Development Log

Reviving vange-rs (2026)

After a period of dormancy, vange-rs is being modernized and brought to the web. Here's what changed:

Done Dependency overhaul — Updated all major dependencies to their latest breaking versions: wgpu 0.17→29, winit 0.28→0.30, egui 0.22→0.34, ron 0.8→0.12, png 0.17→0.18.

Done cgmath → glam — Replaced the unmaintained cgmath library with glam across the entire codebase. Custom Transform struct replaces cgmath::Decomposed.

Done Modern tooling — getopts→clap, futures→pollster, clippy clean with -D warnings, Blade-style lint configuration.

Done WebGPU/WASM — New web binary with embedded shaders, procedural test level, and camera controls. No game data files needed.

Done Headless snapshots — level --snapshot output.png --terrain RayTraced renders to PNG without a window. CI tests all terrain modes with lavapipe.

Next Playable web demo — Procedural terrain generation, vehicle rendering, and drag-and-drop support for original game data.

About Vangers

Vangers (1998) is a legendary open-world racing/RPG game by K-D Lab. It features a unique voxel-based terrain engine and a surreal post-apocalyptic world.

vange-rs is a Rust reimplementation of the Vangers rendering engine with modern hardware-accelerated graphics via wgpu (WebGPU/Vulkan/Metal/DX12).

Features

Multiple terrain rendering strategies: ray-traced, voxel-accelerated, sliced, painted, and scattered. Full physics simulation ported from the original game. Cross-platform: Windows, macOS, Linux, and now Web.

Requirements

The web demo uses a procedural test level and needs no external data. The desktop version requires the original Vangers game data (available on Steam or GOG).

Links

GitHub Repository
Original Vangers (open source)

Technology

Rust + wgpu 29 + winit 0.30 + egui 0.34 + glam 0.29
WebGPU for browser, Vulkan/Metal/DX12 for desktop
WGSL shaders, compute-based voxel baking