How weldengine/weld works
Weld Engine is a Zig game engine whose documented capabilities span authoring and scene cooking, runtime simulation, rendering, asset processing, and an editor/runtime IPC link. A principal workflow is authoring Etch or scene data, cooking it into runtime assets, and using engine subsystems to simulate and render a game. The README also documents Etch interpretation/code generation and editor-to-runtime display. Source excerpts were unavailable, so relationships below are limited to README statements; implementation details and unsampled links are not inferred.
Main entry points: parser.zig Etch Language · main.zig Editor · scene_cook.zig Scene Cooking · interface.zig Graphics Abstraction
Components 21
Authoring and Cooking
- Etch Language
src/etch/parser.zig - Etch Interpreter
src/etch/interp.zig - Etch Zig Codegen
src/etch/zig_codegen/lower.zig - Scene Cooking
src/etch/scene_cook.zig
Engine Core
- Scene Codec
src/core/scene/loader.zig - ECS World
src/core/ecs/world.zig - Job Scheduler
src/core/jobs/scheduler.zig - Event Bus
src/core/events/bus.zig - Resource Store
src/core/resources/registry.zig - IPC Transport
src/core/ipc/transport.zig
Simulation Modules
- Forge Physics
src/modules/forge/forge_3d/world.zig - Physics API
src/modules/forge/api/components.zig
Rendering and Assets
- Render Graph
src/modules/render/render_graph/graph.zig - Graphics Abstraction
src/modules/render/gal/interface.zig - Vulkan Backend
src/modules/render/gal/vulkan/device.zig - Asset Pipeline
src/modules/asset_pipeline/root.zig - Asset Loader
src/modules/asset_pipeline/loader/Loader.zig
Editor and Runtime
- Editor
src/editor/main.zig - Runtime
src/runtime - Platform Layer
src/core/platform/window.zig
Other components
- Game Developer
Connections 15
- Game Developer → Etch Language: authors scripts
README.md - Etch Language → Etch Interpreter: interpreted by
README.md - Etch Language → Etch Zig Codegen: compiled to Zig
README.md - Etch Language → Scene Cooking: cooked as scenes
README.md - Scene Cooking → Scene Codec: produces scene data
README.md - Etch Language → ECS World: bridges to ECS
README.md - Game Developer → Asset Pipeline: cooks assets
README.md - Asset Pipeline → Asset Loader: cooking cache
README.md - Game Developer → Editor: uses editor
README.md - Editor → IPC Transport: serves runtime
README.md - Runtime → IPC Transport: connects by IPC
README.md - Editor → Platform Layer: opens window
README.md - Editor → Graphics Abstraction: blits via renderer
README.md - Graphics Abstraction → Vulkan Backend: Vulkan backend
README.md - Physics API → Forge Physics: exposes physics
README.md