cmdToy

cmdToy is a CPU-based command-line fragment shader renderer inspired by ShaderToy. It runs locally in your terminal and supports multiple rendering modes. While functional, the implementation is not optimal and could benefit from refactoring (it's bad).

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Features

• colors

  • It uses ANSI color codes to print out colored chars.
  • It hase 8 unique colors: Black, Blue, Green, Cyan, Red, Magenta, Yellow, White. and for each it has a light and dark version for a total of 16 colors!

• Ascii Scale:

  • The default ascii scale is: ,.~!+:*Ivcow0XP$#RB@

• Multiple Rendering Modes:

  • 0. Char Mode: Prints one character at a time (single-threaded). Slow.
  • 1. Line Mode: Prints one line at a time (single-threaded). Slow.
  • 2. Frame Mode: Renders and prints entire frames (single-threaded). Slow.
  • 3. Frame Mode (Memcopy): Uses memcpy for faster buffering (single-threaded). Normal speed.
  • 4. Threaded Mode: Multithreaded rendering with concurrent frame calculation/printing. Fast.

• Customizable Threads: if on mode 4 you can pass another int as argument to control thread count (default 10).

• Print debug frame time: Decomment the line printf("Time taken: %f seconds\n", frameTime); (it can cause some glitches in Threaded mode).

• quality: Zoomout or zoomin the cmd to change the quality.

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Build

Compile with:

gcc renderingcmd.c cmdtoymath.c cmdtoyengine.c -lm -O3 -o renderingcmd.out

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Usage

Run with a mode argument (0-4):

call in main, pass your definition of mainImage. cmdToyRender(int mode, int maxThreadNumber, vec3 (*mainImage)(vec2 * fragCoord));

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Example Shader

A basic raymarching shader is included baldy made by me. For reference, see: ShaderToy Example.

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Platform

• Linux only (Windows console performance is too slow).

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Known Issues and TODOs

• Refactoring: Poorly structured code needs cleanup.
• Math Functions:
  • Separate math utilities and rendering logic into separated librarys.
  • Add missing ShaderToy math functions.
  • Remove old macro function
  • Use only one naming scheme
  • See if passing result by reference is better or worse
  • Create a documentation to help port shaderToy shaders to cmdToy
• Textures:
  • Implement iChannel support for buffer textures and keyboard.
• Threads:
  • Optimize thread management.
• Colors
  • Make it print real rgb color by printing cells of 3 chars of diffrent colors. (only at high resolutions)

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Notes

• My first C project — messy code and probably non optimal.
• If main image returns a color that is not in the range 1.0 and 0.0 it may cause a crash.
• Contributions welcome!

Preview

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