Start with the Falcor2 documentation sources for guides, architectural context, and the API reference. See Building documentation to generate and preview the HTML site. See Streaming to enable streaming for local builds and pip installations.
Use a source build when developing Falcor2 or when you need changes that are not yet in a published package. The following instructions build the native libraries and install editable Python packages from this checkout.
- CMake installed (and on path)
- Visual Studio 2022 (for windows)
As Falcor2 is a Python package, it is recommended to create a virtual environment to work in before starting, as the setup process will install editable packages to the active Python environment.
To get started, run setup.bat on Windows or setup.sh on Linux. This will:
- Sync all submodules
- Initialize the VSCode workspace
- Install Python packages used for development
- Install editable python packages for Falcor2 and SlangPy
- Build native extensions.
- Install AI skills for Codex and Claude without prompts or instruction-file changes.
Repeat package installation/builds with tools/pipinstall.bat. Refresh AI skills
with f2 setup or python -m runcli setup. Source setup accepts --no-skills
and installer options such as --agent both --instructions. Choices are saved;
use --interactive to revisit them or --non-interactive for unattended setup.
See AI skills
for pip installs, submodules, profile selection, and conflict recovery.
The initial install will configure and build release versions of the native libraries and bindings.
Built bindings are installed to their corresponding Python package folders (./falcor2 and ./external/slangpy/slangpy). These will always point to your most recent cmake build.
Once installed, the slangpy and falcor2 will be available to import, and can be used both from within the Falcor2 codebase, or another Python package using the same environment.
Falcor2 is designed to be easy to work with from source. Python packages are installed as 'editable', and automatically updated after any succesful CMake build. As such, you can safely modify source code and expect to see your changes take effect immediately (or after a build in the case of native code).
Folder structure:
falcor2: Falcor2 Python code (will also contain latest built bindings)tools: Useful scriptssrc/falcor2/falcor2: Falcor2 native codesrc/falcor2/falcor2_ext: Falcor2 native Python extensionexternal/slangpy/slangpy: SlangPy Python code (plus built bindings)external/slangpy/src/sgl: SGL (Slang graphics library) native graphics library used by SlangPyexternal/slangpy/src/slangpy_ext: SlangPy native Python extensionexternal/slangpy/external/slang-rhi: Low level RHI used by SGL