- flex-shrink: a line whose children want more room than it has takes it back from those that
shrink, in proportion to shrink times size and never below a min size, a fixed size or the
content. A scroll box shrinks (and scrolls), and a box in a column shrinks as far as the scroll
boxes inside it let it, so a list in a column takes the room its siblings leave with no height.
`flex: grow shrink`, and `flex-shrink` by name.
- A row wider than its room measures its texts (and boxes without a width) again in the room the
rest leave them, so a line wraps beside an icon.
- calc() with + - * / and brackets over px, %, em, rem, vw, vh, plain numbers and var(); a width
or height keeps its percentage, taken of the room it is given. Lengths lists (padding, margin)
keep a calc()'s spaces.
- `order` places a box's children without touching the tree.
- width: 0 and height: 0 are 0: an unset size is UI_AUTO now, not 0.
- A component root that is itself a component takes each user's class, style and id in turn (the
outermost's id wins), and the rules of all their sheets are weighed by specificity together; a
user's rule wins a tie. The parent's sheet used to override the child's whatever its specificity,
and a middle component's sheet was lost.
- The default sheet lays .ui-track out as a row, so a range's fill is as tall as its track and a
checked box's knob goes right; a range's thumb is centred on the fill's end.
- ui_boxes.ludic.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
- `popover`: a top layer that keeps the pointer and the keyboard, closed by a press outside or Esc.
- `title` tooltips after half a second's rest, styled by .ui-tooltip.
- `<progress>` and `<meter>`.
- Atlases take rows and number cells, and importing ludic.ui/render3d.ludic is enough to draw with
render3d.
- The compiler reports two declarations of one name before it type-checks, so a package global
clashing with a program's reads as that, not as 29 type errors.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
A game no longer writes a host:
- The runtime reads Input itself: focus and keyboard navigation (Tab, arrows, Enter/Space,
autofocus), the pointer (hover, :active, click on release, drag), and scroll boxes with the
wheel, a draggable scrollbar, clipping and scroll-into-view.
- HTML's controls are built in (button, checkbox, radio, range, select, text, key capture), made
of plain parts a stylesheet styles, each reporting with on-change and event.value.
- ludic.ui/render3d.ludic draws with render3d's overlay: textures, named atlases (icon:NAME),
nine-slice border-image, rounded rects and rings, clipping, and a scale.
- Hooks for the program's language, sounds and clock (ui_translator, ui_sounds, ui_clock).
- ui_dev: hot reload, errors on screen, LUDIC_UI_DUMP.
- CSS:
- colours as #rgb / #rrggbbaa / rgb() / rgba() / names;
- border-radius and outline (following the radius), box-shadow, background-image and a tinted
border-image;
- group opacity, @keyframes / animation, transition;
- :focus, :focus-visible and :focus-within.
- HTML mixed content, and boolean attributes.
- render3d gains tex_width / tex_height, and the XML reader keeps text runs in order.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
The compiler turns a component declaration into:
- a record of its props and state;
- a constructor, a props setter, a model and a call;
- a class, registered with ludic.ui at start.
Its template and styles are read from beside it and compiled in, with @import inlined, and a
missing template fails the build.
In the runtime:
- each mounted instance keeps its own props and state, and `set` in a template writes the state;
- styles are scoped to the component;
- class, style and id on a component's tag land on its root, styled by the parent's sheet too;
- ui_reload re-reads a component's files from disk and keeps instances.
The package's own module is now ludic_ui, so a program may call a directory of its own ui.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
- Natives: ui_native(tag, measure, draw) makes an element the program draws itself; ui_fire
runs its on-<event> with event.value. input, select and textarea have simple defaults.
- React:
- keyed <each>, <let>, <provide> context through components, <fragment>;
- named slots, default props on <component>;
- on-mount / on-unmount;
- inline text inside text elements.
- CSS:
- custom properties and var();
- position relative/absolute/fixed with insets and z-index;
- em/rem/vw/vh and @media;
- wrapping text and ellipsis, overflow;
- + and ~ combinators, :nth-child(an+b), :checked, :active.
- Developing: errors with file:line, ui_errors(), ui_reload() keeping state, and an
inspector-style ui_dump.
- view fields infer the type of a literal or a named function's result.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
A `view Name { field = x; function q(..); on e(..) }` declaration is the one bridge between a
program and its UI: it writes view_<name>() -> UiView, whose model is a Value of every field and
whose call runs a query or an event by name.
ludic.ui is a template runtime:
- HTML-shaped XML screens and components, loaded at run time;
- {expression} bindings, if/else/each, props, slots, per-instance state;
- on-press / onclick actions (event, set, emit);
- component libraries (export="true", <import src as>).
Styling:
- stylesheets in <style> or importable .lss files (@import);
- CSS selectors (#id, .class, [attr=v], descendant and > combinators, :hover, :disabled,
:first-child, :last-child, :nth-child, :not) weighed by specificity;
- the box model and flex under CSS's property names.
Also:
- default parameters, and positional-then-named calls;
- Value gains a float kind;
- a function shadowing a runtime one is refused;
- an index is evaluated before the slice is read;
- runtime errors name the right file.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
registry NAME of RECORD [as PREFIX] from "file.lres" fills a registry from a data
file of key { field: value } entries, read at compile time with the record as its
schema: every entry is checked like a def, errors name the resource file's line,
nested records and lists of them are bare { } / [{ }] typed by their fields, and
values are expressions in the registry's module. The entries are compiled in, so
nothing parses at start-up and a build that succeeds has validated its resources.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
registry NAME of RECORD [as PREFIX] is a global table; def NAME key { ... } in
any file is one entry, collected in source order and filled before any code
runs. Each entry gets an index constant (PREFIX_KEY), the table PREFIX_COUNT,
and a record with a key field gets it filled and a NAME_find(key). A record
literal naming a field its record lacks is now an error everywhere; a global's
initializer is lowered as its own file's code (its errors, and what its module
may see, were whichever statement came last).
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
The typed buffers are slices: words/floats/fixeds/doubles/pointers(n) make
zeroed, bounds-checked []int/[]float/... and the type names mean them. buffer(n)
is a []byte, with text_of, Fs.read_bytes/write_bytes and view(xs, start, n).
bytes(), indexing a raw pointer or bytes, free, resize, Memory.*, raw file calls,
data_of and C externs are refused outside unsafe { } / unsafe function, and a
project's own files may write unsafe only with --unsafe; the runtime and packages
are the platform. A slice passed to an extern goes as its data.
What the change found: Sync's atomics on a slice header, words(n) uninitialised,
input's fixed axes in ints, truetype's fixed outlines as ints, skin matrices
typed int, gl_shader's source table made from raw bytes. render3d gets safe
entry points (safe_api.ludic). Rendering is byte-identical; a frame costs the same.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
`alias meth(labels) = target` in a namespace block makes Ns.meth a call to
target with those labels (the target's own parameter names without a list). The
engine's 41 table-driven namespaces - 438 methods: Http, Udp, Process, Json,
Value, Screen, Input, Audio, World, Tiled, ... - leave emit_ns_call for
runtime/native/namespaces.ludic, spliced into every program; 532 lines of
compiler go and the seed shrinks by 23k lines of IR. The game's IR is byte
identical. The checker checks an alias call's arguments against its target.
Still built in: the inline namespaces (Math, Text, List, Vector, Color, Time,
Date, ...) and the methods that pick a target by argument type.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
property Pool<T> { ... }, function first<T>(xs: []T) -> T, map<T, U> over fn
types; a type writes an instance as Pool<Thing>, nested as deep as needed. The
parser names an instance Pool$Thing and remembers its generic and arguments; the
checker takes the generic declarations out, infers a call's type arguments from
its arguments or its result's declared slot, and makes each instance once as an
ordinary record or function, checked like any other. Errors print Pool<Thing>.
An instance keeps its generic's module and export (L3). ludic-fmt keeps type
arguments together while spacing comparisons and shifts.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
selfhost/check/ walks every function, the entry, tests, globals' initializers and
@On listeners with real scopes, and refuses mixed number kinds, text and numbers,
two record types, mismatched slices and fn types, wrong argument counts, wrong
returns and wrong push elements - every mix-up at once, each at its line.
LUDIC_CHECK_REPORT=1 lists them by category. pointer stays untyped (L7's).
What it found is fixed: render3d's HDR scan calling the float-bits extern f_lt
with floats; ludic.shooter's right-stick aim overflowing past half a push;
prof.ludic storing longs in []int; extern arguments now coerced to their
parameters. Text-returning runtime functions say string; Assets.ready says bool.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
A barrel's 'module NAME' makes its directory a module; a declaration other modules
use says 'export'. Private use from another module is an error naming the module
and where to mark it; 'friend module' sees everything (a test harness); a file in
no module is public and a package keeps its own module. LUDIC_VIS_REPORT=1 lists
every violation instead of stopping, so a codebase can be given its exports first.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
fn(int, float) -> bool is a type, fn name is any top-level function's value, and a call through
a local, a global, a record field, a slice element, a parameter or a result of a function type
is an indirect call; two function types mix only when equal, a call checks its argument count,
and a value may be null (examples/functions/values.ludic). Job.parallel_for keeps its worker
check.
render3d's scene is registered rather than required by name: r3d_on_draw, r3d_on_casters and
r3d_on_stream_fill (hooks.ludic). The two rendering examples register theirs - and had defined
scene_draw_casters with no parameter while the renderer passed one, which nothing checked.
render3d declares numbers float itself; smooth.ludic is converted to floats and returns when
r3d_init fails instead of running on into a segfault. Noise.* check their argument count (a call
one short crashed the compiler). selfhost-build says why it failed. The migration tool reads a
declared float as evidence. Seed regenerated.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
L1. Two vars, consts, enums, properties or events of one name in a program are an error naming
both places (functions already were); the first used to win silently. A let / var of a name its
own block already declared is an error (it used to shadow). A function with a result type whose
body can reach its end without a return is an error, asked structurally of the body - a return,
an if/else or a match with a default arm whose every branch ends - rather than handing back
whatever the result slot held. The game, the lab and every package example pass all three;
the lab had one harmless shadow, and the game's split screens had two real bugs of the kind.
examples/rejected/ holds the four refusals, checked by the test runner's new reject_case.
Seed regenerated.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Listeners are compiled into one @ev_<E> function and return branched to its exit, so every
listener declared after one that returned early - and every foreign listener - never heard
the event. The per-kind listener shape (return unless it is my kind) answered only the
first-declared kind. examples/events/answer.ludic holds it; seed regenerated.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
The platform gave these keys no code at all, so a game's rebinding screen could not take
one and nothing said why. Windows asked the active layout what they type and got nothing
(w_vk_char answers 0 for a key with no character); macOS let them fall through to
charactersIgnoringModifiers, which reports NSF1FunctionKey and its neighbours at 0xF704
and up - outside the 256-bit held set either way.
w_keyval and ev_keyval now name them, with the same codes on both: 132-143 F1-F12,
144-149 Home / End / PageUp / PageDown / Insert / Delete, 150 Caps Lock, 152-161 the
numpad digits, 162-166 its * + - . and /. The numpad's Enter is Enter.
Key.F1, Key.Home, Key.Numpad0 and the rest fold at compile time, and Input.key_label
names them without asking the layout - a key that types nothing is called the same thing
on every layout.
examples/library/input_typeless_keys.ludic covers the codes, the names, the held set and
the press edge; 150 passed in ludic-dev test, 33 in selfhost-test.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Process.spawn/poll/kill/free - non-blocking child processes with no shell: posix_spawn on
macOS (process.ll), CreateProcessW with MSVC-quoted arguments and no console window on
Windows (process_win.ll), linked only when a program uses Process.*.
Http.save_to streams a response body into a file (NSURLSession with a run-time delegate
class on macOS, the WinHTTP read loop on Windows); Http.received / Http.expected report
progress while it is pending. Freeing a pending request cancels it and parks the slot
until the worker has finished.
App.window_hide / App.window_show take the game's window off the screen and back without
closing it; the run goes on while hidden. Docs, examples, tests and a changeset.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Udp.open/port/send/recv/from_ip/from_port/close/resolve/local_ip/ip/ip_text, native
BSD sockets (udp.ll) and Winsock (udp_win.ll, -lws2_32), linked only when a program
uses Udp.*; example, docs and tests.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
`float` (32-bit) and `double` (64-bit) with + - * / %, comparisons and unary minus.
Decimal literals take their type from context and stay `fixed` elsewhere; int and long
promote implicitly (LUDIC_WARN_FLOAT_PROMOTE=1 lists every promotion). float(), double(),
int(), long() and fixed() convert; floats(n)/doubles(n) buffers; float fields, globals,
constants and parameters; Math.* computes in float for float arguments; string/print
write the shortest round-tripping decimal; float_bits/float_from_bits expose the bits.
@deterministic code may not use floats. The f_* runtime helpers stay as they are.
Editors know the new type words; the JetBrains plugin is 1.5.0.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
The Windows runtime keyed the held set by the character MapVirtualKeyA gave a
virtual key, so a game's WASD belonged to whatever the active layout put there,
and with an input method on every letter arrived as VK_PROCESSKEY. The typing
block is now read from the scancode (the arrows, numpad and F-keys still by
virtual key); macOS reads keyCode the same way. Input.key_label(key) names a key
in the player's own layout (Windows) or as its US character elsewhere.
Verified on Windows with SendInput into a live window: VK_Z carrying W's scancode
holds 'w', VK_PROCESSKEY carrying A's holds 'a', Caps Lock changes nothing.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
`fn name` read `while p < fn and ...` as a reference to a function called `and`, which broke
tools/ludic-cli/glgen.ludic and so the dev tool's own build. A reference now needs the name on
the same line and not one of and / or / not / in / is. The threads example checks `fn` as a
local before `and`. Reseeded; bootstrap-cfree reproduces the seed.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
- `fn name` names a top-level function as a value (E_FNREF, lowers to @fn_<name>); the worker
entry point for Job.parallel_for, which checks it takes (int, pointer-like) and returns void.
- runtime/native/threads.ll (pthreads) and threads_win.ll (Win32 SRWLOCK/CONDITION_VARIABLE): a
pool of one worker per core but one, parked between batches; every thread claims chunks by
compare-and-swap. Linked only into programs that use Job/Promise/Sync, by `ludicc -o`,
`ludic build` and the test suite's build helper.
- Sync.* is real: native mutexes, atomics as cmpxchg retry loops (neither clang takes atomicrw,
the PC's rejects seq_consistent), mutex-guarded channels, Sync.cpu_count from the OS.
- spawn/despawn on a pool thread stop the program with a located panic.
- examples/library/threads.ludic and its test; docs for fn, Job.parallel_for, Job.is_worker.
- Reseeded (bootstrap-cfree: out.ll == seed.ll). 141/141 on macOS; jobs, threads and the guard
pass on Windows from the reseeded Windows seed.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Three things the first Vulkan frames on the RTX 3070 Ti showed against OpenGL on the same PC:
- Exposure: the adaptation pass reads the HDR scene's smallest mip, and a render target made
without pixels had one level, so exposure came from a single texel. A target asked for mipmaps
now grows a full chain (level 0 kept), and passes draw through level-0 views keyed by the
image's generation.
- Foliage: the depth prepass and the lit pass (depth EQUAL) are different variants. Vulkan vertex
stages now declare an invariant gl_Position so both land on the same depth.
- Alpha to coverage is enabled only on a multisampled pass. OpenGL ignores it without MSAA; Vulkan
with one sample dropped every fragment under half alpha.
vk_resources also checks a big-endian 16-bit RGB upload (a normal map). VKRES OK; ludic-dev test
140 passed; the PC's Vulkan frame is validation-clean; OpenGL frames byte-identical at the five
viewpoints with 59 self-tests passing.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
gpu_vk_res.ludic gains what gpu.ludic's texture and buffer handles stand for on Vulkan:
- gvk_tex_storage / _upload / _mips / _read / _release: an image and view per handle, a full mip
chain when pixels come with it (the renderer asks for mipmaps after the upload) and one level
for a target, every level in SHADER_READ_ONLY between uses. Uploads are converted to what the
image stores: a missing alpha filled opaque (three-channel formats are stored with four), 16-bit
PNG samples byte-swapped when the unpack state says so, 32-bit float HDR halved into half
floats. Mips are blitted down level by level; a read-back brings level 0 home.
- gvk_sampler: one VkSampler per filter / wrap / compare / anisotropy combination, made when first
asked for, with GL's defaults where the renderer set nothing.
- gvk_buf_*: vertex, index and instance buffers behind one handle, kept when an upload fits.
Host-visible while the backend comes up.
gpu_vk.ludic switches on anisotropic sampling where the device has it and reads its limit.
examples/rendering/vk_resources.ludic checks it all: VKRES OK, validation-clean, every allocation
freed, on the RTX 3070 Ti (16x anisotropy) and on MoltenVK. One run on the Mac crashed while a
headless game run was using the GPU and did not come back in two reruns. OpenGL frames
byte-identical at the five viewpoints; 59 self-tests pass.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
The first part of the Vulkan side of gpu.ludic, not yet reached from the renderer: gvk_init
brings up the instance (portability enumeration where offered), the first discrete GPU, a
graphics queue and a device with the Tier 1 floor switched on (dynamic rendering,
synchronization2, descriptor indexing, timeline semaphores), and says why when it cannot so
the caller stays on OpenGL. gvk_mem_type / gvk_alloc pick and allocate memory (one allocation
per resource while the backend comes up), and gvk_once_begin / gvk_once_end carry uploads,
bakes and read-backs through submit and wait.
examples/rendering/vk_device.ludic runs it alone: VKDEVICE OK and validation-clean on the RTX
3070 Ti and on MoltenVK.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
A Slang vertex and fragment shader draw a triangle into an image with dynamic rendering (no
render pass object: the pipeline names its colour format), image barriers move it to the
attachment and transfer layouts, and vkCmdCopyImageToBuffer reads it back into a PPM. It is
the path the Vulkan renderer's passes and screenshots take.
The corner comes from SV_VulkanVertexID: Slang compiles SV_VertexID to gl_VertexIndex -
gl_BaseVertex, which declares the draw-parameters capability.
Validation-clean and VKTRIANGLE OK on the RTX 3070 Ti (Windows) and the M4 Pro (MoltenVK),
13824 pixels covered on both.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
gpu_manifest.ludic loads shaders/spv/manifest.txt and answers what a backend asks while drawing:
which variant a program built by r3d_program is, where a uniform lives in its stage's block,
which binding a sampler has, what the vertex inputs are. examples/rendering/vk_manifest.ludic
resolves every program in variants.list against it (45 of 45) and checks a few offsets and
bindings. Nothing imports it yet.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
ludic-dev vkgen reads vk.xml into runtime/native/vk_api.ludic (constants, every struct's
<Struct>_sizeof and <Struct>_<field> offsets, one extern per command) and vk_thunks.ll.
Every size and offset was compiled against the SDK's C headers; `ludic-dev test` checks the
tracked files against the registry wherever the Vulkan SDK is installed.
vk_win.ll (vulkan-1.dll) and vk_mac.ll (libvulkan.1.dylib, MoltenVK) open the loader at run
time, so a program built with Vk.* starts on a machine without Vulkan. ludicc and ludic
build link both for any program that uses Vk.*. The seeds are regenerated for the new
compiler.
vk_probe reports what a machine's Vulkan can do; vk_compute dispatches a Slang compute
shader and reads the picture back, clean under the validation layer on an RTX 3070 Ti and
on an M4 Pro through MoltenVK.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
The delta was this frame's position minus the last, and the last started at 0,0, so the
first frame reported the cursor's whole distance from the corner as motion. A cursor-mode
change did the same, switching between a locked cursor's virtual reticle and the real
cursor. Maroon Lake's camera adds mouse_dy to its pitch and came up pointing at the ground.
examples/library/input_mouse_rebase.ludic covers both cases, plus ordinary motion and
re-setting the mode already in force.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
The arrow Key constants folded to the codes of w/s/a/d, which is what the
per-frame key reports for an arrow, but cocoa.ll has always stored an arrow in
the held-key set under 128-131. So Input.key_down(Key.Up) read the W bit and
Input.move_i's arrow half never moved anything. Input.key keeps its WASD alias,
so games comparing it with 'w' (snake, chronorift) still take the arrows.
New example input_arrows.ludic, checked by ludic-dev test.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
terrain_reload/terrain_unload release one map's height field, survey, photograph
and patch bounds and generate another at any TERRAIN_HALF; scatter_clear_all
(with streams), actor_clear_all, col_reset and mesh_free empty the scene;
water_body_add/water_bodies_clear draw several still-water planes with one
reflecting; terrain_sea separates the coast's sea level from the carved lake's,
and grass keeps off both. Fixes CDLOD patch bounds for TERRAIN_HALF != 4096 and
water_init leaking a mesh and program per call. examples/rendering/reload.ludic.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Three things a game could not say, each of which had been worked around.
Audio.play_at(id, gain:, pitch:, pan:) fires a one-shot with its own gain,
pitch and stereo position. Audio.volume and Audio.pitch are global - they are
the options screen - so a game placing a sound in the world was fighting them,
and distance attenuation was simply not expressible. The backend already took
volume and rate per call; this adds setPan: alongside them and stops routing
through the master state.
ludic.render3d gains outline_model(model, mat, width, r, g, b): a rim around
something that is not an Actor. The outline pass walked the actor list and
stopped, so instanced scatter - a forest - could not be highlighted at all. It
is a queue flushed by the same pass, which is what gets the depth test right
when the caller does not control pass order.
And terrain_coast(cx, cz, margin, fall), the other way to make an island:
the sea around the survey's own edge rather than cut out of the middle of it.
terrain_island measures a radius from a centre, which drowns two thirds of a
real survey to make an island of the rest; this measures inward from the
boundary, so everything the data covers stays land and the coast is where the
data runs out. Both modes gained a strand - the last few metres of height
either side of the water line compressed, which stretches a cliff plunge out
into beach and shallows.
132 regression tests and the self-host fixpoints pass.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
`Gl.*` binds the whole OpenGL 4.1 core API — every entry point of the
platform gl3.h with every GL_* constant, generated by `ludic-dev glgen`
with per-call ABI thunks. Windowed builds get an NSOpenGLContext on the
existing window at Retina resolution; headless builds render into an
offscreen CGL context, so a program that uses Gl.* renders and
screenshots identically under the test harness. It links gl.ll, the
thunks and OpenGL.framework only when used; every other build stays
byte-identical.
packages/ludic.render3d is a physically based renderer written on that
surface: HDRI image-based lighting, GPU-generated terrain with scanned
PBR materials, CDLOD, cascaded shadows, glTF with skinning, instanced
vegetation with impostors, procedural grass, water, SSAO, and an HDR
pipeline with bloom, auto-exposure and ACES.
It also carries this session's work on it: the terrain at half its cost
(10.3 -> 5.4 ms of frame), the streaming hitch that got worse the longer
you played, a resize that emptied the world, and the packaging that lets
a game use the renderer from its own repository — `ludic assets`, the
material manifest shipping with the package, and shader lookup falling
back to the install root. See changes/ for each, with its numbers.
The camping game that drove all of it has moved out to its own
repository, Maroon Lake; examples/rendering/smooth.ludic stays as the
renderer's example here.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
`ludic help` ended with a section titled "contributing to the toolchain itself",
listing bootstrap, reseed, docs-gen and release tasks. None of that is available
to someone who installed the language — those tasks need the repository — so the
shipped tool was advertising work its user cannot do, in a namespace they have to
read past to find `new` and `run`.
The tasks move to a second program, dev.ludic -> bin/ludic-dev, built from a
checkout and excluded from every release artifact. `ludic` keeps the project and
package commands and nothing else; `ludic dev …` now explains where the tasks
went instead of failing as an unknown command.
What this shook out: the two programs share prelude/build/project/pkg, so the
helpers each had accreted in whichever file first needed them — cc(),
ensure_ludicc, the string functions, title_case, cmd_version — moved to where
both can see them. The argument-shift indirection added for the `dev` namespace
is gone with the namespace, so commands read argv directly again.
`ludic-dev test` asserts the split rather than trusting it: the staged install
must build a project, and `ludic dev build` there must fail while naming
ludic-dev. install.sh keeps building older tags, whose bootstrap goes through
main.ludic.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Getting started meant cloning the repository, bootstrapping a compiler and
learning a task runner called `x`. That is a contributor's workflow handed to
everyone who wants to try the language.
Installing is now one command:
curl -fsSL https://workshopsoft.pages.workshopsoft.io/ludic/install.sh | sh
install.sh puts a complete toolchain — compiler, CLI, engine runtime, bundled
ludic.* packages, formatter, language server — in ~/.ludic and adds it to PATH.
Prebuilt artifacts are checksum-verified; where a platform has none, or the
release predates this layout, it bootstraps from the compiler's own IR seed with
clang. The docs site publishes the script beside the pages that quote it, so the
page and the script can never come from different releases.
`x` becomes `ludic`, and the surface splits by audience. A user of the language
sees `new`, `run`, `build`, `test`, `add`, `fmt`, `lsp`, `doctor`, `upgrade`;
`ludic new` scaffolds a project that builds and plays as it stands. Everything
the toolchain repo needs moved under `ludic dev` — build, test, reseed,
bootstrap-cfree, docs-gen, release — unchanged apart from the namespace. Those
tasks read arguments one position further along, so dispatch_dev sets a shift
and commands use arg_n()/arg_total() rather than each knowing its own depth.
Release artifacts become complete install roots (bin/ beside runtime/, packages/
and VERSION) rather than bare binaries, which is what the installer unpacks.
`ludic dev test` asserts the whole shape: it stages an install, puts it on PATH
with no LUDIC_HOME, and runs new -> build -> test through it.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
- runtime: HEADLESS_FRAME_PATH, STICK_DEADZONE / STICK_LEFT_X/Y, key and
byte codes as char literals throughout (`k == 'w'`, `fill(rt_map, ' ', …)`)
- ludic.gameplay/stats: drop the duplicate `stat_field` (it answered "atk"
for every build stat); Stats.base uses stats_field_name
- ludic.shooter: compare aim modes and fire patterns with AimMode.* and
WeaponPattern.* instead of raw ints; STICK_RIGHT_X/Y
- ludic.npcai: DecisionMade / brain_set_state use AiState.*
- examples/games/menu.ludic uses Font.load / Ui.* with FONT_PATH and
BACKDROP named; strings.ludic header says what it prints
- whole tree: `x = x + 1` → `x += 1` (single-term right-hand sides only),
`0 - x` → `-x`, ASCII codes → char literals; every .ludic and every
```ludic fence reformatted with the fixed formatter (whitespace only)
Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5.1 <noreply@anthropic.com>
- `[a, b, c]` list literals (E_LIST → emit_list); static_type learns
slice-element, `new T`, list, string and literal kinds
- `x op= y` lowers through the same path as `x = x op y` (emit_bin_vals):
fixed `*=`/`/=` use the Q16.16 64-bit paths, string `+=` concatenates,
int→long widens; unary `-` keeps a fixed operand's type (arith_ty)
- one `unescape()` table for "strings", 'chars' and `interpolation`;
`'\''`, `'\\'`, `'\"'` no longer read as 0; unterminated char literals
and unexpected characters are errors instead of silently skipped
- every diagnostic is `file:line: error: msg` (g_parse_file / g_err_file,
Node.file + Node.line set by node()); tok_desc() in expectation errors;
duplicate `function` names and unknown `phase` names are reported in
source terms (phase_id used to default unknown phases to Overlay)
- interpolation holes skip braces inside string literals
- hand-IR preludes move from the user `@fn_` prefix to `@lp_` so a user
`is_ws` / `str_eq` / `path_join` no longer collides at link time
- `@ClearColor(expr)` accepts any constant expression; `Os.pid()` added
(docs page + inventory); `str_starts()` in support/str
- main.ludic: `else if` flag ladder, char literals, stale script comments
- examples/lang/operators.ludic covers all of the above; os.ludic covers
Os.pid; docs pages for Os.pid and the Overlay phase; ten changesets
- reseeded: selfhost/ludicc.seed.ll is the new compiler's own fixpoint
Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5.1 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Closes the two open issues and lands the pending unreleased batch:
- #90: `Sprite { atlas: 1 }` routes esys_sprite through atlas_draw_ex
(scale/flip/tint), so cell / cell_span / strip ids of any size draw
through the engine sprite-render system. examples/library/sprite_atlas
is the pixel-readback regression.
- #91: `become` from an @On(Event) listener / global handler / plain
function no longer segfaults the compiler; it emits @L_scene_leave()
(a dispatch on the live scene id) so the leaving scene's on-exit runs.
UI_* handles are readable from any code (widget table built on first
use). examples/library/scene_menus covers it.
- fix: a windowed `ludicc -o` build that reaches the audio runtime only
through the atlas/Assets preload import now links audio.ll +
AVFoundation (the audio backend link was gated on a game-level
Audio.* call, so any windowed game declaring Sprite failed to link).
- the hand-written "Unreleased" CHANGELOG section is converted to
changesets under changes/ so `x release` generates it.
- plus the batch: engine-driven retained UI + UiClicked event, Overlay
phase, TileSkin tilemap-render system, Key.* constants, Font/Ui/File
namespaces, Sprite.strip, prefabs, managers, countdown fields,
enum-typed machines, layer @Queries, ludic.prefs / ludic.dungeon
packages, Ai.seek pathing, Solids.solid2, cursor confine (mode 3)
fix, shooter centre-aim fix, reserved-word function diagnostic.
Verified: x test (124/124), x test-tools, check-impl, check-vocabulary,
check-docs, docs-gen + docs-check, bootstrap-cfree (seed is a fixpoint).
Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5.1 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Ludic's ECS is already pool-based — the allocator recycles freed entity slots
through a freelist (L_alloc pops @L_freen before growing @L_entc), and component
storage is fixed per-entity arrays, so spawn/despawn churn (bullet-hell/horde)
does no per-spawn heap allocation and cannot fragment. Expose that with a Pool.*
namespace so a game can watch reuse: Pool.live (alive now), Pool.free (recycled
slots waiting), Pool.reserved (high-water — stays flat across a steady
spawn/despawn loop, proving reuse not reallocation), Pool.capacity (the fixed
cap). Zero-cost inline reads of the existing counters.
Example pool.ludic proves the key property: after despawn+respawn,
Pool.reserved() stays 3 (freed slot reused) — prints 0 0 3 3 0 2 1 3 0 3 1.
4 docs pages. Full suite 118/0, goldens byte-identical, fixpoint holds.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Assets loaded synchronously in Boot stalled the first frame(s). Adds an
Assets.* preload queue over the #81 atlas: Assets.enqueue(name, path) queues a
named image without loading it, Assets.pump(max) loads up to max per frame
(returns how many), and Assets.total/loaded/ready/progress (0..100) drive a
progress bar. A loading scene pumps a few per frame, draws Assets.progress(),
and becomes the play scene once Assets.ready() — the deterministic, no-threads
form of async preloading (work spread across frames; same enqueue+pump order
loads identically every run). Loaded assets are reachable by name via
Assets.get / Sprite.named.
Example preload (enqueue 3, pump incrementally 0->33->66->100, ready flips, get
by name) prints 3 0 0 0 1 33 66 1 100 1. 6 docs pages. Full suite 117/0,
fixpoint holds.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 <noreply@anthropic.com>
`namespace Name { export function foo(...) ... internal function bar(...) ... }`
declares a Name.* namespace once and controls its public surface declaratively,
instead of annotating every function with @Namespace(Name). Inside the block
each `function short(...)` is emitted as `namelower_short`; export (the default)
makes it callable as Name.short(...), internal keeps it a private helper
(emitted, callable by short name from siblings — calls are rewritten — but
Name.internalOne() is a compile error). Block sugar for the per-function
@Namespace annotation; a package's public API reads at a glance. Namespaces
declared the old way are unchanged (gameplay_foundation still passes).
namespace added to LUDIC_KW_DECL + JetBrains/TextMate + docs page + inventory
(vocab/impl/docs checks green). Example namespace_block (export + internal +
sibling calls + internal-visibility compile error verified). Full suite 116/0,
fixpoint holds.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 <noreply@anthropic.com>
A windowed action game can hide the OS cursor and lock/confine the mouse to the
window. Input.cursor_mode(mode): 0 normal, 1 hidden (draw your own reticle),
2 locked (hidden + dissociated — the mouse feeds relative motion via
Input.mouse_dx/dy and Input.mouse_x/y is a clamped virtual cursor, FPS/twin-stick
aim), 3 confined (dissociated but visible; the mouse can't leave the window).
The platform auto-releases (shows + reconnects) while the window is not key
(Cmd-Tab) and on close, so the cursor is never left captured. Headless it is a
no-op (DCE'd).
Native macOS impl in cocoa.ll: [NSCursor hide]/[unhide] (ref-counted, toggled
only on change so the count stays balanced across focus changes),
CGAssociateMouseAndMouseCursorPosition, and CGGetLastMouseDelta for the relative
virtual cursor, behind a new win_cursor_mode intrinsic. Windowed-only behaviour
(not in the headless golden suite); example compiles headless and links
windowed. Full suite 115/0, fixpoint holds.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Sprite loading was a bare png_load — one file per 16x16 sprite, no way to load
one sheet and address a cell by grid coords or name. Adds a Sprite.*/Assets.*
runtime (atlas.ludic) over the variable-size image loader, so a cell is a
sub-rect of the kept image and is NOT restricted to the 16x16 sprite table:
Sprite.sheet(path,cw,ch), Sprite.cell(sheet,col,row),
Sprite.cell_span(sheet,col,row,cols,rows) (a sprite may span >1 cell),
Sprite.define/named (name + lookup), Sprite.draw/draw_scaled (through
camera/zoom/clip like Screen.sprite), Sprite.width/height, and
Assets.image/load/get. Spliced on demand (Sprite.sheet/… or Assets.*), so a
program using neither is byte-identical.
Example examples/library/atlas.ludic (verified against a real 12x11 Kenney
sheet, incl. a 2x3 multi-cell span and named lookup). 14 docs pages. Full
suite 114/0, goldens byte-identical, fixpoint holds.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 <noreply@anthropic.com>
#79 — Input.axis_i(neg,pos) -> int returns a -1/0/1 movement intent from the
multi-key device set, so WASD-to-movement needs no bool->int glue and feeds an
int mover directly (dx = Input.axis_i('a','d')).
#84 — a Bounds config entity (rect + policy, from ludic.core) drives the
engine-owned world-bounds system (LateUpdate): clamp / wrap / bounce (clamp +
flip Body velocity) / kill (despawn a body fully outside). Reads the Collider
size so the box stays inside; off by default, spliced only when Bounds is
declared (byte-identical otherwise). Adds World.despawn(e) — the by-id
reflective despawn (runs @OnDespawn + frees) via a new world_despawn intrinsic
whose @fn_world_despawn helper is emitted in emit_program's tail once a use is
seen (the g_uses_* prelude pattern), used by the kill policy and callable from
any system.
Examples input_movement + world_bounds. Full suite 112/0, goldens
byte-identical, fixpoint holds.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Since #83 the loop commits the device layer once per frame (input_drive), but a
game that ALSO called Input.poll by hand committed a second time in the same
frame; input_device_commit copies in_held into in_prev at the top of every
commit, so the second commit left in_prev == in_held and the edges (held &&
!prev) could never see a transition.
Fix: an in_have_frame_driver flag. The loop's input_drive sets it; a manual
Input.poll under the loop then becomes a no-op returning the frame's key
instead of re-committing. An entry-driven harness has no loop, so the flag
stays false and each Input.poll commits a frame as before (the #7/#50
record/replay + device tests are unchanged). Frame loop now calls input_drive.
Example input_edge (press edge on the down frame, release edge on the up
frame). Full suite 110/0, goldens byte-identical, fixpoint holds.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 <noreply@anthropic.com>
The engine already auto-ticks SpriteAnim/Motion; it now auto-DRAWS too.
Declare a Sprite component (id/offx/offy/scale/flip/tint/hidden, shipped from
ludic.core) on an entity with a Position and esys_sprite draws it each Render
frame — no hand-written Render handler, no hand animation (adds the SpriteAnim
frame when present). Registered on the engine-system registry (Render) and
spliced only when the game declares Sprite, so a game that never declares it
compiles byte-identically; opt out by omitting Sprite or `disable system
esys_sprite`.
Deprecates the bare draw_sprite/draw_sprite_scaled globals in favour of
Screen.sprite/Screen.sprite_scaled: a direct bare call emits a one-time
compile-time deprecation note (the bare form still lowers, since Screen.sprite
uses it); migrates the chronorift demo to the namespaced calls (golden render
byte-identical).
Example sprite_render (pixel-readback: engine draws the sprite, respects
hidden). Full suite 109/0, goldens byte-identical, fixpoint holds.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 <noreply@anthropic.com>
@ClearColor(0xRRGGBB) declares the framebuffer clear colour, so the engine
owns the per-frame clear and flip: the Render phase clears to the colour at
the top and presents after the handlers run. Games drop the repeated
Screen.clear(color)/Screen.show() boilerplate, and the colour is configured
declaratively (an annotation) rather than in the handler body. Opt-in and
backward-compatible: a program with no @ClearColor is byte-for-byte identical
(it clears/presents itself, or the light system owns the present).
Parser reads @ClearColor(int) into g_clear_color/g_has_clear_color;
emit_game_main emits rt_clear before and rt_present after the Render phase,
gated on the flag. Example clear_color (pixel-readback verified — an undrawn
pixel holds the clear colour, proving the engine cleared), docs page +
inventory entry. Full suite 108/0, goldens byte-identical, fixpoint holds.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Fixes the papercut: the generated frame loop called rt_poll() (feeding only
Input.key) but never input_poll(), so Input.active/key_down/mouse/pad read
empty unless the game called Input.poll() by hand. The loop now calls
input_poll() when the game uses any Input runtime method — committing the
held-key/mouse/gamepad state, and record/replay — and stores its return as the
frame key so Input.key still works. A game using no Input runtime keeps the
plain rt_poll path, byte-identical.
Adds the Input-Manager API: Input.action(name,key) ships a default binding
(kept if already bound, so a rebind/loaded map isn't clobbered),
Input.bind_pad(name,button) makes an action device-agnostic (keyboard OR pad),
and Input.active/just_pressed/just_released read the multi-key device layer
with clean on-press/on-release edges (deterministic, dispatch-free — a handler
polls the edge; a replay fires identically).
Examples input_manager + input_auto, 5 docs pages. Full suite 107/0, goldens
byte-identical, fixpoint holds.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 <noreply@anthropic.com>
The #78 investigation rejected hardware f32/f64 for the coordinate types
(they would desync lockstep/replay/save) and identified camera zoom as the
one genuinely-missing render feature. Ship it: Camera.zoom(scale) scales the
whole view about the screen centre by a Q16.16 factor, threaded through the
same two framebuffer chokepoints (rt_put_px/rt_fill_rect) that carry the
camera offset, so it composes with Camera.set/follow/shake. Gated by an
internal rt_cam_zoomed flag so a game that never zooms renders byte-for-byte
identically (golden renders unchanged); Camera.zoom(1.0) turns it back off.
The world coordinate types stay integer px + Q16.16 velocity, so it's a pure
render-time transform and itself deterministic.
Example examples/library/camera_zoom.ludic (pixel-readback verified),
docs page, RFC updated (docs/RFC-POSITION-TYPES.md). Full suite 105/0,
fixpoint holds.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 <noreply@anthropic.com>
