Henka Engine

Henka Engine is an early-stage open-source C17 game engine and integrated development workspace. It has a native 3D runtime/editor path, terrain, rendering, physics, Audio foundations, modeling and content authoring, asset/material workflows, persistence, external-project support, and existing camera-side 2.5D foundations.

Project status: Henka is an early-stage engine foundation. The active product sequence is to complete the current general 3D engine boundary first. First-class 2D follows that closure, then first-class 2.5D on the same shared architecture. The repository's Sandbox is the engine sample and QA target. Games built with Henka live in separate repositories.

At a glance

Area	Current direction
Language	C17
Primary validated platform	64-bit Windows
Planned desktop platforms	Linux 64-bit, then macOS
Current renderer backend	OpenGL
Future renderer direction	Vulkan / Direct3D 12 / Metal through backend isolation
Editor	Native integrated workspace
Game project boundary	Separate external projects supported through validated templates
Dimensional roadmap	Complete current 3D boundary → first-class 2D → first-class 2.5D
License	MIT

Integrated authoring is underway alongside runtime and workspace hardening. The current validated development and packaging path targets 64-bit Windows with MSVC, CMake, PowerShell, SDL3, and the OpenGL renderer backend. Linux 64-bit and macOS are planned desktop targets. Platform support requires build, test, runtime, packaging, and external-project validation.

Highlights

• C17 runtime architecture with renderer-independent henka_runtime
• Native editor/workspace with docked and detached tools
• Camera-driven Scene View Compass with snap, orbit, projection, and persisted preferences
• glTF/GLB scene and PBR material workflow plus bounded OBJ loading
• Integrated Object/Vertex/Edge/Face authoring with stable mesh-element identities
• Transactional topology operations, UV foundations, and bounded undo/redo
• Terrain streaming, editing, persistence, material layers, and collision ownership
• Rigid-body physics foundation with Sandbox inspection
• Bounded game-audio foundation with buses, spatial emitters, scene/Play integration, SDL3 output, and external public-API validation
• Perspective, side, top-down, and isometric 2.5D camera foundations
• Headless/dedicated-server and external-project template foundations
• Provenanced, packaged Windows Sandbox builds

Support Henka Engine — Development is supported through GitHub Sponsors. Use this repository's Sponsor button or read SUPPORT.md for details.

Capability matrix

Area	Current status	Supported scope / highlights
Core runtime	Available	Current C17 runtime APIs, bounded validation, and generation-checked scene identities
Renderer	Available (Unhardened)	Current OpenGL path, Solid/Material Preview/Rendered policies, and PBR foundations
Scene and camera	Available (Unhardened)	Current 3D entities, input actions, framing, gizmos, Compass, and 2.5D camera presets
Editor workspace	In Progress	Current native docking, detached panels, tabs, layout persistence, and early authoring UI
Modeling and authoring	Available	Bounded product-native Object/Vertex/Edge/Face modeling, topology operations, UV, persistence, and HAMS workflows
Assets and materials	In Progress	Current glTF/GLB and OBJ loading, manager-owned dependencies, and validated instances
Terrain and world	Foundation	Current bounded four-layer terrain, streaming, edits, LOD, persistence, and collision paths
Physics	Foundation	Current fixed-step rigid bodies, primitive colliders, contacts, events, and raycasts
2.5D	Foundation	Camera-side foundation: perspective/side/top/isometric workflows and orthographic zoom
Networking/server	Foundation	Current renderer-free runtime, dedicated host, and bounded Terrain authority paths
External projects	Foundation	Current separate game/server templates with Windows validation
Game authoring	Foundation	Current bounded Scene Document, authored Physics/Interaction, runtime hierarchy foundation, Save/Reload, and isolated runtime Play scenes
2D	Planned	No dedicated 2D scope yet; renderer, sprites, layers, parallax, and animation remain open
Audio	Available	Bounded resident/streamed PCM WAV, Ogg Vorbis, MP3, and FLAC playback, fixed voices, bus gains, entity spatialization, deterministic stereo PCM mixing, authored listener/editor controls, supported Lua/HenkaScript controls, and caller-pumped SDL3 output/recovery
Scripting/behaviors	In Progress	Current bounded HenkaScript/Lua lifecycle adapters, Scene Document binding, Play dispatch, persistence, and cross-language events

Status meanings

Status	Meaning
Foundation	Core architecture exists; the category remains incomplete.
In Progress	Substantial implementation exists; major functionality remains.
Available (Unhardened)	The functional category is present; hardening or validation remains.
Available	The category is functionally complete and hardened for its stated scope.
Planned	Meaningful implementation has not yet begun.

The maintained status ownership and authoritative detailed sections are recorded in docs/capability-statuses.tsv and docs/current-capabilities.md.

Editor and development workspace

The Sandbox provides a native workspace for Scene View, utilities, object inspection, physics QA, materials, terrain, authoring, and layout tools. The Compass is an integrated viewport instrument that tracks the active camera, supports axis snapping and orbit drag, and exposes projection and info-strip controls. Detailed controls are in docs/help/sandbox3d.md and docs/editor-controls.md.

Game-engine runtime

Henka is not only a modeling application. Its runtime includes scenes/entities, camera and input actions, asset management, rendering, physics, terrain, persistence, and a renderer-independent headless boundary. Full Game/Play authoring, full character-controller movement, end-user scripting, and mature project serialization are not yet available. Audio provides a bounded headless runtime, graphical Sandbox client output, camera/listener integration, editor authoring, persistence, and supported scripting controls.

Modeling and content authoring

The completed bounded Modeling scope includes:

• Object, Vertex, Edge, and Face workflows
• Component selection, connected selection, bounded edge-loop selection, and soft movement
• Transform, orientation, pivot, and axis-constrained editing foundations
• Stable vertex/edge/face identities and connectivity queries
• Face winding flip, extrude, inset, bevel-ring, face subdivision, selected-face deletion, UV projection, uniform face UV scaling, bounded UV-island scaling/packing, and undo/redo
• Native editable source persistence and imported-object Make Editable
• Validated material-region and supported PBR material-instance editing

The following later capabilities remain outside this bounded Modeling scope:

• broader topology and automatic UV unwrap beyond the documented supported cases;
• texture painting, rigging, and animation authoring;
• production-quality showcase asset creation;
• broader scene/project serialization and source export.

See docs/authoring-mesh.md and docs/showcase-assets.md.

Terrain, world, and 2.5D

Terrain provides bounded region persistence and streaming, four-layer material data, resident render/physics owners, sculpt/paint commands, collision patches, LOD transitions, and edit history.

The current 2.5D foundation is camera-side:

• Perspective
• Side
• Top-down
• Isometric
• Orthographic zoom

These presets are existing foundations inside the current 3D editor. They do not define the present development priority. First-class 2.5D is deferred until after the current general 3D completion boundary and the later first-class 2D campaign. Sprites, texture regions, layered depth, parallax, animation, and movement constraints remain future work. See docs/terrain.md and docs/roadmap.md.

Platform direction

The current validated platform is 64-bit Windows.

Planned desktop support includes:

• Linux 64-bit with a validated native build, test, runtime, packaging, and external-project path;
• macOS after the portable runtime/platform boundary and renderer abstraction are ready for a Metal-oriented path.

Renderer backend direction is:

• Windows: OpenGL today, with future Vulkan and Direct3D 12 support;
• Linux: Vulkan as the preferred modern backend, with OpenGL retained where practical;
• macOS: Metal as the intended native modern backend.

See docs/platform-support.md for the platform validation contract.

Getting started

Prerequisites

• 64-bit Windows
• Visual Studio with C/C++ build tools
• CMake
• Network access on the first configure unless the pinned dependencies are already cached

Build and test

git clone <repository-url>
cd HenkaEngine
.\scripts\build_windows.ps1 -Configuration Debug
.\scripts\test_windows.ps1 -Configuration Debug

The detailed build, dependency, headless, Release, and package instructions are in docs/building.md.

Run the Sandbox

.\scripts\run_sandbox3d.ps1 -Configuration Debug

Create and run a package

.\scripts\package_sandbox3d_windows.ps1 -Configuration Debug
.\scripts\run_packaged_sandbox3d_windows.ps1

The run-ready folder is out/HenkaSandbox3D/. It contains the executable, assets, offline help, package identity, and local user settings when present. Packaging and recovery rules are documented in docs/package-provenance.md.

Using Henka from another project

Henka keeps engine code and samples separate from actual games. Put game-specific assets, scenes, saves, scripts, and private content in another repository. The starter projects under templates/ demonstrate the public runtime boundary:

cmake -S . -B build -DHENKA_ENGINE_DIR="C:/Path/To/HenkaEngine"
.\scripts\test_external_game_template_windows.ps1

The external server template links only henka_runtime. The external game template exercises bounded public runtime and authoring paths, including the current public Audio workflow. Complete game project serialization remains future work. See docs/external-game-projects.md.

Documentation

Start here

• Detailed current capabilities
• 3D engine completion matrix
• Roadmap
• Post-3D dimensional roadmap
• Architecture
• Building and validation
• Documentation presentation standard
• Platform support

Subsystems and workflows

• Runtime foundations
• UI and workspace
• Model loading
• Terrain
• Physics
• Audio runtime
• MCP QA harness
• Editor controls and Sandbox help · offline help
• External game projects
• Showcase asset provenance
• Rendering realism
• Branding
• Repository integrity
• Contributing

Current limitations

The supported scope for each capability row is stated in its matrix cell above. Current status applies to that stated scope. Open work inside the stated scope continues to affect status.

• Henka and its editor are early-stage; the native workspace is not a complete production editor.
• First-class 2D and first-class 2.5D, broader scripting/behavior authoring, full character-controller movement, advanced physics, broader renderer backends, mature Game/Play workflows, and advanced audio effects/occlusion remain unfinished. A bounded dynamic-body character-controller foundation is available, including contact-aware planar sliding, supported walkable-plane traversal, and bounded kinematic-platform motion inheritance; capsule sweep, advanced slope traversal and response, and step-offset behavior remain open. Slope-aware grounding classification is available.
• Scene/project serialization, hierarchy authoring, texture painting, automatic UV unwrap, rigging, animation, and several advanced topology tools remain open.
• The Giraffe and Rocket are deterministic imported/generated reference assets maintained by the repository. They exercise current import, material, editing, persistence, packaging, and rendering workflows when explicitly loaded by showcase or regression paths. They are not ordinary startup content and do not establish complete arbitrary production-asset authoring coverage.
• Editor feel, detached windows, terrain corners, rendering, and modeling quality remain active quality areas.

The detailed boundary inventory is maintained in docs/current-capabilities.md, with subsystem contracts owned by the linked documentation above.

Roadmap

The current roadmap is 3D-first. Renderer completion leads the active sequence, followed by integrated modeling/content authoring, assets/materials, physics, Game Authoring/Scene Document/project workflow, prefabs, camera/viewport, terrain/world, lighting/environment, scripting, Character Controller, Audio, networking/server behavior, editor workspace, packaging/external projects, animation/character production, and a final overall 3D integration audit.

First-class 2D starts only after the current general 3D boundary closes. First-class 2.5D follows the completed 2D boundary. A final whole-engine audit then revalidates 3D, 2D, 2.5D, and their shared architecture before further major expansion. See the roadmap for the maintained direction.

Support Henka Engine

Henka sponsorship supports development time, testing, documentation, examples, packaged builds, asset workflow work, and future workspace/tooling work. Use the GitHub Sponsors page or this repository's Sponsor button.

Sponsorship is voluntary support. Feature priority, private support, guaranteed response times, ownership, project-direction control, and alternate licensing are outside sponsorship terms. Feature decisions remain based on stability, maintainability, scope, and usefulness to the wider engine. See SUPPORT.md for the full terms and other ways to help.

License

Henka Engine is available under the MIT License.