raysan5/raylib

raylib is a simple and easy-to-use library to enjoy videogames programming.

raylib is highly inspired by Borland BGI graphics lib and by XNA framework and it's especially well suited for prototyping, tooling, graphical applications, embedded systems and education.

NOTE for ADVENTURERS: raylib is a programming library to enjoy videogames programming; no fancy interface, no visual helpers, no debug button... just coding in the most pure spartan-programmers way.

Ready to learn? Jump to code examples!

features

• NO external dependencies, all required libraries are included in raylib
• Multiple platforms supported: Windows, Linux, MacOS, RPI, Android, HTML5... and more!
• Written in plain C code (C99) using PascalCase/camelCase notation
• Hardware accelerated with OpenGL: 1.1, 2.1, 3.3, 4.3, ES 2.0, ES 3.0
• Unique OpenGL abstraction layer (usable as standalone module): rlgl
• Software Renderer backend (no OpenGL required!): rlsw
• Multiple Texture formats supported, including compressed formats (DXT, ETC, ASTC)
• Multiple Fonts formats supported (TTF, OTF, FNT, BDF, sprite fonts)
• Full 3D support, including 3D Shapes, Models, Billboards, Heightmaps and more!
• Flexible Materials system, supporting classic maps and PBR maps
• Animated 3D models supported (skeletal bones animation, GPU-skinning) (IQM, M3D, glTF)
• Shaders support, including model shaders and postprocessing shaders
• Powerful math module for Vector, Matrix and Quaternion operations: raymath
• Audio loading and playing with streaming support (WAV, QOA, OGG, MP3, FLAC, XM, MOD)
• VR stereo rendering support with configurable HMD device parameters
• Huge examples collection with +220 code examples!
• Bindings to +70 programming languages!
• Free and open source

limitations

raylib presents some limitations by design for code simplicity. Some forks, alternatives, and samples are available to overcome most of them but it's up to the users to modify the library for their specific needs.

• Single window with single OpenGL context by default, no multi-window support
• Window resize and move stops the rendering loop on platforms supporting a window
• RenderTextures are flipped vertically, as provided by OpenGL, it's up to the user to draw them flipped to the screen
• Font rasterization has lower quality than alternatives like Freetype2, HarfBuzz or Slug
• Text drawing does not support RTL, ligatures or emojis

basic example

This is a basic raylib example, it creates a window and draws the text "Congrats! You created your first window!" in the middle of the screen. Check this example running live on web here.

#include "raylib.h"

int main(void)
{
    InitWindow(800, 450, "raylib example - basic window");

    while (!WindowShouldClose())
    {
        BeginDrawing();
            ClearBackground(RAYWHITE);
            DrawText("Congrats! You created your first window!", 190, 200, 20, LIGHTGRAY);
        EndDrawing();
    }

    CloseWindow();

    return 0;
}

build and installation

raylib binary releases for Windows, Linux, macOS, Android and HTML5 are available at the Github Releases page.

raylib is also available via multiple package managers on multiple OS distributions.

Installing and building raylib on multiple platforms

raylib Wiki contains detailed instructions on building and usage on multiple platforms.

• Working on Windows
• Working on macOS
• Working on GNU Linux
• Working on Chrome OS
• Working on FreeBSD
• Working on Raspberry Pi
• Working for Android
• Working for Web (HTML5)
• Working anywhere with CMake

Note that the Wiki is open to edits, if you find some issues while building raylib for your target platform, feel free to edit the Wiki or open an issue related to it.

Setup raylib with multiple IDEs

raylib has been developed on Windows platform using Notepad++ and MinGW GCC compiler but it can be used with other IDEs on multiple platforms.

Projects directory contains several ready-to-use project templates to build raylib and code examples with multiple IDEs.

Note that there are lots of IDEs supported, some of the provided templates could require some review, so please, if you find some issue with a template or you think they could be improved, feel free to send a PR or open a related issue.

learning and docs

raylib is designed to be learned using the examples as the main reference. There is no standard API documentation but there is a cheatsheet containing all the functions available in the library with a short description of each one; input parameters and result value names should be intuitive enough to understand how each function works.

Some additional documentation about raylib design can be found in raylib GitHub Wiki. Here are the relevant links:

• raylib cheatsheet
• raylib architecture
• raylib library design
• raylib examples collection
• raylib games collection

contact and networks

raylib is present in several networks and raylib community is growing everyday. If you are using raylib and enjoying it, feel free to join us in any of these networks. The most active network is our Discord server! :)

• Webpage: https://www.raylib.com
• Discord: https://discord.gg/raylib
• X: https://x.com/raysan5
• BlueSky: https://bsky.app/profile/raysan5
• Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/raysan5
• Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/raylib
• Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/raylib
• YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/raylib

contributors

license

raylib is licensed under an unmodified zlib/libpng license, which is an OSI-certified, BSD-like license that allows static linking with closed source software. Check LICENSE for further details.

raylib uses internally some libraries for window/graphics/inputs management and also to support different file formats loading, all those libraries are embedded with and are available in src/external directory. Check raylib dependencies LICENSES on raylib Wiki for details.