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Shader Pipeline Integration

Planned Feature

Shader pipeline integration is planned for a future release. This page documents the intended design.

Motivation​

GPU shaders are a first-class part of a game engine's codebase, but they are often compiled outside the main build system — through ad-hoc scripts or separate tooling. That creates real problems: stale shader artefacts, no dependency tracking between shaders and the C++ code that loads them, and inconsistent optimisation settings across build configurations.

GPBT's shader pipeline integration aims to bring shaders into the CMake build graph with the same dependency tracking, platform awareness, and per-configuration control as regular C++ targets.

Planned design​

Shader source files will be registered against a module the same way as regular sources:

gpStartModule("rhi/d3d12")
  gpAddSourceDirectory(private)
  gpAddShaderFile(shaders/Fullscreen.hlsl STAGE vertex)
  gpAddShaderFile(shaders/Fullscreen.hlsl STAGE pixel)
gpEndModule()

GPBT will invoke the correct shader compiler for the target platform — DXC for HLSL on Windows, glslangValidator for GLSL, the Xcode Metal toolchain for MSL — and embed or install the compiled artefacts alongside the module binary.

Planned shader compiler support​

LanguageCompilerPlatforms
HLSLDXCWindows, Vulkan (cross-platform)
GLSLglslangValidatorVulkan (all platforms)
MSLXcode Metal toolchainmacOS, iOS

Planned per-configuration behaviour​

Shaders will respect the same four build configurations as C++ code. In Debug and Development they will be compiled with debug symbols and optimisations off. In Profile and Shipping, full optimisation will be applied.