🌱 Re: Flora 🏝️

Note: Re: Flora is currently in early & active development. Features and timelines are subject to change as the project evolves.

🎮 Overview

Re: Flora is an experimental relaxation game that allows players to design and nurture their own island paradise. Using vibrant voxel rendering, players can cultivate a diverse ecosystem of plants, shape terrain, and create a personal sanctuary. The game emphasizes creativity and tranquility with no failure states, focusing instead on the joy of watching your garden evolve.

This project aims to give players:

A meditative voxel-based gardening experience where players cultivate their own island ecosystem.

✨ Features

Core Gameplay

• Intuitive Planting System: Easily select, place, and nurture various plant species.

• Dynamic Ecosystem: Watch plants grow, spread, and interact based on environmental conditions.

• Day/Night & Seasonal Cycles: Experience visual changes and different growth patterns.

• Relaxing Atmosphere: Meditative audio, gentle animations, and a stress-free experience.

Botanical Reality

We're integrating elements of real-world botany, including:

• Realistic growth cycles (accelerated but proportional).
• Environmental preferences (light, soil, water needs).
• Seasonal behaviors and adaptations.
• Educational elements about plant varieties.

Mini-Objectives

While Re: Flora has no mandatory goals, players can engage with optional objectives:

• Themed garden challenges.
• Botanical collection completion.
• Ecosystem balance achievements.
• Seasonal photography contests.

🎨 Inspiration

This project draws inspiration from:

• The meditative aspects of gardening.
• Voxel art aesthetics and capabilities.
• Games focused on creativity and expression.
• The natural world's beauty and complexity.

🛠️ Getting Started with Development

Rust Setup

Ensure you are using the latest stable version of Rust.

Recommended VSCode Extensions

Name	Usage
shader-lint	For GLSL/HLSL shader linting.
rust-analyzer	Provides language support for Rust (linting, formatting, etc.).
to be continued...	...

Note: Do not use glslx for Vulkan-style shaders.

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📚 Resources & References

Vulkan

• Descriptor set - Vulkan Guide
• Descriptor set - Nvidia's Guide
• Vulkan Synchronization Explained

Ray Tracing

• Official Khronos Guide to Ray Tracing in Vulkan
• GLSL_EXT_ray_query Shading Documentation
• Ray Tracing Pipeline vs. Ray Query Performance
• NVIDIA RTX Best Practices (1)
• NVIDIA RTX Best Practices (2 - Updated)
• A Guide to Fast Voxel Ray Tracing using Sparse 64-trees
  • Associated GitHub Project
  • Reddit Discussion
• Another View on the Classic Ray-AABB Intersection Algorithm
• Understanding BRDF and PDF for Sampling

Papers

• ReSTIR GI: Path Resampling for Real-Time Path Tracing

Inspirational Tech & Art

• Procedural Generation: Procedural Island Generator in Blender
• Voxel Worlds:
  • Exploring an Infinite Voxel Forest
  • Animated Voxel Trees - Detail Enhancement
• Physics & Simulation:
  • Voxel Water Physics
  • Rigid Body Physics
• Audio:
  • Ray Traced Reverb, Wind and Sound Occlusion
  • Ray Tracing Sound in a Voxel World
• Particles & Effects:
  • Animated Voxel Grass
  • How I added particles! (Grass)
• General Graphics & Optimization:
  • Other Optimization Techs
  • Scratchapixel CG Tutorials
• Post Processing:
  • The Art of Dithering

Resources

• Sound Effects

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🙏 Special Thanks To

• adrien-ben/egui-ash-renderer for the implementation of ash with egui.
• TheMaister's Blog for the excellent Vulkan Synchronization Tutorial.
• Khronos Group for the official Vulkan Synchronization Examples and documentation on the Command Buffer Lifecycle.
• Cambridge in Colour for the clear tutorial on Gamma Correction.
• Sébastien Piquemal for the interactive explanation of Gamma Correction and sRGB.

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TODO list

Main Objectives

• Ponds
• Dynamic Terrain Edit

Side Quests

• Some Artistic Dithering?
• Clouds