Table of Contents

Tutorials

Welcome to the Zenith.NET tutorials! These step-by-step guides will help you learn how to use Zenith.NET for GPU programming.

Getting Started

New to Zenith.NET? Start here to set up your environment and render your first graphics.

Tutorial Description
Prerequisites Set up your development environment with App framework, IRenderer interface, and BindingHelper
Hello Triangle Create vertex buffers, compile Slang shaders, and build your first graphics pipeline
Textured Quad Load textures, create samplers, and bind resources with ResourceLayout and ResourceTable
Spinning Cube Use constant buffers for MVP matrices and render 3D geometry with depth testing

Intermediate

Build on the basics with GPU compute and advanced rendering techniques.

Tutorial Description
Compute Shader Create compute pipelines for GPU image processing (grayscale conversion)
Indirect Drawing GPU-driven rendering with DrawIndexedIndirect for multi-instance drawing

Advanced

Explore cutting-edge GPU features for modern rendering (requires hardware support).

Tutorial Description Requirement
Ray Tracing Build acceleration structures (BLAS/TLAS), use RayQuery for ray tracing, and implement hard shadows RayTracingSupported
Mesh Shading Use meshlet-based geometry processing with mesh shading pipelines MeshShadingSupported

Tutorial Structure

Each tutorial follows a consistent pattern:

  1. Overview - What you'll build and the key concepts covered
  2. Key Concepts (advanced tutorials) - In-depth explanation of new API features
  3. Renderer Class - Complete, runnable implementation code
  4. Running the Tutorial - How to switch renderers and run the example
  5. Result - Screenshot of the expected output
  6. Code Breakdown - Step-by-step explanation of important code sections

All tutorials share the same App framework, making it easy to switch between examples by changing a single line in Program.cs.

Learning Path

Stage You Will Learn
Prerequisites Set up the application framework, graphics context, and cross-platform resource binding
Hello Triangle Create GPU buffers, compile shaders, configure graphics pipelines, and submit draw commands
Textured Quad Load and sample textures, use index buffers, and bind shader resources
Spinning Cube Pass data to shaders via constant buffers, implement 3D transformations, and enable depth testing
Compute Shader Run general-purpose GPU computations for image processing
Indirect Drawing Let the GPU control draw parameters for efficient multi-instance rendering
Ray Tracing Build acceleration structures, trace rays with RayQuery, handle intersections, and implement shadows
Mesh Shading Process geometry in meshlets using the modern mesh shading pipeline

Requirements

Before starting, ensure you have:

  • .NET 10.0 SDK or later
  • A GPU with DirectX 12, Metal 4, or Vulkan 1.4 support
  • Visual Studio 2026, VS Code, or JetBrains Rider
Note

These tutorials are designed for desktop platforms (Windows, Linux, and macOS). See Prerequisites for detailed platform support and setup instructions.

Source Code

Tip

The complete source code for all tutorials is available on GitHub: ZenithTutorials

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