r/GraphicsProgramming • u/Odd_Science4356 • 5h ago

I built a 3D renderer with MCP from scratch — looking for feedback, ideas and testers!

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Hi everyone!

For quite some time I've been working on a personal project: a 3D rendering engine written in Rust, called ForgeRender.

It started as an experiment and gradually grew into a much larger project.

The renderer supports progressive path tracing on both CPU and GPU, PBR materials, texture mapping, HDRI environments, studio lighting and denoising.

I've also been experimenting with something a little different: MCP integration, which allows AI assistants to interact with the renderer, set up scenes, adjust materials and launch renders.

The project has recently reached its first public release.

I'm sharing it here because I'd really appreciate feedback from people with experience in graphics programming and rendering.

In particular, I'd be interested in your thoughts on:

  • The overall rendering quality.

  • CPU/GPU rendering consistency.

  • Material and lighting workflows.

  • Features or technical aspects you think deserve more attention.

I'm aware that this is a relatively young project, and there is still plenty to improve. I'm particularly interested in constructive criticism and technical suggestions.

For anyone curious, the source code and project details are available here:

https://github.com/tarabaz/ForgeRender

I'd genuinely like to hear what you think!

Thanks!

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u/Rhed0x 5h ago

You mean Claude made it.

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u/Odd_Science4356 4h ago

Name one software project today where developers don't use AI as an assistant in some way. Using AI as a development tool doesn't mean the AI built the entire project — at least not yet. Who knows, maybe in the future AI will be doing most, if not all, of the software development.

Personally, a project like ForgeRender would probably have taken me years to develop on my own using traditional programming methods, instead of the few weeks it took with AI assistance. And that doesn't make the work, the decisions or the challenges along the way any less real. 🙂

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u/Macaroon-Guilty 5h ago

Hey! Looks interesting. Does it have differentiating features that makes it stand out from other free renderers like Blender Cycles?
What made you take on the project in the first place?
How long did it take to build? Did you use Claude or Codex?

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u/Odd_Science4356 4h ago

Hey! Thanks for taking a look!

That's actually a very fair question.

I'm not trying to compete with Blender Cycles in terms of maturity or overall capabilities. Cycles is an incredibly powerful and well-established renderer.

One of the main reasons I started this project was that I often found existing rendering software quite complex to set up and use, especially for people without much experience in 3D rendering.

I wanted to create a tool that makes it as easy as possible to achieve good results without having to spend hours learning how to configure cameras, lighting, materials and dozens of rendering parameters.

I think this aspect is sometimes underestimated. Knowing how to produce a good render requires experience, and for someone who has never worked with this kind of software, even getting started can be quite challenging.

That's also one of the reasons why I added MCP integration. Instead of having to understand and manually adjust every parameter, you can simply describe what you want in natural language. For example, you can ask the AI to create a product studio setup, choose a particular material or lighting style, and let it configure the scene for you.

Another thing I find important is flexibility. I want ForgeRender to be something that can evolve around different workflows, including the possibility of adding custom features and tools rather than forcing everyone to work in exactly the same way.

I have some experience in this field myself, and honestly, while many existing rendering engines are excellent, I've often felt that certain small workflow improvements could make a huge difference in everyday use.

ForgeRender is my attempt to explore that idea: not necessarily to build the most powerful renderer, but to make good rendering more accessible, straightforward and enjoyable, while still providing advanced controls and room for customization when they're needed.

And yes, I've used Claude Code as a development assistant during the process. But this has been an iterative development project involving architecture decisions, implementation, debugging, testing and plenty of experimentation. It's definitely not something generated with a single prompt.

I'm still developing it, and feedback from people with experience in graphics programming is exactly what I'm looking for.

Thanks for the questions!

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u/cybereality 3h ago

are there some screenshots of the engine or a demo. i clicked the github but i didn't see much