Raylib

Last updated
raylib
Developer(s) Ramon Santamaria and contributors
Initial releaseNovember 18, 2013;10 years ago (2013-11-18)
Stable release
5.0.0 / November 18, 2023;4 months ago (2023-11-18)
Repository github.com/raysan5/raylib
Written in C, specifically C99
Platform Windows, Linux, macOS, FreeBSD, Android, Raspberry Pi, HTML5
Type API
License zlib License [1] [2]
Website www.raylib.com

Raylib (stylized as raylib) is a cross-platform open-source software development library. The library was made to create graphical applications and games. [3] [4]

Contents

The library is designed to be suited for prototyping, tooling, graphical applications, embedded systems, and education. The source code is written in plain C (C99), which is distributed under a zlib/libpng OSI certified open-source license. It supports compilation to several target platforms, including Windows, Linux, macOS, FreeBSD, Android, Raspberry Pi and HTML5.

raylib has been ported to more than 50 programming languages in the form of bindings, but many of these ports are not stable. [5]

History

raylib development was started in August 2013 by Ramon Santamaria to support a game development course, focused on students with no previous coding experience and artistic profile. During the course, raylib was further developed based on the feedback of the students and by June 2014, the library was starting to be showcased in several game development events in Barcelona.

raylib 1.0 was released in November 2013 and it featured around 80 functions for window and inputs management, basic 2D and 3D shape drawing, texture loading and drawing, font loading, text drawing, audio system management and audio file loading and playback. The first raylib version had eight subsequent minor releases (from raylib 1.1 to raylib 1.8), over the course of five years, which each introduced some new features. Some of the most notable improvements were Android, WebAssembly and Raspberry Pi support, multiple OpenGL backends, VR support and ten examples.

raylib 2.0 was released in July 2018 and removed all external dependencies from the build system. It also exposed a number of configuration options in the build system, to minimize size and increase support, supporting various continuous integration systems. Along the following two years, parts of the library were reviewed updated, and the ecosystem was built out. During this period, a single minor release, raylib 2.5, was launched.

raylib 3.0 was released in April 2020, refactoring many parts of the code to improve portability and bindings. It involved moving global variables to contexts, added support for custom memory allocators, a filesystem for loading assets and over 115 code examples. It received a minor update, raylib 3.5, in December 2020.

raylib 4.0 was released in November 2021, featuring a complete naming review for library consistency and coherency: function names, parameters, descriptions, comments and log output messages were reviewed. It added an internal Events Automation System and exposed game-loop control for the user. It also features some of its internal libraries to be used as standalone modules: rlgl and raymath. Zig and Odin programming languages officially support raylib.

raylib 4.2 was released in August 2022. [6]

raylib 4.5 was released in March 2023, 7 months after the last release. This update brought ANGLE support on Desktop platforms, a brand new camera module, support for M3D models and M3D/GLTF animations, compatibility with the QOA audio file format, a brand new module for compressed textures loading (rl_gputex), reviews in the rlgl and the rshapes modules, data structures validation (IsImageReady(), IsTextureReady() and IsSoundReady()) for many raylib structures and many other improvements. It has been the biggest update of the library to date.

raylib 5.0 was released in November 2023, improving support for future platform ports. [7]

Features

raylib offers the following features: [8] [9]

Reception and adoption

As of January 2024, GitHub lists around 900 projects matching the raylib topic. [10]

Software architecture

Modules

raylib architecture as of version 5.0 Raylib architecture v5.0.png
raylib architecture as of version 5.0

raylib consists of several modules that are exposed to the programmer through the API.

Bindings

raylib has bindings for more than 50 different programming languages, created by its community, including Rust, Go, C#, Lua, Python, and Nim. A list of bindings is available in the BINDINGS.md file [12] in the raylib GitHub repository.

Add-ons

The raylib community has contributed several add-ons to extend the features and connection of raylib with other libraries. Some of the modules are:

Awards

See also

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References

  1. ↑ "License".
  2. ↑ "Raylib GitHub". GitHub . 10 October 2021.
  3. ↑ Thomas (2019-08-01). "Best 2D Game Engines: The Complete List (2020)". Thomas Gervraud. Retrieved 2020-07-20.
  4. ↑ "A Snake Game Written in PHP (with Raylib)". thephp.website. Retrieved 2020-07-20.
  5. ↑ "raysan5/raylib". GitHub. Retrieved 2020-07-15.
  6. ↑ "HISTORY.md File". www.github.com. 11 August 2022. Retrieved 15 October 2022.
  7. ↑ Wololo (1 December 2023). "Release: Raylib 5.0 for PS4 & PS Vita" . Retrieved 15 January 2024.
  8. ↑ "raylib–A C++ Game Library Perfect For Beginners". www.gamefromscratch.com. 24 July 2016. Retrieved 2020-07-20.
  9. ↑ "Raylib 2.5 Released". www.gamefromscratch.com. 3 June 2019. Retrieved 2020-07-20.
  10. ↑ "raylib · GitHub Topics" . Retrieved 15 January 2024.
  11. ↑ "raylib" . Retrieved 2021-10-28.
  12. ↑ BINDINGS.md file
  13. ↑ Ray (2020-07-15), raysan5/raygui , retrieved 2020-07-15
  14. ↑ Fisac, Víctor (2020-07-14), victorfisac/Physac , retrieved 2020-07-15
  15. ↑ Briemann, David Linus (2020-06-10), dbriemann/libpartikel , retrieved 2020-07-15
  16. ↑ WEREMSOFT (2020-06-27), WEREMSOFT/spine-raylib-runtimes , retrieved 2020-07-15
  17. ↑ WEREMSOFT (2020-07-12), WEREMSOFT/c99-raylib-cimgui-template , retrieved 2020-07-15
  18. ↑ "Google Open Source Peer Bonus winners are here!". Google Open Source Blog. Retrieved 2020-07-15.
  19. ↑ "rayLib receives an Epic MegaGrant". GameFromScratch.com. 2020-08-07. Retrieved 2020-08-10.
  20. ↑ "Announcing the First Group of Google Open Source Peer Bonus winners in 2021!". Google Open Source Blog. Retrieved 2021-04-27.
  21. ↑ "MOBILE GAMES AWARD - The Finalists for 2022". MOBILE GAME AWARDS. Retrieved 2022-03-20.
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