Renderer Resource Manager Rewrite: From Vulkan to NVRHI // Hazel Engine Stream (25.06.2025)

Context* - Coldest day of the year in Melbourne at 7°C (very important note) - Shows current Hazel state: red clear color working through new renderer - Scene renderer successfully running clear passes, but main rendering disabled - Goal: Get 2D rendering working first as stepping stone to 3D *06:00 Resource Management Deep Dive* - Core Problem: Need to bridge shader resources (textures, buffers) with render passes - Resource Frequency Concept: Different update frequencies for different resource types: - Per-object: Material textures (most frequent) - Per-render-pass: Camera uniforms (medium frequency) - Static: BRDF lookup tables (least frequent) - Descriptor Set Strategy: Using sets 0-3 for different frequency levels - Explains why render passes take inputs rather than individual draw calls handling everything *30:00 Descriptor Set Manager Rewrite* - Major Refactor: Converting from Vulkan-specific VkDescriptorSet to NVRHI binding sets - Data Structure Changes: - Replacing VK write descriptors with NVRHI binding set descriptions - Converting vector storage to static arrays for better memory layout - Moving from descriptor pools to direct binding set creation - Validation System: Maintains shader-driven validation where shaders define required inputs - Dynamic Resource Handling: System for resources that can change (frame buffers, resizable buffers) *1:20:00 Shader Reflection System* - Input Declaration Creation: Moving shader resource declarations from old system to new NVRHI-based approach - Type Mapping: Converting between shader types (uniform buffers, textures, storage buffers) and NVRHI binding types - Render Input Types: Establishing consistent type system across different graphics APIs - Validation Logic: Ensuring render passes have all required inputs before rendering *1:50:00 Architecture Cleanup* - Class Hierarchy Simplification: Removing Vulkan-specific subclasses (VulkanRenderPass, VulkanComputePass) - API Abstraction: Moving toward single render pass and compute pass classes that work with any backend - Code Organization: Relocating platform-specific code to appropriate locations *2:20:00 Debugging Session* - Build and Test: First compilation and runtime testing of new system - Resource Validation Working: Camera uniform buffer successfully being validated - Binding Set Creation: System creating NVRHI binding sets from render pass specifications - Shader Dimension Issues: Debugging problems with texture dimension detection (1D vs 2D vs Cube) - Sampler Separation: Encountering issues with HLSL's separate texture/sampler model vs Vulkan's combined approach