raylib 6.0 wishlist!

[raysan5]

Previous: raylib 5.0 wishlist

raylib 5.5 was released recently and it's about time to consider a future raylib 6.0 release.

Actually, there are already multiple issues, PRs and Discussions open for potential raylib improvements. As usual, I'll try to prioritize library maintainability and better platforms support over new features.

Here it is a list with some of the improvements and a some work plans for raylib future:

NOTE: To be completed...

General

Academics

raylib is widely used in academic world, to teach new students graphics programming basics but also to generate demos or academic research visualizations. I want to focus efforts on knowing more about that kind of uses, where I think raylib has a great expansion potential.

• Create a reference document containing educational institutions using raylib on their courses: raylib-academics.

Webpage

raylib.com needs a redesign, it has barely changed in +11 years and considering the increasing popularity/visibility of the library I think it could looks a bit better. I draft a new design a while ago, keeping the minimalist style but a bit more aligned with nowadays standards. I'd also like to add more wasm interactivity, showcasing what raylib can do for web development.

raylib project creator

Recently a new support tool for raylib users was released: raylib project creator. This tool is intended to simplify the setup process for new projects, generating preconfigured projects for multiple systems. The tool still requires some testing, specially on platforms other than Windows, and there are some improvements that I want to add:

• Load/save project configuration file, in plain text file (using rini library), to allow project sharing for regeneration and to connect with future new tools.
• Improve assets/resources management: Define src/dst paths.

raylib project builder

One of the key features provided by most commercial engines is the automatic project building for multiple platforms. Building a raylib project for several platforms could be very complex, specially for new users, so I'm considering creating a tool to simplify that specific process. Using a project configuration file, generated with raylib project creator, show a visual UI interface to simplify building for several platforms.

NOTE: This is a complex project and it would require time and resources, still on design phase

Modules

module: rcore

• REVIEW: Windowing: Fullscreen strategies and HighDPI management for multiple platforms, ToggleFullscreen()/ToggleBorderlessWindowed() ([rcore_desktop] Upon entering fullscreen, uses original window size #3929, [rcore] ToggleFullscreen() not working as expected with HighDPI mode enabled #3972, [rcore][glfw] Window System Improvements #4215, REVIEW: Fullscreen system refactor #4507)
• REVIEW: Keyboard Input System: keycodes vs scancodes. Make sure all platforms are consistent on the values stored, there could be naming inconsistency (GLFW vs SDL), raylib returns keyboard processed values for US-keyboard by default, maybe lower-level physical codes can be required at some point for different keyboard layouts support (REVIEW: Keyboard Input System, keycodes vs scancodes #4595)
• REVIEW: PLATFORM_DRM: Possible issues at initialization on Raspberry Pi (?)
• Platform iOS support: Similar to audio implementation, there could be some possibility to support iOS platform following a similar implementation, some works has already be done in that regards (will it support iOS? #2681 [rcore] Porting raylib to iOS and implement rcore_ios.c #3880)

module: rshapes

• REVIEW: Lines drawing pixel-offset: This is a very tricky issue because it's dependant on GPU, drivers and OpenGL implementation, when drawing using GL_LINES there could be a 1-pixel-offset to the line position, specially dramatic when draawing rectangle lines.
• REVIEW: Rectangles with rounded corners, similar to 1-px-offset issue, corners do not seem to look right, the number of sections should be calculated in function of the rectangle size and the corner radius, could be tricky. ([rshapes] DrawRectangleRoundedLines() results not aligned with DrawRectangleRounded() #4601)

module: rtext

• REVIEW: Font system dealing with glyphs, avoid traversing the full list of characters for every drawn codepoint (Font glyph performance improvements #4513)

module: rmodels

• REVIEW: Keyframes/poses computation based on model data ([rmodels] LoadModelAnimationsGLTF() computes poses interpolating between the anim duration and fixed 60 fps (GLTF_ANIMDELAY) #4426, [rmodels] glTF animation import uses odd framerate as basis for time to frame conversion #4472, [rmodels] Animation issue with the GLB/GLTF files #4569)
• REVIEW: Models Animation System: How to deal poses / skeletons, independenly of mesh: blending, get poses updated... ([rmodels] Added implementation of UpdateModelAnimationBonesWithBlending() function #4578, REDESIGN: Model Animation System #4606)
• REVIEW: Models loading from memory, allow loading data in second thread for optimization (?)

module: raudio

• REDESIGN: Audio System: Wave vs Sound mechanisms and structures, keep an internal identifier for sounds (snd.id) similar to OpenGL texture.id. That is a similar implementation to OpenAL Soft.

module: utils

• ADDITION: Virtual File System, improved support ([rcore] Virtual File System callbacks/macros required #4551)

Examples

• UPDATE: Recompile all examples for latest raylib and emscripten.

TODO: New examples and examples to review

Others

building

• REVIEW: Config System (config.h) to allow easier enabling/disabling of features on building ([config.h] Consider changing how defines are used in raylib to support configuration from build systems #4411 [Config.h] Make all the defines in config.h be override-able by the build system #4554)

extras

• Scene/Entities Management System (Simple scene system to ease getting started with 3d game dev #4495)
• Improved 3d functionality: r3d

others

• TODO.

Note that most of the improvement points come from open issues and PRs for review.

It's a long list and it requires lot of work. Note that not all those improvements are expected to be implemented, it's just a reference to follow for future raylib.

As always, contributions are welcome. Feel free to comment.

[Fancy2209]

An SDL Mixer backend as an option instead of MiniAudio would be nice for RAudio in my opinion

[raysan5]

I'm afraid it implies a big number of external dependencies... not aligned with raylib design...

[Fancy2209]

I'm afraid it implies a big number of external dependencies... not aligned with raylib design...

What about SDL's base audio API that doesn't have external deps?

[JeffM2501]

Fullscreen Refactor

Define what ‘fullscreen’ means to raylib and refactor the current API to match that definition. Also add specific functions to change display resolution. Evaluate ways to have consistent behavior with minimal API changes.

Posted 11-18-24
#4507

Font Rendering Refactor

Store glyphs in ranges for faster lookup. In my testing SUPPORT_UNORDERED_CHARSET is one to two times slower than a straight lookup. We can do better than brute force lookups every glyph.
Posted 11-18-24
#4513

Store spacing in font and add Set FontSpacing, and scale it with the glyph scale.

Add function to read monospaced bitmap font (extras?)

Optional Callbacks for file format readers

Allow drop in libs to install callbacks into raylib to handle various file extensions.

Move all non-default file loaders into single header libs that can be dropped in to add support for a file format instead of requiring a rebuild of raylib.
A way to load meshes and no upload them to GPU
LoadModelEx? With a boolean to upload or not, allows mesh loading in a thread.
Standardized binary mesh format
Read/Write mesh in binary from memory, does not need to be interchange format. Maybe also store a list of key/value pairs for metadata?

Audio Platform

Give audio the same type of platform abstraction that core has, keeping MiniAudio as the default backend.
Separate Gamepad Initialization
Don’t initialize gamepads by default, require them to be initialized as a sub system.

Review/refactor gamepad platforms to ensure they are fully functional.

Blend Mode for Render Textures

There is a lot of confusion around blend modes when drawing transparent items to a render texture. Evaluate if there is a good blend mode that we can add to give expected results when drawing to a render texture (one that does not set the destination alpha). Add an example as well.

Oriented Bounding Box Collision example

Add an example that shows how to do oriented bounding box collisions

Software Rendering example

Add an example that shows how write to an image and update a texture

Basic Scene System for Raylib-extras

A simple octree based system that can hold nodes with meshes and/or meta-data

[huntindeed]

Vulkan support? It looks like raylib is gaining popularity and may soon have even more projects that would greatly benefit from it.

[raysan5]

I'm afraid at this moment I don't have the resources required to consider that option, but feel free to work on it and contribute with a Vulkan layer. Just note it must follow rlgl API.

[DeGGeD]

Hello and Happy New Year!

Based on recent feedback from fellow colleagues, would it be possible to add OpenGL ES 3.2 support to enable compute shaders on mobile platforms?

Thanks.

[Fancy2209]

If Mixer is too much, could at least an RAudio implementation using the base SDL library be possible? Or is are SDL Audio APIs missing functionality from RAudio?

[JeffM2501]

I would like to see rAudio get the same kind of platform treatment that rCore did, so that it would be possible to drop in different audio backends, with miniaudio as the default if you don't specify one.
The rCore platform split worked out very well for 5.0, so I think that design pattern should be applied in more places for hopefully similar results.

[Bigfoot71]

What do you mean by:

Improved 3d functionality: r3d

Is it something external to raylib?
A header integrated into raylib?
What are the minimal required features?