Introduce CMake fetchcontent and CMake Install Workflow #480

MathewBensonCode · 2025-11-12T19:15:11Z

FetchContent Package Management

Here is an idea for migrating from the git module based dependency management to use FetchContent.
The packages are still built by the build system in order to preserve the versions.
This is done by avoiding the use of the Find_Package method that would use what is installed on the system.
This makes it virtually the same.

CMake Install

This replaces the same functionality that was in the PostBuild.ps1 script
Used the cmake install features to ensure consistent installation location, which is canonical i.e. binaries in the bin directory and libraries in the lib directory
As I was debugging I found that there was some inconsistency with the paths to the shaders in Panzerfaust vs Obelisk. e.g. if you ran obelisk directly without going through Panzerfaust the built in shader location wasn't the same.

SwapChain Image Sizes

Was getting a vulkan error that the system was running out of memory.
Traced this to the size being passed to the SwapChainCreateFunction.
Initialize SwapchainImages with the size parameter added as the creation of the swap chains was happening successfully but the size was not getting updated giving an index error.

Wayland on Linux

Fix error on linux where Wayland was not being initialized properly. Wayland is the default for glfw in version 3.4 and in many desktop environments. GLFW_EXPOSE_NATIVE_* macro was defined for windows but not for the other Operating Systems

MathewBensonCode · 2025-11-16T13:50:20Z

@JeanPhilippeKernel @jnyfah I'm not sure why this check is failing, however, I would like to request you to try the build artifacts on your systems.

The main thing with the install workflow is to move what was in the Panzerfaust/net8.0..../publish folder is not going to the bin folder with the vulkan loader library in the lib folder.

This means that downloading the release builds should be able to run on a user system easily.

The program doesn't run because of the "Shader::CreateDescriptorLayout()" code runs out of vram when loading up the shaders.

However, I believe that the "not running on mac and linux" issue may be resolved by this.

JeanPhilippeKernel · 2025-11-19T14:41:42Z

Hey @MathewBenson
Thanks a lot for the PR - I re-ran the pipeline and it's green now -

JeanPhilippeKernel · 2025-11-19T14:44:24Z

my first observation will be to extract the vulkan related issue in a seperate PR - and as heads-up there is an on-going effort to fix the issue here : #479

ZEngine/ZEngine/Rendering/Specifications/ShaderSpecification.h

CMakePresets.json

ZEngine/ZEngine/CMakeLists.txt

JeanPhilippeKernel · 2026-01-14T08:49:14Z

dependencies.cmake

+
+target_compile_definitions(imgui PUBLIC GLFW_INCLUDE_VULKAN IMGUI_DEFINE_MATH_OPERATORS)
+
+target_link_libraries(imgui PUBLIC glfw Vulkan::Headers Vulkan::Loader)


This is problematic ! imgui should consume Vulkan::Headers and Vulkan::Loader from zEngineLibs

imgui (and its plugin libs like imguizmo) is an optional lib for zEngineLibs.
it just helps for GUI components, from Tetragramma (The editor) and nothing more - and there is a big chance that we might want to have our internal GUI lib and drop it.
So we want the fexibility to replace it anytime

Ideally, it should be moved to Tetagramma - that will require some refactoring from the Rendering section -

As imgui and ImGuizmo do not have CMakeLists.txt files to create targets, I went with the option of creating them as separate targets as opposed to including their source files in the zEngine library.

I am using the transitive property of CMake Dependencies to pass the Vulkan and glfw from imgui -> Imguizmo -> ExternalLib ->zEngineLib. The idea was to reduce repetition.

I could make the dependency to be PRIVATE and specify them as "Build Requirements" for imgui and currently for zEngineLib.

This way imgui will have target_link_libraries(imgui PRIVATE Vulkan::Headers....
and zEngine will have target_link_libraries(External_Libs PUBLIC Vulkan::Headers.....

Sounds good to me !

JeanPhilippeKernel · 2026-01-14T08:53:52Z

Obelisk/CMakeLists.txt

 )

-target_link_libraries(${TARGET_NAME} PRIVATE
-    zEngineLib


not sure i fully understand the removal here

Just as above the zEngineLib is transitively availed to Obelisk through Tetragrama.

JeanPhilippeKernel · 2026-01-14T08:56:07Z

Obelisk/EntryPoint.cpp

@@ -1,4 +1,5 @@
 #include <CLI/CLI.hpp>
+#include <Editor.h>


there is already #include <Tetragrama/Editor.h> below

CMakeLists.txt

JeanPhilippeKernel · 2026-01-14T09:09:06Z

CMakePresets.json

                "SPIRV_SKIP_TESTS": "ON",
                "GLSLANG_ENABLE_INSTALL": "ON",
-                "ALLOW_EXTERNAL_SPIRV_TOOLS": "OFF",
+                "ALLOW_EXTERNAL_SPIRV_TOOLS": "ON",


We want to OFF this because we want to use the one we are compiling during the build and avoid any version mismatching with the system - any reason why this ON ?

The "ALLOW_EXTERNAL_SPIRV_TOOLS" is a CMake Property on GSLang that makes it to build its on SPIRV-Tools if they are not detected by CMake.

As we are already building SPIRV-Tools as an option,, we are telling it not to build its own version.

There is actually another potential repetition of this because of the step of downloading the compiler tools in the build step of the Powershell scripts. We could alleviate that download, which is like 1GB by making the shader compilation be handled as part of the CMake Processing where we use the binaries that we compile when generating GSLang Target.

We could alleviate that download, which is like 1GB by making the shader compilation be handled as part of the CMake Processing where we use the binaries that we compile when generating GSLang Target.

Interesting,
we can explore this in separate PR - please create an issue to track that investigation

Created issue #481 to track. Coincidentally, the CI is now failing because the upstream ShaderC URLs are broken and/or the requested versions are unavailable on the server

What a timing ! 😅😂

Scripts/BuildEngine.ps1

CMakeLists.txt

- CI Error when no files found - make libraries static - install tests and vulkan lib - Introduce CPack - Fix Clang-format issue moving to LLVM 21, which is now default on several platforms - simplify testing due to install workflow - Initialize SwapchainImages with the size parameter added as the creation of the swap chains was happening successfully but the size was not getting updated giving an index error. - Fix error on linux where Wayland was not being initialized properly. Wayland is the default for glfw in version 3.4 and in many desktop environments. GLFW_EXPOSE_NATIVE_* macro was defined for windows but not for the other Operating Systems

- Being worked on by another branch.

- The GLFW_NATIVE macros are required for surface creation in the respective systems. - Currently it was hard-coded for windows only. - Added the required macros for linux and macos to remove the error that was in the Logs for vk_surface not created - Also added the __externals folder to gitignore so that it is not detected. Useful when switching branches and experimenting between the older and this version.

- removal of GLM - use defined cstring - formatting on BuildEngine.ps1 - CMake Restructure for Vulkan headers and loader

MathewBensonCode marked this pull request as draft November 12, 2025 20:26

MathewBensonCode force-pushed the move_to_fetchcontent branch from 56cc9e4 to f45414e Compare November 16, 2025 10:45

MathewBensonCode force-pushed the move_to_fetchcontent branch from e7ea056 to e007150 Compare December 22, 2025 23:26

MathewBensonCode marked this pull request as ready for review December 23, 2025 21:29

JeanPhilippeKernel added DevOps area-linux Work on Linux system area-window Work on Window system area-macOS Work on macOS system labels Jan 3, 2026

JeanPhilippeKernel added this to the Born baby (0.2.0) milestone Jan 3, 2026

JeanPhilippeKernel assigned MathewBensonCode Jan 3, 2026

JeanPhilippeKernel added this to ZEngine Board Jan 3, 2026

JeanPhilippeKernel moved this to In Progress in ZEngine Board Jan 3, 2026

JeanPhilippeKernel requested review from JeanPhilippeKernel and jnyfah January 3, 2026 17:22

JeanPhilippeKernel requested changes Jan 14, 2026

View reviewed changes

CMakeLists.txt Show resolved Hide resolved

MathewBensonCode marked this pull request as draft January 14, 2026 23:29

MathewBensonCode force-pushed the move_to_fetchcontent branch from 9a45dcf to 7e41a24 Compare January 15, 2026 12:58

MathewBensonCode mentioned this pull request Jan 15, 2026

CreateSwapChain Fix #487

Open

MathewBenson added 4 commits January 16, 2026 10:04

Revert Swapchain Related Changes to VulkanDevice.cpp

8187ad9

- Being worked on by another branch.

Requested Changes

5443a75

- removal of GLM - use defined cstring - formatting on BuildEngine.ps1 - CMake Restructure for Vulkan headers and loader

MathewBensonCode force-pushed the move_to_fetchcontent branch from 7e41a24 to 5443a75 Compare January 16, 2026 07:06

MathewBensonCode mentioned this pull request Jan 16, 2026

Use CStrings as data members for ShaderSpecifications #489

Open


		target_compile_definitions(imgui PUBLIC GLFW_INCLUDE_VULKAN IMGUI_DEFINE_MATH_OPERATORS)

		target_link_libraries(imgui PUBLIC glfw Vulkan::Headers Vulkan::Loader)

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Introduce CMake fetchcontent and CMake Install Workflow #480

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Introduce CMake fetchcontent and CMake Install Workflow #480

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MathewBensonCode commented Nov 12, 2025

FetchContent Package Management

CMake Install

SwapChain Image Sizes

Wayland on Linux

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MathewBensonCode commented Nov 16, 2025

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JeanPhilippeKernel commented Nov 19, 2025

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JeanPhilippeKernel commented Nov 19, 2025

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MathewBensonCode Jan 15, 2026 • edited Loading Uh oh! There was an error while loading. Please reload this page.

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MathewBensonCode Jan 15, 2026 •

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