanations: E0277, E0308.
For more information about an error, try rustc --explain E0277.
error: could not compile pilka_ash due to 4 previous errors
warning: build failed, waiting for other jobs to finish...
error: failed to compile pilka v0.7.6, intermediate artifacts can be found at C:\Users\MIKELE~1\AppData\Local\Temp\cargo-installxleCNo

Caused by:
build failed

Don't use `device_wait_idle` for resizing

wgpu: Add internal threadpool

Reading from the device buffer in wgpu is an async task. And for decent video recording I'm thinking of adding thread pool and pushing tasks in it for resolving.
But I'm losing ordering this way. First idea that come to my mind is attaching frame number to the task and when it's ready I send it to the another thread with channel.
On the other end receiving bytes+frame number to BinaryHeap restoring the right ordering.

Add tracing on the library level

https://lib.rs/crates/tracing

Make transfer command pool

`cargo install pilka` fails

   Compiling pilka_ash v0.7.0
error[E0412]: cannot find type `Entry` in crate `ash_molten`
  --> /Users/nikita/.cargo/registry/src/github.com-1ecc6299db9ec823/pilka_ash-0.7.0/src/pvk/instance.rs:34:28
   |
34 |     pub entry: ash_molten::Entry,
   |                            ^^^^^ not found in `ash_molten`
   |
help: consider importing one of these items
   |
1  | use ash::Entry;
   |
1  | use crate::Entry;
   |
1  | use std::collections::btree_map::Entry;
   |
1  | use std::collections::hash_map::Entry;
   |

error[E0277]: the `?` operator can only be applied to values that implement `Try`
  --> /Users/nikita/.cargo/registry/src/github.com-1ecc6299db9ec823/pilka_ash-0.7.0/src/pvk/instance.rs:49:21
   |
49 |         let entry = ash_molten::MoltenEntry::load()?;
   |                     ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ the `?` operator cannot be applied to type `MoltenEntry`
   |
   = help: the trait `Try` is not implemented for `MoltenEntry`

Some errors have detailed explanations: E0277, E0412.
For more information about an error, try `rustc --explain E0277`.
error: failed to compile `pilka v0.7.3`, intermediate artifacts can be found at `/var/folders/1k/09s_wjt1151d9z8pd73qjjdm0000gn/T/cargo-installRXqBl3`

Caused by:
  could not compile `pilka_ash` due to 2 previous errors

Adding same shader for another pipeline overwrites previous value

Can be solved with changing internal structure to HashMap<PathBuf, Vec<usize>>

Move `ProfilerWindow` to another thread

I need to try keep all GUI stuff aside from main thread.

Crashes in release mode with validation layers

Nvim integration

Connect to nvim or open nvim as subprocess and communicate on stdin and stdout using the msgpack-rpc format.

Check for blitting gracefully

https://github.com/SaschaWillems/Vulkan/blob/master/examples/screenshot/screenshot.cpp
https://github.com/LunarG/VulkanTools/blob/master/layersvt/screenshot.cpp

Call vkResetCommandPool before reusing it in another frame.

Make search for compute queue smarter.

Set up barriers to change image layouts from UNDEFINED

Make search for compute queue smarter.

Add semaphore for each graphics pipeline.

Simmillar how it's done in Sascha's examples and test the performance change.

Consider about Arc

Switch to wgou variant.

Audio doesn't work

Duh

Find the better way to work with c_void

Make final decision about dynamic linking and it's performance.

Rework sound system.

How i work with sounds is a shame and doesn't have to be like this.

Use any implementaion of curcular buffer to store frames for further video encoding

cargo install fails on Mac OS X due to #![feature] flag

Building on Mac OS X fails with the following error:

error[E0554]: `#![feature]` may not be used on the stable release channel
 --> /Users/user/.cargo/registry/src/github.com-1ecc6299db9ec823/pilka_wgpu-0.7.4/src/lib.rs:2:1
  |
2 | #![feature(array_methods)]
  | ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

For more information about this error, try `rustc --explain E0554`.
error: could not compile `pilka_wgpu` due to previous error