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Nanite-style virtualized geometry renderer on DirectX 12

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# Nanite-style virtualized geometry renderer on DirectX 12

Nanite-style virtualized geometry renderer on DirectX 12 (built on Microsoft MiniEngine).

Nyx is a personal research project focused on extreme-scale geometry rendering: continuous LOD, GPU-driven culling, mesh-shader dispatch, and demand-driven geometry streaming.

The current stress test scene is [Zorah](https://developer.download.nvidia.com/ProGraphics/nvpro-samples/zorah_main_public.v2.gltf.7z) (NVIDIA), with:

- **1,639,668,228 unique triangles**
- **18,949,504,889 instanced triangles**

## Showcase

Test platform for the screenshots/video below: **i7-14700KF + RTX 4070 Ti SUPER**, rendered at **4K**.

Demo video:

<h2 align="center">🎬 Nyx – Nanite-Style Virtualized Geometry Renderer</h2>

4K • 144Hz • 18.9B Instanced Triangles • RTX 4070 Ti SUPER

Screenshots:

Lit mode

![Zorah shading](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/moonlovelj/Nyx/main/Images/Zorah_Shading.png)

Meshlet mode

![Zorah meshlets](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/moonlovelj/Nyx/main/Images/Zorah_Meshlet.png)

Triangle mode

![Zorah triangles](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/moonlovelj/Nyx/main/Images/Zorah_Triangle.png)

![Zorah GPU trace](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/moonlovelj/Nyx/main/Images/Zorah_GPUTrace.png)

## Core Features

- Nanite-style meshlet hierarchy with DAG/BVH traversal
- GPU-driven rendering via indirect `DispatchMesh`
- Two-pass frustum + HZB occlusion culling
- Visibility buffer pipeline, then resolve to deferred GBuffer
- Dynamic geometry streaming with residency/address table updates
- Async page IO + LZ4-compressed geometry pages
- Runtime Slang shader compilation and reflection-driven root signatures/bindings
- Runtime debug/tuning UI (pixel error, culling freeze, debug modes)

## Quick Start

### Requirements

- Windows 10/11
- Visual Studio 2022 with the Desktop development with C++ workload
- DX12 GPU with Mesh Shader support
- NuGet package restore enabled

Slang and DXC are included under `MiniEngine/ThirdParty`; no separate shader compiler installation is required.

Recommended for large scenes:

- High-VRAM GPU
- 32 GB+ RAM (48 GB+ recommended for rebuilding very large assets)
- NVMe SSD
- Large free disk space

### Build

1. Open `MiniEngine/SceneViewer/SceneViewer.sln`
2. Select `Release | x64`
3. Build and run `SceneViewer`

The build automatically copies the Slang runtime, Slang standard module, `dxcompiler.dll`, and `dxil.dll` to the application output directory.

By default, SceneViewer loads:

- `Assets/bunny/bunny.gltf`

### Shader Toolchain

Nyx uses the bundled **Slang** and **DXC** toolchain to compile Shader Model 6.6 DXIL at runtime. Slang reflection is used to generate root signatures and bind shader parameters by name.

Packaged builds load shaders and includes from their bundled `MiniEngine` tree. Local builds fall back to the repository source tree.

### Zorah Quick Start (Prebuilt Cache)

Building Zorah cache locally can be time-consuming and memory-intensive.
If you only want to run the demo, use the prebuilt files:

- [Download prebuilt Zorah package](https://pan.quark.cn/s/28de91939fee)

After download, extract/copy the files to:

`MiniEngine/SceneViewer/Assets/zorah_main_public/`

Then run:

```powershell
.\SceneViewer.exe -model .\Assets\zorah_main_public\zorah_main_public.gltf
```

## Command Line

From the SceneViewer output directory, examples:

Typical path (default MiniEngine layout):

`MiniEngine\Build\x64\Release\Output\SceneViewer\`

```powershell
.\SceneViewer.exe -model .\Assets\bunny\bunny.gltf
.\SceneViewer.exe -model .\Assets\Jinx\scene.gltf -instances 3600
.\SceneViewer.exe -model .\Assets\bunny\bunny.gltf -rebuild 1
```

Arguments:

- `-model <path>`: glTF/glb scene path
- `-instances <N>`: instance count (clamped to `1..1000000`)
- `-rebuild 1`: force rebuild `.mini` cache

## Controls

- `W A S D` / `Q E`: move
- Mouse: look
- Mouse wheel: movement speed scale
- `Shift`: fine movement toggle
- `Backspace`: engine tuning/debug UI

## Architecture Overview

### Offline / First-load Build (`.gltf/.glb` -> `.mini`)

1. Parse scene/material/camera/animation data
2. Build meshlets and meshlet groups
3. Iteratively simplify groups for multi-level LOD
4. Build hierarchy nodes and metadata
5. Pack geometry pages
6. Compress pages with LZ4
7. Save metadata + blob to `.mini`

### Runtime Frame Flow

1. Instance culling
2. DAG/hierarchy culling (frustum + HZB)
3. Build indirect mesh dispatch args
4. Mesh shader pass 0
5. Export depth and generate HZB
6. Repeat cull + mesh shader pass 1
7. Resolve visibility buffer to GBuffer
8. Deferred lighting + post effects

### Streaming Runtime

- Page size: **256 KB**
- Chunk size: **256 MB**
- GPU request mask readback + async page load + LZ4 decompress + upload

## Technical Snapshot

- Language: **C++20**
- Graphics API: **DirectX 12**
- Shader language/compiler frontend: **Slang 2026.10**
- DXIL compiler backend: **DXC 2026-05-27**
- Shader Model: **6.6**
- Agility SDK package: `Microsoft.Direct3D.D3D12 1.616.1`
- Meshlet defaults: max vertices **128**, max triangles **128**, group size **32**, BVH node children **8**

## Repository Layout

- `MiniEngine/Core`: engine core and rendering systems
- `MiniEngine/Model`: model conversion, meshlets, culling, streaming, shaders
- `MiniEngine/SceneViewer`: runtime app
- `MiniEngine/SceneViewer/Assets`: sample and stress scenes

## Notes

- To load custom glTF assets, place them under `MiniEngine/SceneViewer/Assets` and pass the path with `-model`.
- This project uses MiniEngine conventions (right-handed coordinate handling inside the renderer path).
- Large-scene build time depends heavily on CPU, storage bandwidth, and available memory.

## Acknowledgements

- [Unreal Engine Nanite talks and publications](https://advances.realtimerendering.com/s2021/Karis_Nanite_SIGGRAPH_Advances_2021_final.pdf)
- [Microsoft MiniEngine](https://github.com/microsoft/DirectX-Graphics-Samples/tree/master/MiniEngine)
- [meshoptimizer](https://github.com/zeux/meshoptimizer)
- [lz4](https://github.com/lz4/lz4)
- [cgltf](https://github.com/jkuhlmann/cgltf)
- [imgui](https://github.com/ocornut/imgui)
- [Slang](https://github.com/shader-slang/slang)
- [DirectX Shader Compiler](https://github.com/microsoft/DirectXShaderCompiler)
- Inspiration references: [nanite-webgpu](https://github.com/Scthe/nanite-webgpu), [vk_lod_clusters](https://github.com/nvpro-samples/vk_lod_clusters)

## License

- Nyx source code: MIT License (`LICENSE`)
- Third-party components: original licenses (`THIRD_PARTY_NOTICES.md`)
- Scene assets may have separate licenses and restrictions; verify before redistribution

## Contact

- `love.jingjing.forever.1314@gmail.com`

Nyx

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