BRUTAL README

The project's README from github.com/ahwootech/BRUTAL. As one markdown file: README.md.

BRUTAL

BRUTAL Framework

A free, open source C# framework for making games, or your own game engine.

BRUTAL is a framework. You can make a game directly with it, or use it as the foundation for a separate engine. We made Kitten Space Agency directly on BRUTAL. Ludeon built their Waylith engine on it to move RimWorld off Unity.

At its core is a custom interop layer giving C# direct access to native APIs and libraries. Around that we've built mathematics, memory management, strings, collections, job scheduling, logging, localization, and bindings for Vulkan, GLFW, Dear ImGui, FMOD, RakNet, Jolt and Box2D. BRUTAL doesn't make the architectural decisions for you. You write your own stack. You can use whatever NuGet packages you want, including third-party ones.

It's called BRUTAL for a reason. In some ways it's much harder to use than Unity, Unreal or Godot. In other ways, particularly if you're doing something unusual, it's considerably easier. You actually have to know what you want to do first.

Why

You are only as independent as your tools are.

Developers have surrendered an extraordinary amount of control over their work to companies whose interests are not necessarily aligned with their own. We're not suggesting everyone should make their own game engine. We're suggesting every developer should have the option to, without having to spend four years building the foundations first.

What that means in practice:

What BRUTAL is not

BRUTAL is not trying to be a general-purpose engine. There is no editor, no scene graph and no renderer, and we're not adding them. We push back on efforts to add more, because adding everything is how the industry ended up with the kind of engines we don't want to use. Pull requests that drift away from a clear purpose will be rejected.

Projects using BRUTAL

Product Studio Engine (if any)
RimWorld Ludeon Studios Waylith
Kitten Space Agency RocketWerkz Direct on BRUTAL
Torpedia RocketWerkz Direct on BRUTAL
Art of the Rail RocketWerkz Direct on BRUTAL
Gruntz RocketWerkz Direct on BRUTAL
Afterskies Floating Origin Interactive Direct on BRUTAL

Ludeon report 2 to 4 times the performance of the Unity build in their own tests, with the vast majority of existing mods still compatible. See their Steam announcement.

Kitten Space Agency is a free pre-alpha spaceflight simulation. It runs a solar system at real scale, and is the first major project built directly on BRUTAL. Download it on Ahwoo and see the technology yourself.

What is in the box

Each top-level folder in this repository is one library, published as a NuGet package. Reference only the ones you need.

Library What it is
Brutal.Core Base types, attributes, platform detection, pointer helpers, Roslyn analyzers
Brutal.Interop The custom interop layer that gives C# direct access to native APIs
Brutal.Memory Unmanaged memory management and allocators
Brutal.Collections Collections that don't allocate
Brutal.Strings String building and handling without allocation
Brutal.Maths, Brutal.Numerics Vector, matrix and numeric types
Brutal.Concurrency Job system and threading
Brutal.Logging Logging
Brutal.Localization Localization
Brutal.Vulkan, Brutal.Vulkan.Abstractions, Brutal.Vulkan.Vma Vulkan bindings, abstractions and the Vulkan Memory Allocator
Brutal.OpenGl OpenGL bindings
Brutal.ShaderC, Brutal.Slang Shader compilation
Brutal.Glfw, Brutal.Sdl, Brutal.Sdl.Image, Brutal.Sdl.Mixer, Brutal.Sdl.Ttf Windowing and input, with SDL's image, audio mixing and font add-ons
Brutal.ImGui, Brutal.ImGui.*, Brutal.ImPlot Dear ImGui and ImPlot bindings, docking branch
Brutal.Render.Mesh Mesh utilities
Brutal.Texture, Brutal.Texture.Abstractions, Brutal.Ktx, Brutal.Gli, Brutal.Stb Texture loading, KTX and compressed formats, image decoding
Brutal.Gltf, Brutal.MeshOptimizer glTF loading and mesh optimisation
Brutal.FreeType Font rasterisation
Brutal.Fmod, Brutal.OpenAl Audio
Brutal.RakNet Networking
Brutal.Jolt, Brutal.Box2D 3D and 2D physics
Brutal.Monitor.Common, Brutal.Monitor.Host, Brutal.RenderDoc, Brutal.RenderDoc.ImGui Runtime monitoring and RenderDoc capture integration
Brutal.NativeFileDialog, Brutal.NotCurses, Brutal.ZLib Native file dialogs, terminal UI, compression

Third-party notices for each library live in its LICENSES folder, Brutal.ImGui/LICENSES say.

Getting started

Prerequisites

Your first window

Create a project and add Core and Glfw:

dotnet new console -n HelloBrutal
cd HelloBrutal
dotnet add package Ahwoo.Brutal.Core
dotnet add package Ahwoo.Brutal.Glfw

Replace Program.cs:

using Brutal.GlfwApi;
using Brutal.Numerics;

if (!Glfw.Init())
    throw new Exception("Failed to initialize GLFW");

Glfw.WindowHint(GlfwWindowHint.ClientApi, 0);
var window = Glfw.CreateWindow(new GlfwWindow.CreateInfo
{
    Title = "Hello BRUTAL",
    Size = new int2(1280, 720),
});

while (!window.ShouldClose)
    Glfw.PollEvents();

Glfw.Terminate();

dotnet run

That opens a window with no graphics API. What you add next is up to you:

Questions and "how do I" threads go on the Guides and Help forum.

Building from source

This is the source for every published package. Project files, a solution and build scripts are coming. Until then use the NuGet packages, and use this repository to read and fork the code.

git clone https://github.com/ahwootech/BRUTAL.git

Licence

BRUTAL is free to use, modify and distribute, including in commercial games. There are no royalties and we don't want a percentage of your game's revenue.

The licence is based on MIT with an added attribution requirement. A game or product built with BRUTAL:

  1. includes the BRUTAL copyright notice in its credits screen, or equivalent (section 2.1)
  2. shows the BRUTAL logo before gameplay starts (section 2.2)
  3. ships NOTICE.txt alongside the product (section 2.3)

If you don't want to do that, we can arrange a separate commercial licence. We also waive the logo requirement for non-profit projects and where displaying it would be detrimental to the application's purpose.

BRUTAL is open source. There are already OSI-approved licences that allow graphical attribution. Ours is not yet OSI approved because we have not submitted it yet. We intend to, and to develop the licence with community feedback. See LICENSE.txt for the full text.

Third-party components keep their own licences. Section 4.0 points at the LICENSES folder at the root of each NuGet package; in this repository, those notices are in the LICENSES folder of each library that redistributes them.

Contributing

You can submit PRs and issues. We are a small team and maintaining a public framework is going to be a lot of work, so please be patient with us. We'll see what happens, assess the problems, and change our workflows as necessary. What won't change is BRUTAL's scope.

Before opening a PR, read CONTRIBUTING.md. It covers scope, what we expect from AI-assisted contributions, the contribution grant in section 5.0 of the licence, and the sign-off every commit needs. Small changes you understand and have tested, with a clear purpose, are the ones that will get merged.

Community

Credits

BRUTAL was made by the RocketWerkz Enterprise team and others, named in CONTRIBUTORS.md. When we talk about wanting credit for BRUTAL, these are the people we are talking about.

BRUTAL is Copyright (c) 2024 Ahwoo Limited.

BRUTAL (ahwootech/BRUTAL)

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1.6K ·GitHub
BRUTAL
What is this?BRUTAL is a free, open source C# framework for building games or your own game engine, giving C# direct access to native APIs and Vulkan plus the low-level libraries around them (memory, maths, collections, job scheduling, and more).
Is this a ready-to-use game engine with an editor, or something lower-level?It's a framework, not an engine with an editor: there's no editor, scene graph, or renderer, and the maintainers reject PRs that try to add them. You build your own architecture on top of it.
How do I start a project with it?Create a new .NET project and add the Brutal.Core and Brutal.Glfw NuGet packages, which gets you a window with no graphics API yet. From there you pull in extra packages like Brutal.Vulkan.Abstractions for rendering or Brutal.ImGui for debug UI.
What do I need installed to use it?You need the .NET 10 SDK and either Windows or Linux. If you're rendering, a Vulkan 1.3-capable GPU with current drivers is required, and the Vulkan SDK is recommended for validation layers while developing.
Can I use this commercially without paying anything?Yes, it's free for commercial games with no royalties, but the licence is MIT-based with an added attribution requirement: you must credit BRUTAL, show its logo before gameplay, and ship a NOTICE.txt (or buy a separate commercial licence to skip that).
Why did the team build their own framework instead of just using Unity or Unreal?The authors argue developers have ceded too much control to engine vendors, and want every developer to have the option of building their own engine without spending years building the low-level foundations first.
What games or studios are already using BRUTAL?Kitten Space Agency is built directly on BRUTAL, and Ludeon Studios built their Waylith engine on it to move RimWorld off Unity; RocketWerkz titles Torpedia, Art of the Rail and Gruntz also build directly on BRUTAL.
What libraries come bundled with BRUTAL?Each top-level folder is its own NuGet package covering memory, collections, strings, maths, job scheduling, logging and localization, plus bindings for Vulkan, OpenGL, GLFW, SDL, Dear ImGui, FMOD, RakNet, Jolt and Box2D.
Does using BRUTAL mean giving up a cut of my game's revenue?No, BRUTAL takes no royalties or revenue share; the only cost is crediting BRUTAL in your credits, showing its logo pre-gameplay, and shipping a NOTICE.txt, unless you arrange a separate commercial licence to waive that.
What are similar projects?REDox, sbox-public, MonoGame, Chisel, ArcadeMaker, imgui, bgfx, UnityCsReference
Which topics is it in?physics-engine, graphics-programming, vulkan-api, game-engine, gamedev, low-level, native, high-performance, game-development, dotnet, c#, csharp
Creator
ahwootech
Size
4.3 MB
Stars
1.6K
Updated
CommitOct 15
Age
2d
Commits · 90 Days