shadecore
Native GLSL shader engine in Rust — Syphon/Spout/FFmpeg/NDI routing.

How It Works

Requirements

  • macOS or Windows
  • Rust (stable toolchain)

Platform-specific:

  • macOS
    • Xcode Command Line Tools
    • Syphon.framework (vendored in project)
  • Windows
    • Visual Studio Build Tools (C++ workload)
    • Spout2 (vendored in project)
  • Streaming
    • FFmpeg available in PATH
    • or set stream.ffmpeg_path in assets/output*.json

Rust Crates

  • glow — OpenGL bindings
  • winit / glutin — windowing + GL context
  • midir — MIDI input
  • serde / serde_json — configuration parsing

Native APIs

  • OpenGL
  • Cocoa / AppKit (macOS)
  • CoreMIDI
  • Syphon (vendored)
  • Spout2 (vendored)

Project Structure

shadecore/
├─ src/
│  └─ main.rs              # Core engine loop
├─ native/
│  ├─ spout_bridge/        # C++ Spout2 bridge (Windows)
│  ├─ syphon_bridge.m      # Objective-C Syphon bridge (macOS)
│  └─ syphon_bridge.h
├─ vendor/
│  └─ Syphon.framework     # Vendored macOS framework
├─ assets/
│  ├─ params.json          # Parameters + MIDI schema
│  ├─ output.json          # Output routing & hotkeys
│  ├─ output_ndi.json      # NDI-specific configuration
│  └─ shaders/
│     ├─ default.frag
│     └─ present.frag
├─ build.rs                # Native linking & platform logic
└─ Cargo.toml

Build & Run (Standard Engine)

cargo run

Build & Run (Standard Engine + NDI)

cargo run --features ndi

Pipeline overview

1. OpenGL Rendering

  • A window and GL context are created with winit + glutin
  • A fullscreen triangle is rendered every frame
  • All visuals are produced in the fragment shader

2. Shader Uniforms

Built-in uniforms:

  • u_time — seconds since start
  • u_resolution — framebuffer resolution

Plus:

  • user-defined parameters from JSON
  • live-updated MIDI values

3. Render Target

  • Rendering occurs into an offscreen framebuffer
  • The framebuffer texture is:
    • drawn to the preview window
    • shared with Syphon, Spout, Stream, or NDI depending on mode