InteractiveX

Lightweight • Transparent • Full‑source Real‑Time Engine

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About

InteractiveX is a lightweight real‑time engine for Windows built on top of Direct3D 9, written entirely in C/C++.

It can be used to build games, graphical applications, developer tools, and other real‑time software.

The engine focuses on simplicity, transparency, and full control.
Instead of hiding systems behind layers of abstraction, InteractiveX exposes everything.

You are free to read, modify, replace, or extend any part of the engine.

The source is the documentation.

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Philosophy

Many engines hide their internal systems behind complex frameworks and tooling.

InteractiveX follows a different philosophy:

• No black boxes
• Readable engine code
• Minimal abstraction
• Modular architecture
• Full control over rendering and systems

If you want to understand how something works — you can simply read the source.

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Features

Current version r0.2 includes a complete set of core systems for building real‑time applications and games.

Core Systems

• Scene management
• Input system (keyboard, mouse)
• XInput gamepad support
• Camera system (follow, zoom, shake)
• Entity system
• Tilemap rendering with collision
• Animation system with named clips
• Particle system
• Random generator (seeded)
• Binary save/load system
• Scene transitions
• 2D math utilities

Media

• Audio playback (music + SFX)
• PNG and JPG image loading
• MPEG‑1 (.mpg/.mpeg) playback + MP4/OGV transcoding entrypoints (via ffmpeg to MPEG-1)

Interface System

ISS (Interactive Style Sheet)

ISS is a CSS-inspired style file for UI layout/theme rules.

Supported now:

• selectors with block syntax
• property: value; declarations
• responsive units: px, %, vw, vh, rem
• positioning properties: position, left, top, right, bottom, width, height
• automatic vertical stack layout + alignment: weight, align-x, align-y
• outline/border: outline-width, outline-color
• gradients: gradient-top, gradient-bottom
• color properties via hex/name parsing (#RRGGBB, #AARRGGBB, white, black, transparent)
• background image via background-image: url(...)

Example:

#hud_panel {
  position: center;
  width: 40vw;
  height: 32vh;
}

#play_button {
  left: 6vw;
  bottom: 8vh;
  width: 18rem;
  height: 3rem;
}

InteractiveX includes a lightweight GUI system inspired by CSS‑style customization.

Components include:

• Buttons
• Labels
• Panels
• Sliders
• Layout system (scaled/responsive helpers)
• ISS style loader (.iss)

All interface components support customizable:

• gradients
• sprites
• borders
• corner radius
• opacity
• font size

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Renderer

The renderer is built on Direct3D 9 and provides the real‑time graphics foundation of the engine:

• sprite rendering
• gradient primitives
• GUI drawing helpers
• world‑space text rendering
• camera transformation
• font caching

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Debug Menu

InteractiveX ships with a built‑in debug menu used to test engine systems.

The debug environment includes interactive demos for engine modules and visual debugging tools.

The debug menu is disabled in release builds.

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Dependencies

InteractiveX intentionally keeps dependencies minimal.

Bundled

miniaudio
Single‑header audio library used for music and sound effects.
License: MIT / Public Domain

pl_mpeg
Single‑header MPEG‑1 video and audio decoder used by the video player.
License: MIT

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Build options (renderer backend)

Renderer build is now split into independent backend switches, with a profile preset for convenience:

Platform rules:

• Windows: DirectX 9/10/11/12 + Vulkan + OpenGL 3.1/4.3
• Linux: Vulkan + OpenGL 3.1/4.3 (DirectX profiles are blocked)

• -DIX_RENDERER_PROFILE=DX9
• -DIX_RENDERER_PROFILE=DX10
• -DIX_RENDERER_PROFILE=DX11
• -DIX_RENDERER_PROFILE=DX12
• -DIX_RENDERER_PROFILE=VULKAN
• -DIX_RENDERER_PROFILE=OPENGL31
• -DIX_RENDERER_PROFILE=OPENGL (OpenGL 4.3 default)
• -DIX_RENDERER_PROFILE=ALL (DX9 + DX10 + DX11 + DX12 + Vulkan + OpenGL 3.1 + OpenGL 4.3)

You can also override individual flags:

• -DIX_ENABLE_DX9=ON/OFF
• -DIX_ENABLE_DX10=ON/OFF
• -DIX_ENABLE_DX11=ON/OFF
• -DIX_ENABLE_DX12=ON/OFF
• -DIX_ENABLE_VULKAN=ON/OFF
• -DIX_ENABLE_OPENGL31=ON/OFF
• -DIX_ENABLE_OPENGL43=ON/OFF

Example:

cmake -S . -B build -DIX_RENDERER_PROFILE=DX11
cmake --build build

Required (External)

DirectX SDK — June 2010

Provides Direct3D 9 headers and libraries required by the renderer.

Download:
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=6812

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Platform Support

Component	Support
OS	Windows / Linux
Graphics	Direct3D 9 / DirectX 10 / DirectX 11 / DirectX 12 / Vulkan / OpenGL 3.1 (Legacy) / OpenGL 4.3
Compiler	MinGW-w64 / MSVC
Architecture	x86 / x64

Compatible with systems ranging from Windows XP to Windows 11.

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Status

InteractiveX is currently in early development.

Current version: r0.2

Core systems are implemented and actively tested through the debug environment.

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License

InteractiveX is open source.

See LICENSE for details.

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Built for developers who want to understand their engine.

ISS sky example:

#huhlu_sky {
  sky-top: #223355;
  sky-bottom: #88AADD;
  background-image: url(assets/sky/hdri_sky.jpg);
}

Huhlu extensions:

• IXMaterial (PBR texture slots)
• Camera modes: Orbit/FPS/Free/Orthographic/Perspective + FOV/Exposure/Gamma
• Scene format .ixs (simple text)
• Simple GLTF/GLB loaders
• Area light + simple shadow factor support

Advanced render features (Huhlu postfx stage): Bloom, SSAO (screen-space approximation), Tonemap and Color Grading toggles.