RenderJoy is a clone of ShaderToy(https://www.shadertoy.com/) for O3DE.
But, I don't know what's ShaderToy? It's a very convenient sandbox to write multi-pass pixel shaders.
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Shaders in ShaderToy are written in GLSL (The WebGL variant). In O3DE, shaders are written in AZSL (A superset of HLSL).
RenderJoy provides the same conveniences as ShaderToy, but from the comfort of writing the shaders in AZSL.
This means you can prototype or practice AZSL shader development without having to write C++ code. You can design really complex multi-pass pipelines at runtime, only limited by your imagination (and CPU/GPU memory). -
The main renderer of O3DE is ATOM. ATOM is modular and data-driven, allowing developers to create custom render pipelines with ease.
RenderJoy is an opportunity to showcase such flexibility. -
Starting with RenderJoy 2.0 you can now render as many shader effects as your machine can take. Each shader effect can run indenpendently as billboards floating in the main viewport of O3DE. This is really great to compare and debug (with WinPix or RenderDoc) the performance of several shaders running concurrently. Here is a screenshot of 7 shader effects, each one rendering into its own billboard...
After cloning this repository, you'll find two subdirectories:
DemoProject/
Gem/
At its core RenderJoy is a Gem, so at a minimum you'll only need to register the Gem, and enable it in your other game projects.
Optionally, you can use the sample game project, RenderJoyDemoProject, provided inside the DemoProject/ folder. This game project contains several sample levels. Some of the examples are a straight port from ShaderToy, like being able to play PacMan (https://www.shadertoy.com/view/Ms3XWN) 😁
For the sake of simplicity, the following instructions assume you have installed O3DE at **D:\GIT\o3de**,
and RenderJoy was cloned in E:\Other\RenderJoy.
This is the easiest way to compile the O3DE Editor and start using RenderJoy, or checking out the Level demos that come with RenderJoyDemoProjecy.
cd D:\GIT\o3de- Register the provided demo project, RenderJoyDemoProject.
.\scripts\o3de.bat register -pp E:\Other\RenderJoy\DemoProject cd E:\Other\RenderJoy\DemoProject- Generate the Visual Studio solution to compile the Editor (This example assumes VS2022).
The following cmake configuration command assumes your 3rdParty folder is located at: D:\LY3RDPARTY\lyengine\3rdParty
cmake -B build -S . -G "Visual Studio 17" -DLY_3RDPARTY_PATH=D:\LY3RDPARTY\lyengine\3rdParty
OR
If you use the default 3rdParty folder, then this command should suffice:
cmake -B build -S . -G "Visual Studio 17" - Build the Editor.
Compile the Editor target using the generated solution at '.\build\RenderJoyDemoProject.sln'
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Register the RenderJoy Gem.
cd D:\GIT\o3de
.\scripts\o3de.bat register -gp E:\Other\RenderJoy\Gem -
Enable the RenderJoy Gem.
Assuming your particular game project is located at: D:\MyProjects\SecretProject:
Edit project.json, which in this example will be located at D:\MyProjects\SecretProject\project.json and add "RenderJoy" to the "gem_names" array. Here is a snippet:
...
"gem_names": [
"Atom",
"AtomLyIntegration",
"Camera",
...
More Gems
...
"RenderJoy",
],
...-
Generate the Visual Studio solution to compile the Editor
cd D:\MyProjects\SecretProject
The following cmake configuration command assumes your 3rdParty folder is located at: "D:\LY3RDPARTY\lyengine\3rdParty"
cmake -B build -S . -G "Visual Studio 17" -DLY_3RDPARTY_PATH=D:\LY3RDPARTY\lyengine\3rdParty
OR
If you use the default 3rdParty folder, then this command should suffice:
cmake -B build -S . -G "Visual Studio 17" -
Build the Editor.
Compile the Editor target using the generated solution at '.\build\SecretProject.sln', or equivalent.
Go to the Wiki for instructions on how to write shaders for RenderJoy:
https://github.com/lumbermixalot/RenderJoy/wiki