A native, high-performance GLSL rendering engine written in Rust, designed for real-time shader experimentation, hardware control, and live video routing.
shadecore is intentionally minimal, explicit, and opinionated.
It does not try to be a framework.
It does not hide the GPU.
It exists to give you direct ownership of the rendering pipeline and let the software grow into whatever tool you need. What you write in GLSL is what runs.
The engine is intentionally low-level and explicit:
- No GUI framework
- No WebView
- No runtime abstraction layer between your shader and the GPU
What is it though?
- a foundation for custom shader-based tools,
- a bridge between GLSL and external control systems,
- a standalone binary, not a plugin locked into another host.
It is equally suited for live performance, installations, research tools, and experimental pipelines.
Supported Output Formats
- Local window preview (always on)
- Syphon (macOS)
- Spout2 (Windows)
- FFmpeg streaming (RTSP / RTMP)
- NDI (separate execution mode)
Native features
- Native OpenGL rendering (via
glow) - Fullscreen GLSL fragment shader pipeline
- JSON-defined parameter schema
- MIDI control (CoreMIDI on macOS, cross-platform via
midir) - Syphon server output (macOS)
- Spout2 sender output (Windows)
- FFmpeg streaming output (RTSP / RTMP)
- NDI output (separate run mode)
- Vendored native dependencies (no system installs required)
- Deterministic build & runtime behavior
Use Cases
- Live shader performance
- Visual instruments
- Generative installations
- Feedback-based video systems
- Custom GPU tools for OBS, Resolume, TouchDesigner pipelines
Roadmap Ideas
- Shader hot-reloading
- Multi-pass rendering / feedback buffers
.app/.exepackaging- OSC / network control
- Expanded NDI configuration options
License
MIT License.
If you use shadecore in a project, performance, installation, or tool,
attribution is appreciated but not required.