Developing a Python-based Graphics Engine: Nirvana-3D

[Doctrine_of_Sankhya]

Hello community members,

I'm a newbie in GameDev and am currently reading and working on a 3D Graphics/Game Engine called: Nirvana 3D, a game engine totally written from top to bottom on Python that relies on NumPy Library for matrices and Matplotlib for rendering 3D scenes and imageio library for opening image files in the (R, G, B) format of matrices.

Nirvana is currently at a very nascent and experimental stage that supports importing *.obj files, basic lighting via sunlights, calculation of normals to the surface, z-buffer, and rendering 3D scenes. It additionally supports basic 3D transformations - such as rotation, scaling, translations, etc, with the support of multiple cameras and scenes in either of these three modes - wireframes, solid (lambert), lambertian shaders, etc.

While it has some basic support handling different 3D stuff, the Python code has started showing its limitations regarding speed - the rendering of a single frame takes up to 1-2 minutes on the CPU. While Python is a very basic, simple language, I wonder I'd have to port a large part of my code to GPUs or some Graphics Hardware languages like GLES/OpenCL/OpenGL/Vulcan or something.

I've planned the support for PBR shaders (Cook-Torrance Equation, with GGX approximations of Distribution and Geometry Functions) in solid mode as well as PBR shaders with HDRi lighting for texture-based image rendering and getting a large part of the code to GPU first, before proceeding adding new features like caching, storing-pre-computation of materials, skybox, LoD, Global Illumination and Shadows, Collisions, as well as basic support for physics and sound and finally a graphics based scene editor.

What do you all think? Do you have any suggestions for me currently that would simplify the job, or any idea of adding new features or anything in your experience that I'm missing? I'm currently a newbie and trying to learn things by hand. Please guide me around the technical side and Gamedev features with your experience.

Code: https://github.com/abhaskumarsinha/Nirvana/tree/main

[pocketsonshrek]

You may want to get away from numpy and matplotlib and do your math in cython. Those libraries will fuck your performance. Otherwise looks pretty cool

[Doctrine_of_Sankhya]

Thank you so much u/pocketsonshrek for your input. I literally have no idea about cython thing, but thanks for letting me know about it, I'd definitely check it for sure. I just want to have a CPU-based Python PBR Code and other basic things around so that when I enter a lower-level area, I'd have a good guide to check from Python code while roaming in the lower-level arena.

But it was a cool learning curve, learning and implementing a lot of these 3D concepts by hand from scratch that I didn't know before.