welcome to my small minecraft clone (maybe something more in the future) made in C++ with OpenGL!

one day a few years ago i had this very specific itch that i never quite got to scratching, so recently i decided it was finally time. this is the result!

• chunk streaming: streams a configurable radius of chunks around the player with async load/save through a multi‑threaded job system.
• procedural terrain: fbm‑style terrain with stone/dirt/grass/sand strata, sea level water fill, and tree decorator.
• procedural caves: minecraft‑inspired caves (cheese + spaghetti) carved underground.
• greedy meshing: merges adjacent faces with the same texture to reduce draw calls.
• biome tinting: grass/leaves tint is applied dynamically in shaders, with per-pixel masking so only the intended parts are tinted.
• water system: source + flowing levels with edge search, falling water, and optional caustics.
• particles: instanced quads for block break particles.
• item icons: inventory block icons are rendered from 3D block models (offscreen) instead of static images.
• survival system: health + hunger bars, fall damage, drowning, regen, and respawn.
• player controller: aabb collision, gravity, jumping, noclip.
• block interaction: raycast selection with wireframe highlight, lmb break / rmb place.
• day/night cycle: dynamic sky, fog, and ambient lighting.
• embedded assets: textures and shaders are embedded into the executable via cmake.

• CMake 3.14+
• C++17 compiler and OpenGL 4.6 capable GPU/drivers
• GLFW development package (or enable -DGLFW_FETCH=ON; defaults to ON on Windows, OFF elsewhere)
• Linux packages (Debian/Ubuntu):
  sudo apt install/yay -S build-essential cmake libglfw3-dev libxinerama-dev libxcursor-dev xorg-dev libglu1-mesa-dev

cmake -B build -S . [-DGLFW_FETCH=ON]
cmake --build build        # produces build/src/VoxelEngine

pass -DGLFW_FETCH=ON if you want cmake to fetch/build glfw (useful on windows or when a system package is unavailable).

cmake -B build -G "Visual Studio 17 2022" -A x64 -DGLFW_FETCH=ON .
cmake  --build build --config Release
build\src\Release\\VoxelEngine.exe

If you already have GLFW installed, set -DGLFW_FETCH=OFF and ensure CMake can find glfw3.

./build/src/VoxelEngine

• Release builds on Windows land at build\src\Release\VoxelEngine.exe; Debug builds live in build\src\Debug\VoxelEngine.exe.
• Shaders and assets are copied to the build output directory at build time.

the build/src/release/ folder is self-contained and ready to distribute.

zip the release/ folder and share it. saves are created in a saves/ folder next to the executable.

• /noclip — toggle noclip
• /time set <0..1>.1> or /time day|noon|sunset|night|sunrise
• /gamemode survival|creative|0|1
• /seed — print terrain seed

to be able to access the debug menu, run the executable with the --debug argument in the terminal.

the imgui debug window provides:

• fps, player position/velocity/orientation
• chunk coordinates and selection info
• wireframe mode toggle
• noclip mode toggle
• async loading toggle
• move speed slider
• max fps limiter
• day/night controls (auto time, time of day, day length, fog density)
• water controls (simulation tick rate, caustics)
• fun modes (drunk / disco / earthquake)

• texture/shader not found: run from the repo root or build/ so relative paths resolve; ensure src/shaders/ and assets/ are copied next to the executable.
• glfw link errors: install the glfw dev package or enable -DGLFW_FETCH=ON.
• caves breaking through surface: adjust surfaceMargin in CaveGenerator.h.
• performance issues: reduce render distance or enable async loading in the debug menu.