DirectX 12 Weather & Environment System

Overview

This project implements a modular real-time weather and environment system using DirectX 12 and C++. It focuses on GPU-driven simulation, dynamic lighting, and procedural rendering techniques commonly used in modern open-world engines.

The system integrates sky rendering, weather states, particle simulation, fog, and terrain into a unified pipeline. All major systems are designed to be configurable and driven from the CPU while leveraging the GPU for performance-critical work.

Features

• Dynamic day/night cycle with smooth transitions
• Procedural sky with sun, moon, and star rendering
• FBM-based procedural clouds with wind-driven motion
• Multiple weather types (clear, rain, storm, snow, blizzard)
• GPU-based particle system (~50,000 particles)
• Rain rendering with velocity-aligned streaks
• Snow simulation with randomized drift and de-synchronized spawning
• Distance and height-based fog
• Heightmap terrain with player-ground interaction
• Wind system affecting both particles and clouds

Concepts Demonstrated

• Direct3D 12 compute pipeline for particle simulation
• Structured buffers with UAV/SRV access patterns
• GPU-driven billboarding via vertex shader expansion
• Procedural noise generation (hash, value noise, FBM)
• Atmospheric scattering approximations (Mie phase function)
• Real-time parameter control via constant buffers
• Resource state transitions and synchronization
• Camera-relative simulation techniques
• Modular system design for real-time environments

Requirements

• Language: C++17 or later
• Graphics API: DirectX 12
• IDE: Visual Studio / Visual Studio Code
• GPU with DirectX 12 support