Crystallize is a 2D top-down game, raytraced on the CPU.

🔧Engine/Language: C++

👥Team Size: Solo

⏳Duration: Feb. 2023 - Apr. 2023

 💻Contributions: Many Lights | Reflections | Optimizations

🔗Code: github.com

🎮Game: itch.io

For this project, I did a variety of lighting features while keeping performance in mind. All were achieved through 2D maths, fully running on the CPU. I developed the following:

• Rough shadows from straight and round obstructions.

• Point lights and spot lights with different colors, range and intensity.

• Mirrors with optional light multiplicators.

There are plenty of optimizations that can be done with raytracing and games that utilize them. I only scratched the surface with this project with what I did:

• Shadow grid: The world is split into grid cells. If the color difference between the 4 points of the cell is too small, the cell is ignored, reducing calculations.

• OpenMP multithreading and read-write responsibility separation per pixel

• AABB early out: An AABB check is performed to see if a shape is on the screen or being affected by lighting. If both are true, only then perform shadow calculations.