// the find
TheCherno/RayTracing
YouTube ray tracing series
Companion code for TheCherno's YouTube ray tracing series. It implements a CPU ray tracer with a real-time preview via Vulkan, using his Walnut application framework as a submodule. This is a learning resource first, not a library you'd use for anything.
The commit-per-episode structure is genuinely useful — you can check out any commit and have exactly the code from that point in the series. Walnut abstracts Vulkan setup so the ray tracing logic stays readable without boilerplate. The scene and material model is simple enough that beginners can trace through it without getting lost. Real-time viewport feedback makes it more engaging than offline renders.
Abandoned since June 2023 with no activity, and the Windows + Visual Studio 2022 hard requirement is never going to change. The Walnut submodule dependency means you're pulling in a separate framework project that has its own churn and quirks. There's no path to multithreading — the renderer is single-threaded, which becomes a wall pretty quickly as scene complexity grows. If you're not watching the companion videos this code has almost no standalone value; the README is four sentences.