AetherEngine

AetherEngine is a lightweight, modular game engine designed for flexible game development.
The name Aether refers to the classical concept of the upper sky or pure air, symbolizing the engine's focus on high performance, openness, and limitless creative possibilities.

---

Features

• Lightweight & Modular: Build only the systems you need.
• Cross-platform Rendering: Designed for Vulkan (and optionally Direct3D/OpenGL backends).
• Flexible Asset Pipeline: Supports 3D models, textures, and audio.
• Integrated Debug & Profiling Tools: Compatible with Tracy, RenderDoc, and other GPU/CPU profilers.
• Extensible: Plugin-based architecture for custom modules.

---

Project Structure

cmake/          CMake entry points, helpers and find modules
configs/        Tooling and runtime configuration
extern/         Third-party dependencies, as git submodules
runtimes/       Vendored UV and Python runtimes (Windows, opt-in)
scripts/        just recipes
sources/        Engine modules -- one directory per module
tests/          Unit tests, one directory per module under test

---

Requirements

• CMake 3.31+ and Ninja
• A C++23 compiler: GCC, Clang, clang-cl or MSVC
• Vulkan 1.4.335+, from the LunarG SDK or your distribution's packages
• An assembler for the libjpeg-turbo SIMD kernels: nasm or yasm. When neither is on PATH, the bundled extern/yasm is built instead.
• Python 3.14+. On Windows, -DENABLE_RUNTIMES=ON downloads a pinned UV and Python instead.

Getting Started

1. Clone the repository

# --recurse-submodules matters: the dependencies in extern/ are submodules
git clone --recurse-submodules https://github.com/AIperture-Labs/AetherEngine.git
cd AetherEngine

2. Build with CMake

cmake --list-presets
cmake --preset <preset-name>          # configure using a preset
cmake --build --preset <preset-name>  # build using the same preset

The x64-*-gcc and x64-*-clang presets build natively on Linux; x64-*-clang-cl and x64-*-msvc target Windows.

3. Run tests

ctest --preset x64-debug-gcc   # or x64-debug-clang

Tests are built by the Debug presets. On any other preset, configure with -DBUILD_TESTS=ON and run ctest --test-dir out/build/<preset-name>.

Aether - The Concept

In ancient philosophy, Aether was considered the pure upper air that the gods breathed, distinct from the normal air we breathe on Earth. In the context of AetherEngine, it represents:

• Purity: clean, efficient, and lightweight code
• Freedom: modular design allowing limitless creative possibilities
• Performance: targeting high-performance real-time rendering