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.
- runtime textures: textures are copied to the game
assets/folder at build time so edits are picked up without embedding.
- 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/VoxelEnginepass -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.exeIf 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 inbuild\src\Debug\VoxelEngine.exe. - Textures are copied to the build output directory at build time. Shaders and audio are still embedded.
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.
| Key | Action |
|---|---|
W/A/S/D |
Move player |
Mouse |
Look around (cursor locked by default) |
Space |
Jump (or move up in noclip) |
Left Shift |
Move down (noclip only) |
Mouse Wheel |
Cycle placeable blocks |
LMB |
Break block |
RMB |
Place block |
U |
Toggle cursor lock |
Tab |
Toggle debug menu |
T |
Open chat input |
R |
Respawn when dead |
Esc |
Close chat (if open) or exit |
/noclip— toggle noclip/time set <0..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 not found: rebuild so CMake copies
assets/textures/next to the executable, or run from the repo root. - glfw link errors: install the glfw dev package or enable
-DGLFW_FETCH=ON. - caves breaking through surface: adjust
surfaceMargininCaveGenerator.h. - performance issues: reduce render distance or enable async loading in the debug menu.