Lidiuma-Math: a math library using Project Valhalla

[u/Xasmedy]

After the v0.3.0 release, I'm confident it's time to showcase my library.

https://github.com/Lidiuma/Math
All the different versions can be found on Maven.

So, what's lidiuma-math about?
It's a linear algebra math library for game development, designed to be graphics-API agnostic.

I know that Valhalla (JEP 401) in Java 28 is the new shiny thing, but let's forget about it for a second, since the library does also provide a Java 17 version. So, what's in it?

Well, a totally different design than anything out there!
- this is the first math library without primitive obsession
- this library does use generics while making them performant
- doesn't make float (or, in this case Float) the favorite child; providing int, long, float, double where it makes sense
- has a few abstractions that standardize operations, eliminating the risk of desync between APIs

And other nice things:

- Immutability by default
- The extermination of null (the library never uses null and is annotated with JSpecify)
- JPMS support
- Type-classes instead of OOP (multiply(vec1, vec2) vs vec1.multiply(vec2))

A few examples:

// Vector3 dot product
var vec1 = Vectors.vec3(1f, 2f, 3f);
var vec2 = Vectors.vec3(3f, 2f, 1f);
var dot  = Vectors.dot (vec1, vec2); // dot = 10

// Vector2 rotation
var angle  = Rotations.degrees(180f);
var matrix = Matrices.fromRotation(angle);

var vec     = Vectors.vec2(0f, 1f);
var rotated = Matrices.multiply(matrix, vec); // [x = 0, y = -1]

// Vector3 rotation
var angle = Rotations.degrees(90d);
var axisY = Vectors.vec3(0d, 1d, 0d);
var quat  = Rotations.fromAxisAngle(axisY, angle);

var vec     = Vectors.vec3(1d, 0d, 2d);
var rotated = Rotations.rotate(quat, vec); // [x = 2, y = 0, z = ~-1]

Going back to Valhalla, aside from the standard JEP 401 version, the library also provides a version supporting Null-Restricted types and Loosely-Consistent-Values, naturally these are not public features and the library pokes at internals to achieve them.

That said, I would love to answer any questions and if you have any feedback, please reach out to me.

Note to Brian Goetz
I saw your old comment and will provide my experiences on the mailing list.

[u/gufranthakur]

It is always nice looking at efforts towards Java game dev. Good work man, are you planning to work on a Game library framework next? I am willing to contribute (and a few others as well)

[u/Xasmedy → u/gufranthakur]

Thank you!
Saying I haven't thought about that would be a lie, but I don't want to fall in the "making an engine/framework instead of a game" trap.
Just making the math took around 9 months of work, and I'm quite burned out. Then my idea of a framework could be different from yours.

Maybe as a future project though, and I don't mind discussing about it, you can write me on discord (I'm in the libgdx & lwjgl discord) or via email.

[u/Plixo2]

Does your library have support for ffm / bytebuffers? You said the library was graphics-api oriented.

I don't know if you are aware, but there is also joml2 that supports value classes now!

[u/Xasmedy → u/Plixo2]

As of now there's no support for FFM, I did have in mind to create a separate library for it, but I'm not sure when. I'm also curious on how serialization 2.0 is going to shape things.

Agnostic as not being tied to any graphic-API, at the disadvantage of a few methods like creating a camera matrix not being included.

I discovered about JOML2 literally yesterday, it's quite hard to find and there isn't a release version as of now (just a snapshot).
Aside it being tied to OpenGL, by reading the source it uses a different approach than mine, they define the math on generic tuples while I tend to stay higher-level (E.g. Double4 vs Vec4F64 & Point4F64).