Tinyshader

Lightweight, easy to embed HLSL to SPIR-V compiler written in C99

Using the command-line compiler

The command-line compiler sources are located under the folder tsc and can be used as follows:

Usage: tsc <input file path>
    --shader-stage | -T <vertex|fragment|compute>
    --entry-point | -E <entry point name>
    -o <output file path>

Using the compiler as a library

The compiler library sources are located under the folder tinyshader and can be used as follows:

#include "tinyshader.h"

TsCompilerOptions *options = tsCompilerOptionsCreate();

tsCompilerOptionsSetStage(options, TS_SHADER_STAGE_VERTEX);

const char *entry_point = "main";
tsCompilerOptionsSetEntryPoint(options, entry_point, strlen(entry_point));

tsCompilerOptionsSetSource(
    options,
    hlsl_source,
    strlen(hlsl_source),
    path, // optional, can be NULL
    strlen(path) // if path is NULL, this should be zero
);

TsCompilerOutput *output = tsCompile(options);

/*
 * 'errors' is a null-terminated string containing compiler error messages.
 * If it's NULL, compilation was successful.
 */
const char *errors = tsCompilerOutputGetErrors(output);
if (errors)
{
    printf("%s\n", errors);
    exit(1);
}

/*
 * Now we have SPIR-V code, ready to pass to Vulkan.
 * NOTE: the spirv pointer is owned by TsCompilerOutput and is freed when it's destroyed.
 */
size_t spirv_byte_size;
const unsigned char *spirv = tsCompilerOutputGetSpirv(output, &spirv_byte_size);

// Cleanup
tsCompilerOutputDestroy(output);
tsCompilerOptionsDestroy(options);

Compiling

Compiling tinyshader is very simple, you just need to compile the tinyshader/tinyshader_*.c files (except tinyshader/tinyshader_unity.c), no complicated build system involved. Alternatively you can also compile tinyshader/tinyshader_unity.c to compile all of the files in one go.

Goals and implemented features

The goal of this compiler is to be as compatible as possible with DXC, implementing most of its features, while being very lightweight in terms of code size.

So far, though, only a subset of HLSL features are supported. You can check out the progress in this issue.

Regarding optimization and quality of the generated code, tinyshader is supposed to provide 80% of what you need for 10% of the code, so more advanced optimization is not planned as of now.

Vulkan resource binding

Descriptor set/binding mapping

Descriptor binding information can either be automatic (using only descriptor set 0 and incremented bindings) or explicit through the [[vk::binding(binding, set)]] attribute.

HLSL register bindings are currently ignored.

Examples of resource binding:

ConstantBuffer<Uniform> gInput; // Binding: 0, Set: 0
Texture2D gInput2; // Binding: 1, Set: 0
SamplerState gInput3; // Binding: 2, Set: 0

[[vk::binding(0)]] ConstantBuffer<Uniform> gInput; // Binding: 0, Set: 0
[[vk::binding(1)]] Texture2D gInput2; // Binding: 1, Set: 0
[[vk::binding(2)]] SamplerState gInput3; // Binding: 2, Set: 0

[[vk::binding(0)]] ConstantBuffer<Uniform> gInput; // Binding: 0, Set: 0
[[vk::binding(1, 0)]] Texture2D gInput2; // Binding: 1, Set: 0
[[vk::binding(2, 1)]] SamplerState gInput3; // Binding: 2, Set: 1

Stage inputs/outputs

You can either pass the stage inputs/outputs as individual parameters or put them in a struct, where each struct member occupies a location. You can also use the returned value of a function as the stage output.

Examples of stage inputs/outputs:

void main(
    in float4 pos : POSITION, // Input location: 0
    in float2 uv : TEXCOORD0, // Input location: 1
    out float4 out_color : SV_Target // Output location: 0
) {
    out_color = 1.0f;
}

struct PSInput
{
    float4 pos : POSITION; // Input location: 0
    float4 sv_pos : SV_Position; // Same as gl_FragCoord from GLSL, doesn't count as an input location
    float2 uv : TEXCOORD0; // Input location: 1
};

float4 main(in PSInput ps_in) : SV_Target {
    return float4(ps_in.uv, 0.0, 1.0); // Outputs to location 0
}

License

This library is available to anybody free of charge, under the terms of MIT License (see LICENSE).

felipeagc/tinyshader