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deep is a tiny high-performance library that lets you add drawing layers and a Z axis to any graphics framework in Lua. Insteaad of z-sorting your draw calls, deep lets you keep a schedule which is executed in order.

Usage

After placing deep.lua inside your project:

deep = require("deep")
layer = deep:new()

-- Queue actions. These actions can be drawcalls or anything at all.
layer:queue(3, function() print("wound!") end)
layer:queue(1, function() print("It's just") end)
layer:queue(2, function() print("a flesh") end)

-- Execute all actions in the layer
layer:draw()

This will print:

It's just
a flesh
wound!

Documentation (just 3 functions)

deep:new()

Returns a new drawing layer that holds its own queue of actions (its z-axis). You can have multiple layers which get drawn one after the other, or not drawn at all:

background_layer = deep:new()
game_object_layer = deep:new()
ui_layer = deep:new()

function love.draw()
   -- Queue the actions for drawing stuff
   background_layer:queue(...)
   game_object_layer:queue(...)
   ui_layer:queue(...)

   -- With this, we will have the ui drawing over the game_objects.
   -- And both will be drawn in front of the background.
   background_layer:draw()
   game_object_layer:draw()
   ui_layer:draw()
end

layer:queue(z, fn)

Queues a function for execution at index z, which must be an integer. It can be negative, positive or zero. Using a float or any other type here will not queue the action.

layer:restrict(z_from, z_to)

Used for culling drawcalls that don't fall into the given z interval.This is basically a primitive way to do frustum-culling to optimize your performance. You most likely won't need this as you'll have your own way to cull objects.

function love.draw()
   -- This will get added to the queue, but because of the restrict statement,
   -- it won't get drawn when layer:draw() is called.
   layer:queue(102, function() print("hi") end)

   layer:restrict(100, 120)
   
   -- This will not get added to the queue
   layer:queue(101, function() draw_something() end)
   
    -- Will not do anything, because we have no valid actions
   layer:draw()
end

Example

To achieve this, you could do the following:

deep = require("deep")
layer = deep:new()

-- The z index of the red cube
current_z = 1

function love.draw()
   -- Queue the three horizontal lines
   layer:queue(2, function() draw_strip(200, 60) end)
   layer:queue(3, function() draw_strip(200, 80) end)
   layer:queue(4, function() draw_strip(200, 100) end)

   -- Red square, which can move through z axis
   layer:queue(current_z, function()
      -- Draws a red square
      love.graphics.setColor(1, 0, 0)
      love.graphics.rectangle("fill", 300, 40, 80, 80)
   end)

   -- Draw everything in the queue
   layer:draw()
end

-- Increases/decreases red square z on key press
function love.keypressed(key)
   if key == "up" then
      current_z = current_z + 1
   elseif key == "down" then
      current_z = current_z - 1
   end
end

-- Draws a horizontal white strip
function draw_strip(x, y)
   love.graphics.setColor(1, 1, 1)
   love.graphics.rectangle("fill", x, y, 300, 10)
end

Movement example

The example/ directory has a slightly more involved demonstration of deep.

Run love example from the root of this repository to get this:

Games using deep

Gnomber

Available on Steam: https://store.steampowered.com/app/2800770/Gnomber/

Shamen

A small jam game I with an older version of deep.

Github source: https://github.com/nikaoto/shamen

Possible speed optimizations

• Preallocate the queue with table.new() (only works in LuaJIT)
• Clear the queue on each exec with table.clear() (only works in LuaJIT)