VK_Endevaour

Introduction

VK_Endevaour is an educational project focused on learning modern Vulkan (1.4+) by building a small, cleanly structured rendering engine and a sandbox application on top of it.

The primary goals are:

• Learning modern Vulkan usage patterns
• Experimenting with engine architecture
• Maintaining a clean, programming-driven API design

Key technical goals

• Vulkan 1.4 with modern features
  • No legacy render passes (Dynamic Rendering)
  • Explicit synchronization (Synchronization2)
  • Usage of VULKAN_HPP_NO_CONSTRUCTORS and VULKAN_HPP_NO_EXCEPTIONS
    • Explicit create/destroy calls with modern return value types
• C++20
  • Assert-based error handling

Project structure

VK_Endevaour/
├── Applications/
│   └── Sandbox/                # Test application
├── CMake/                      # Global CMake configuration
├── Docs/                       # Documentation (architecture, usage, roadmap)
├── Engine/
│   ├── Core/                   # Fundamental engine utilities (types, memory, helpers)
│   ├── Debug/                  # Logging and diagnostics
│   ├── Graphics/
│   │   ├── Import/             # CPU-side asset import (e.g., OBJ)
│   │   ├── Resources/          # Graphics resources (e.g., Mesh)
│   │   ├── UI/                 # ImGui integration and UI tooling
│   │   └── Vulkan/             # Vulkan backend
│   ├── Math/                   # Mathematical foundations
│   ├── Platform/               # Platform abstraction (window, input)
│   └── Vendor/                 # Third-party libraries
├── Scripts/                    # Helper scripts (format, build, analyze)
└── Tests/                      # Tests

Building and compiling

Requirements

• C++20 compiler
  • Tested with Clang 20.x
• CMake 3.25 or newer
• Vulkan 1.4 compatible graphics card and driver
• Vulkan SDK installation (platform dependent)
  • Installation of the SDK, validation layers, glslc, etc. is intentionally not automated, as this strongly depends on the platform and distribution.

For one Fedora-based system, the following packages were sufficient:

sudo dnf install vulkan-tools
sudo dnf install vulkan-loader-devel
sudo dnf install vulkan-validation-layers-devel

Platform support

• Linux (Wayland)
• Windows
• Regularly tested on both platforms

Dependency handling

All third-party libraries are fully vendored, either header-only or built as static libraries via sub-CMake.

• No system-wide installation of engine dependencies is required.

A helper script exists to verify basic build requirements:

python .\Scripts\CheckDependencies.py

This script provides a best-effort assessment of whether the system is able to build the project.

Build process

Manual CMake usage or via the provided build script:

python .\Scripts\BuildEngine.py -dr    # Debug + Release

Launching

Applications should be launched from the project root directory:

...\VK_Endevaour> .\Build\Debug\Applications\Sandbox\Sandbox.exe

This ensures that all relative resource paths resolve correctly (e.g. shaders, models, textures, configuration files).

Integrated libraries

Thanks to all the creators and contributors of these projects!

Library	Version	Updated in Engine	Functionality	Type
vma	3.4.0	08.06.2026	Memory allocation	Source include
imgui	1.92.8	08.06.2026	GUI	Source include
doctest	2.5.0	26.05.2026	Testing	Source include
glm	1.0.3	01.01.2026	Mathematics	Source include
fmt	12.1.0	29.12.2025	Formatting and logging	Static library
glfw	3.4.0	11.12.2025	Window and input	Static library
tinyobjloader	2.0.0	24.10.2024	OBJ file loading	Source include
stb_image	2.30	21.10.2024	Image loading	Source include

License

VK_Endevaour is licensed under the MIT LICENSE.