Vulkan Abstraction Layer

Vulkan Abstraction Layer — val — is a lightweight, permissively licensed (MIT), cross-platform abstraction layer for the Vulkan graphics API, written in C++20.

Disclaimer

val is a work in progress, certainly not production-ready, and may contain bugs or limitations.

Motivation

The goal of this project is to strengthen my proficiency with Vulkan and ultimately integrate Vulkan support into OpenRHI. Modern graphics APIs like Vulkan, DirectX 12, and Metal differ significantly from legacy APIs such as OpenGL. To make informed decisions about which abstractions should be exposed through OpenRHI's interface, it's essential to develop a deep understanding of these modern paradigms. Originally designed around OpenGL, OpenRHI currently lacks support for several key concepts fundamental to modern APIs, including command buffers, device selection, descriptor sets, and synchronization mechanisms.

Why is this on GitHub?

I believe this project holds significant educational value, especially for those new to Vulkan. It offers a clear and practical introduction to the structure of the Vulkan API and how its core concepts interact. Additionally, it can serve as a solid starting point for rendering engine projects that intend to use Vulkan exclusively. For engines that aim to support multiple graphics backends, however, I recommend exploring OpenRHI instead, as it provides a more flexible, backend-agnostic abstraction layer.

References

Some references I used to get started with Vulkan and to build this project:

• Vulkan Tutorial
• Vulkan Documentation
• Vulkan Specs

Dependencies

To compile val, you'll need the Vulkan SDK installed on your machine. When using premake5, val relies on the VK_SDK_PATH environment variable to locate the Vulkan SDK. If this environment variable isn't defined, you'll need to set it manually.

Quick Start (Examples)

⚠️ You'll need to clone val, including its submodules (--recurse-submodules), to run the examples!

You can try out val in just a few clicks on Windows by using the built-in project generation script. It uses premake5.exe under the hood, which is bundled with this repository. If you'd like to use val on a different platform, I suggest downloading premake5 from its official website, installing it, and running it from the examples/ folder.

Windows (Visual Studio 2022)

git clone https://github.com/adriengivry/val --recurse-submodules
cd .\val\
.\gen_examples.bat
start .\examples\val-examples.sln

Other Platforms

1. Get premake5.
2. Install premake or copy the executable's path.
3. Navigate to the examples/ folder.
4. Run premake5 with the desired IDE name (e.g., vs2022, gmake, xcode4, etc.).

Using val in Your Application

Since val is set up to use premake5, the easiest way to add val to your project is to use premake5 for your project as well.

Premake5

1. Add val as a submodule to your project:

git submodule add https://github.com/adriengivry/val

2. Modify your premake5 workspace configuration to include:

workspace "your-workspace-name"
    include "path/to/val"

3. Modify your premake5 project configuration to include:

project "your-project-name"
    includedirs {
        "path/to/val/include",
    }

    links {
        "val"
    }

CMake

If you'd prefer to use CMake, you'll need to add a custom CMakeLists.txt file. Don't worry, val is extremely easy to set up.