Nebula FX

Nebula is a particle mod powered by a high-performance GPU-instanced rendering engine and optimized NBL streaming for fluid, large-scale animations.

Core Features:

High-Performance Rendering

• GPU Driven: Built on OpenGL 4.4+ Compute Shaders and SSBO technology.
• Zero-Allocation: Logically ensures no object allocation during runtime, completely eliminating GC pressure.
• PMB (Persistent Mapped Buffer): Utilizes persistent mapped buffer technology to achieve zero-copy data transfer from CPU to GPU.
• OIT (Order Independent Transparency): Supports weighted-blended OIT to perfectly resolve sorting issues during particle overlapping.

Advanced Architectural Design

• Multi-threaded Streaming: NblStreamer performs Zstd decompression and state calculation in a background thread, ensuring the main rendering thread is never blocked.
• Resource Reference Counting: Intelligent TextureCacheSystem manages VRAM resources, supporting multi-instance reuse and automatic garbage collection.
• Immutable Snapshots: Uses TextureAtlasMap to guarantee absolute thread safety in multi-threaded environments.

Compatibility

• Seamlessly compatible with Iris Shaders.
• Supports ReplayMod recording and rendering.

.nbl File Format

Nebula uses a custom .nbl binary format specifically engineered for streaming:

• Zstd Compression: High compression ratios coupled with ultra-fast decompression speeds.
• SoA Layout: Data is organized in memory using a Structure of Arrays layout to maximize CPU cache hit rates.
• I/P Frame Structure: Similar to video encoding; utilizes Keyframes (I-Frames) and Predicted Frames (P-Frames) to drastically reduce file size.

For more information about the nbl format, please click here.

Also, you can use the Blender Addon to export a Blender animation as a .nbl particle animation.

Installation & Usage

Prerequisites

• Minecraft 1.20.1 (Fabric)
• Fabric API
• ThreatenGL
• ModMenu
• Yet Another Config Lib
• GPU with OpenGL 4.4+ support

Resource Paths

• Animation Files: .minecraft/nebula/animations/*.nbl

Play Animations

You can use this command to play NBL Animations.

/nebula play <animation_name> [origin_x] [origin_y] [origin_z]

Thanks

• MadParticle for the inspiration and reference implementation.

Contributing

Contributions of any kind are welcome! You can participate by:

• Submitting Issues: Report bugs, suggest new features, or provide feedback.
• Submitting Pull Requests: Fix known issues, optimize code, or improve documentation.
• Localization: Help us translate the mod into more languages.

Please ensure your code follows the project's coding style before submitting a PR.

License

This project is licensed under the GPL-v3 License.

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Made by Atemukesu with ❤️