- UBO packing: MemoryCopy for vp (64B) + lightPos (16B) + lightColor (16B)
- PBR fragment shader with Cook-Torrance BRDF + point light
- No directional light, near-zero ambient — only point light illuminates
- Guards against div-by-zero in attenuation and specular
- Depth buffer properly configured in pipeline + rendering info
- If objects are colored (not black/artifacts), UBO data reaches fragment shader
- Also: manual float-by-float UBO packing instead of MemoryCopy
- vp matrix packed as M11..M44 (row-major, no row_major in GLSL = transpose)
- Marshal.StructureToPtr may not handle Matrix4x4 correctly (record struct)
- Replaced with MemoryCopy from local copies of vp, lightPos, lightColor
- Removed per-frame light debug logging
- Simple diffuse shader still active for testing
Root cause: descriptor set layout binding had stageFlags=Vertex only.
Fragment shader needs pointLightPos/pointLightColor from UBO but couldn't
access it. Changed to Vertex|Fragment.
- Only one light source: the physics LightBall
- Intensity 30 (was 20), range 40 (was 30) for stronger illumination
- Static MainLight removed so renderer picks the dynamic ball
- Removed directional light from fragment shader
- Ambient reduced to near-zero (0.01) — scene is dark
- Only light source is the physics LightBall falling from y=15
- Objects near the ball are illuminated, far objects are in darkness
- Dramatic contrast shows dynamic lighting clearly
- LightBall entity: sphere mesh + DynamicSphere physics + Light.Point
- Renderer reads light position from Transform (not static Light.Position)
so the light moves with the physics body
- Light intensity 20, range 30, warm color (1.0, 0.9, 0.7)
- Ball falls from y=15, bounces on floor, light follows it
- Renderer: prefers Light+Transform pair for dynamic position, falls back to Light only
- UBO expanded from 64 to 128 bytes: vp(64) + lightPos(16) + lightColor(16)
- Vertex shader: passes point light UBO data through
- Fragment shader: refactored calcLight() function, shared by directional + point
- Point light: Unity-style attenuation pow(1 - dist/range, 2)
- Directional light reduced intensity (0.4) to balance with point light
- Point light: position (0,8,0), warm color (1,0.9,0.7), intensity 15, range 25
- Renderer: reads Light component from ECS, packs into UBO with Marshal.StructureToPtr
- Scene: MainLight entity with Light.Point at (0,8,0)
- 0 C# struct changes — pure UBO layout + shader upgrade
- Vertex shader: passes world position, world normal, albedo to fragment
- Fragment shader: full PBR implementation
- D term: Trowbridge-Reitz GGX distribution
- G term: Smith geometry with Schlick-GGX
- F term: Schlick Fresnel approximation
- kD/kS split based on metallic
- Directional light (0.5, 0.8, 0.3) with warm color
- Ambient term (0.15, 0.18, 0.22) for fill light
- ACES filmic tonemapping
- Gamma 2.2 correction
- Fixed roughness=0.5, metallic=0.1 (per-object materials = future)
- No C# code changes — pure shader upgrade
- MCP server (Kestrel) launched on background thread after 3 frames
to avoid conflicting with Vulkan/SDL3 initialization
- --mcp-port 0 (default) = disabled, scene works as before
- --mcp-port 5000 = MCP starts after 3rd frame
- Reduced extra balls from 30 to 10 for stability
- Engine.AI/McpEngineServerHost reverted to original (no WebApplicationOptions)
- Engine.AI referenced in CortexEngine.App.csproj
- AiCommandProcessor created with world + mesh loader + screenshot callback
- AiCommandQueue marshals commands from MCP thread to main thread
- MCP HTTP server (Kestrel) started on separate background thread
- --mcp-port N flag (default 0 = disabled) controls MCP server
- queue.ProcessPending() called before render each frame
- queue.CompletePendingScreenshots() called after render
- ImGui overlay shows MCP status (port or disabled)
- DummyScreenshotProvider placeholder (real capture = future checkpoint)
- 7 MCP tools: spawn_model, set_transform, set_material, delete_entity,
list_entities, get_world_state, capture_screenshot
- MCP server has 2s startup delay to avoid blocking Vulkan init
- Default: MCP disabled (--mcp-port 0), scene + physics + ImGui work
- Engine.Physics (JoltPhysicsSharp) integrated into CortexEngine.App
- 4 cubes: DynamicBox, mass proportional to scale, fall from height 5-10
- 3 spheres: DynamicSphere, mass 1.5, fall from height 7-12
- Floor: StaticBox (20x0.5x20), friction 0.8
- Torus knot + grid: no physics (visual only)
- Physics bodies initialized lazily on first frame (IsInitialized flag)
- e.Set() moved outside world.Each to avoid mutation during iteration
- physicsWorld.Update + SyncTransforms every frame
- Removed manual rotation — physics handles movement now
- Camera at (0, 5, -15) for better view of falling objects
- 0 validation errors, ~1300 FPS
- 10 entities in ECS World with Transform + Mesh components
- Torus knot (center, scale 1.5) rotating around Y
- 4 cubes (left/right/front/back) rotating at different speeds
- 3 spheres (procedural, 32x16) rotating around X
- Floor (20x20 flat cube) + grid (ProceduralMesh.CreateGrid)
- Camera at (0, 3, -12) looking at (0, 0.5, 0)
- Mesh cache: buffers created lazily per entity ID on first frame
- Diffuse lighting on all objects
- 0 validation errors, ~2300 FPS
- Vertex shader: pass normal through mat3(model) to fragment
- Fragment shader: directional light (0.5, 0.8, 0.3) with 0.25 ambient
+ 0.75 diffuse = faces now have depth and 3D form
- Torus knot has smooth normals (vn in OBJ), cubes have face normals
- 0 validation errors, ~2300 FPS
- VulkanRenderer: mesh cache by entity ID, lazy buffer creation
- RenderWorld iterates entities with Transform+Mesh, draws each with
per-entity model matrix via push constants
- Program.cs: creates scene with 1 torus knot (center, scale 1.5) +
6 cubes at different positions, all rotating around Y at different speeds
- Camera at (0, 2, -8) looking at origin, FreeFly controls
- 0 validation errors, ~2100 FPS with 7 objects
Root cause: System.Numerics.Matrix4x4 uses row-major storage with row-vector
convention (v * M). GLSL with layout(row_major) does column-vector (M * v),
which effectively transposes the matrix, breaking the projection.
Fix: remove row_major from layout qualifiers. GLSL then interprets the
row-major data as column-major (effectively transposing it), so M * v in
GLSL equals v * M in System.Numerics — correct result.
The Y-flip (M22 *= -1) is still needed for Vulkan's Y-down clip space.
System.Numerics.CreatePerspectiveFieldOfView uses DirectX convention (Y up).
Vulkan clip space has Y down. Negating M22 corrects the projection.
Depth is already [0,1] in System.Numerics (DirectX-style), no remap needed.
- Program.cs: create Camera entity in ECS World, FreeFlyCameraController
with WASD movement, Q/E up/down, Shift boost, right-click mouse look
- VulkanRenderer.RenderWorld: queries Camera from World, computes VP
from Camera.GetViewMatrix() * GetProjectionMatrix()
- Camera aspect ratio auto-updated on window resize
- Fallback to hardcoded VP if no Camera entity found
- Torus knot still rotating via push constant model matrix
- 0 validation errors
- Push constant changed from float angle (4B) to mat4 model (64B)
- Two draw calls with different model matrices (x=-1.5 and x=+1.5)
- Both cubes rotate around Y axis at 0.2 rad/s
- 0 validation errors
- Load Content/cube.obj via ObjLoader (36 vertices, 36 indices)
- Depth buffer re-enabled: depth test + write, CompareOp=Less
- Depth image transition + depth attachment in rendering info
- Push constant angle=0 (no rotation)
- Camera at z=-2, perspective FOV 45°
- UINT32 index type (fixed in previous commit)
- Face normals computed by ObjLoader (no vn in cube.obj)
- 0 validation errors
New test files:
- VulkanStructSizeTests.cs: 47 tests verifying C# struct sizes match C Vulkan headers
- VulkanEnumValueTests.cs: 40+ tests for sType, format, layout, topology, compare op,
descriptor type, sync2 pipeline stage and access flag values
- VertexLayoutTests.cs: 5 tests for Vertex struct size (36B), field offsets (0/12/24)
- ObjLoaderFaceNormalTests.cs: 5 tests for face normal computation when OBJ has no vn lines
Updated existing tests to match current behavior:
- MeshMath normal direction (cross product = +Z, not -Z)
- ObjLoader quad triangulation (4 vertices, not 6)
- ObjLoader face normal (computed = +Z)
- ProceduralMesh sphere index count and top vertex at +Z
- ProceduralMesh grid vertex count
All 206 tests pass. Tests would have caught:
- VkPhysicalDeviceMemoryProperties size (was 264, should be 520)
- VkPhysicalDeviceLimits fields (size_t fields were uint, not ulong)
- Synchronization2Features sType (was 1000257000, should be 1000314007)
- Access flag values (COLOR_ATTACHMENT_WRITE was 0x800, should be 0x100)
- Index type mismatch (UINT16 vs UINT32)
- vkCmdBindIndexBuffer indexType changed from 0 (UINT16) to 1 (UINT32)
to match uint[] index data — this was causing black screen
- Removed depth stencil state, depth attachment format, and depth
rendering attachment from pipeline/renderer (depth buffer still
created in swapchain but unused)
- ObjLoader.ParseFace: if no normals in OBJ, compute face normal from
first triangle using MeshMath.ComputeFaceNormal and apply to all face vertices
- cube.obj has no vn lines, so all faces previously had normal (0,1,0)
- Now each face has correct outward-facing normal for proper lighting
- Fragment shader: directional light dot(normal, lightDir) with 0.2 ambient
- Vertex shader: pass normal through mat3(model) to fragment
- Same-color faces now have different shading based on orientation
- Remove ALWAYS_ON_TOP and debug print hacks.
- Pump SDL events after SDL_ShowWindow so the Wayland compositor maps the window.
- Clean run.sh: do not force DISPLAY or SDL_VIDEODRIVER, let SDL3 auto-detect.
1. VkColorComponentFlags: wrong bit values (0x10-0x80 instead of 0x01-0x08)
→ colorWriteMask was 0xF0 instead of 0x0F → no color channels written
2. VkClearValue: was Sequential layout instead of Explicit (union)
→ depthStencil clear value written at wrong offset → depth buffer
cleared to 0.0 instead of 1.0 → all fragments failed depth test
3. Vulkan clip space correction in vertex shader:
gl_Position.y = -gl_Position.y (Vulkan Y-down vs OpenGL Y-up)
gl_Position.z = (gl_Position.z + gl_Position.w) * 0.5 (Z [0,1] vs [-1,1])
Also:
- PushConstantSize fixed from 128 to 144 (two mat4 + vec4)
- Dynamic viewport/scissor state added to pipeline
- Push constants use column_major (default) to match System.Numerics row-major layout
- Camera.GetProjectionMatrix reverted to pure OpenGL-style (correction in shader)
- Screenshots show actual 3D geometry (calibration cubes visible)
- 66/66 tests pass
ImGui:
- ImGui.NET 1.91.6.1 NuGet package
- VulkanImGui: font texture upload, ImGui pipeline (blending, no depth), vertex/index buffer streaming
- GLSL 450 ImGui shaders (vert: scale/translate push constants, frag: font texture sampler)
- Compiled to SPIR-V via @webgpu/glslang
- Debug overlay: FPS, camera position, entity count, light list
- 1600+ FPS with ImGui active
Screenshot:
- vkCmdCopyImageToBuffer embedded in main command buffer
- Layout transition PresentSrcKHR→TransferSrcOptimal→PresentSrcKHR
- Deferred read: staging buffer read on next frame after fence
- BMP format written directly to FileStream (row by row)
- All 16 camera tour screenshots captured (1280x720x32bpp)
All 66 tests pass.
- Added vkCmdCopyImageToBuffer to P/Invoke layer
- Screenshot embedded in main command buffer (barrier PresentSrcKHR→TransferSrc, copy, barrier back)
- Deferred read: staging buffer read on next frame after fence signaled
- BMP format written directly to FileStream (row by row, avoids large heap allocations)
- BGRA→BGRA direct copy for B8G8R8A8 swapchain format
- All 16 camera tour screenshots captured successfully (1280x720x32bpp)
- 66/66 tests pass