openrct2-x7-renderer 0.3.0

Embree-backed isometric renderer that turns meshes into OpenRCT2 palette-indexed sprites.

OpenRCT2 X7 Renderer

openrct2-x7-renderer is the Embree-backed isometric renderer that turns triangle meshes into OpenRCT2 palette-indexed sprites.

Heavily inspired by X7's RCTGen.

Install

Requires Python 3.11+. Embree-vendored wheels are published to PyPI:

pip install openrct2-x7-renderer

The wheels bundle Embree + TBB, so there is no system Embree dependency at runtime.

Build from source

Building the extension needs Embree 4 and a C++23 compiler. On macOS: brew install embree.

uv sync
uv run pytest   # coverage is enabled by default via pyproject.toml

Quick start

import numpy as np

from openrct2_x7_renderer.mesh import load_mesh
from openrct2_x7_renderer.lights import default_lights
from openrct2_x7_renderer.ray_trace import Context, VIEWS

mesh = load_mesh("model.obj")
ctx = Context(lights=default_lights(), dither=True)
with ctx.begin_render() as scene:
    with scene.add_model(mesh, matrix=np.eye(3), translation=np.zeros(3)).finalize() as ready:
        sprite = ready.render_view(VIEWS[0])   # -> IndexedImage

Usage

Render context

Context is the entry point for rendering. The three constructor parameters control the entire render:

from openrct2_x7_renderer.ray_trace import Context
from openrct2_x7_renderer.lights import default_lights
from openrct2_x7_renderer.constants import TILE_SIZE

ctx = Context(
    lights=default_lights(),  # light rig (see below)
    dither=True,              # Floyd-Steinberg dithering when quantizing to the palette
    upt=TILE_SIZE,            # camera scale: units-per-tile (default 3.3)
)

upt controls zoom: smaller values zoom in, larger values zoom out. The CLI helpers scale upt by TEST_ZOOM (0.125) in test mode (--test) for fast iteration.

Render lifecycle (typestate pattern)

A single render pass follows a strict state machine enforced at the type level:

1. Context.begin_render() → returns a SceneBuilder
2. SceneBuilder.add_model(...) → chainable, returns self
3. SceneBuilder.finalize() → returns a FinalizedScene
4. FinalizedScene.render_view(view) / .render_silhouette(view) → produces sprites
5. Cleanup via FinalizedScene context manager or explicit end_render() call

ctx = Context(lights=default_lights())

with ctx.begin_render() as scene:
    with (
        scene
        .add_model(mesh, matrix=np.eye(3), translation=np.zeros(3))
        .add_model(mesh2, matrix=rotation, translation=offset, mask=MeshFlag.GHOST)
        .finalize()
    ) as ready:
        sprite = ready.render_view(VIEWS[0])           # full shaded render
        mask   = ready.render_silhouette(VIEWS[0])     # solid silhouette / mask sprite

FinalizedScene.__exit__ calls end_render(), freeing the Embree scene. SceneBuilder.__exit__ calls end_render() only when finalize() was not called (e.g. the block exited early due to an exception). The context may be reused across multiple render passes by calling begin_render() again.

SceneBuilder.add_model parameters:

Parameter	Type	Description
mesh	Mesh	Triangle mesh returned by load_mesh
matrix	(3,3) float64	Rotation / orientation matrix applied to the mesh
translation	(3,) float64	World-space offset after rotation
mask	int	Bitmask of MeshFlag values (default 0)

MeshFlag.GHOST (from constants) makes the mesh transparent (ghost ride vehicles). MeshFlag.MASK marks the mesh as a collision/mask geometry.

Views

VIEWS is a tuple of four (3,3) world-rotation matrices — one per compass corner, matching OpenRCT2's four viewpoints (NE, NW, SW, SE). These rotate the scene before the dimetric projection:

from openrct2_x7_renderer.ray_trace import Context, VIEWS

ctx = Context(lights=default_lights())
with ctx.begin_render() as scene:
    with scene.add_model(mesh, np.eye(3), np.zeros(3)).finalize() as ready:
        for view in VIEWS:
            sprite = ready.render_view(view)

Pass any custom (3,3) float64 orthonormal matrix to render from an arbitrary direction.

Lights

default_lights() returns a nine-light rig that matches X7's RCTGen defaults. To customise the rig, build a list of Light objects:

from openrct2_x7_renderer.types import Light
from openrct2_x7_renderer.constants import LightType
import numpy as np

lights = [
    Light(
        type=LightType.DIFFUSE,                      # LightType.DIFFUSE | .SPECULAR | .HEMI
        shadow=True,                                 # whether the light casts shadows
        direction=np.array([1.0, 1.65, -1.0]) / ..., # unit vector toward the light
        intensity=0.8,                               # strength multiplier
    ),
]

Light types:

Constant	Behaviour
LightType.DIFFUSE	Lambertian diffuse shading
LightType.SPECULAR	Phong specular highlight
LightType.HEMI	Hemisphere / sky light

When loading lights from a config via load_lights, each direction must be a non-zero vector; passing [0, 0, 0] raises ValueError.

Lights can also be loaded from a config file (see Config files).

Mesh loading

from openrct2_x7_renderer.mesh import load_mesh
import numpy as np

mesh = load_mesh("model.obj")

# Optional: apply an orthonormal transform at load time
# (e.g. mirror or axis-swap).  Negative determinant flips winding order.
# Raises LoadError if the matrix is not orthonormal (|det| − 1 > 0.001).
mesh = load_mesh("model.obj", transform=np.diag([-1, 1, 1]))

load_mesh parses the OBJ file and the MTL it references, loading textures (map_Kd) as linear-RGB float32 arrays. Standard MTL properties are honoured.

Normal handling: if the OBJ defines vn entries and every face vertex references one, the artist normals are used directly. If normals are defined but any face vertex omits the //vn token, a WARNING is logged and area-weighted face normals are generated for the entire mesh. If no vn entries exist at all, face normals are generated silently.

UV handling: if a face vertex references a texture coordinate index but no vt entries are defined, a WARNING is logged and that vertex's UV defaults to (0, 0).

MTL directive	Effect
Kd r g b	Diffuse colour (sRGB → linear on load; used when no map_Kd is present)
Ks r g b	Specular reflectance (sRGB → linear on load)
Ka r g b	Ambient reflectance (sRGB → linear on load)
Ns value	Phong shininess exponent
map_Kd file	Diffuse texture (sRGB → linear on load)

Material name flags

The renderer recognises keywords in OBJ material names to set rendering behaviour. Keywords are matched by substring, case-sensitive:

Keyword in material name	Effect
Remap1, Remap2, Remap3	Map diffuse colour into OpenRCT2 remap palette region 1–3 (runtime recoloring)
Greyscale	Use palette region 4 (greyscale remap)
Peep	Use palette region 5 (peep skin remap)
Glass	Render in the translucent glass pass
Back	Included only in rear-wall sprite blocks
Front	Included only in front-wall sprite blocks
Mask	Treated as a visibility mask (MaterialFlag.IS_MASK)
NoAO	Disable ambient occlusion for this material
Edge	Enable background anti-aliasing blending
DarkEdge	Enable dark-variant background AA blending
NoBleed	Disable colour bleed from neighbouring pixels

Example MTL material name: mat_Remap1_NoAO gets remappable region 1 with AO disabled.

Constants

All material/mesh/light constants are exposed as strongly-typed enums:

from openrct2_x7_renderer.constants import MaterialFlag, MeshFlag, LightType

# MaterialFlag is an IntFlag — supports bitwise operations
flags = MaterialFlag.IS_REMAPPABLE | MaterialFlag.NO_AO

# MeshFlag is an IntFlag
mask = MeshFlag.GHOST | MeshFlag.MASK

# LightType is an IntEnum
light_type = LightType.DIFFUSE

Silhouette rendering

FinalizedScene.render_silhouette produces a solid silhouette sprite — every hit pixel is rendered as flat mid-gray (linear 0.5, 0.5, 0.5) and quantized to the nearest RCT2 palette entry; transparent pixels are unchanged:

with ctx.begin_render() as scene:
    with scene.add_model(mesh, np.eye(3), np.zeros(3)).finalize() as ready:
        mask_sprite = ready.render_silhouette(VIEWS[0])

Image I/O

from openrct2_x7_renderer.image import write_png, read_png, quantize_to_indexed, PREVIEW_SIZE

# Write a rendered IndexedImage as a paletted PNG (transparent index = 0).
write_png(sprite, "out.png")

# Read a paletted PNG back (must already be an 8-bit palette-mode PNG).
img = read_png("existing.png")

# Convert any image format to an IndexedImage sized for a 112x112 preview.
preview = quantize_to_indexed("photo.jpg", size=PREVIEW_SIZE)

quantize_to_indexed resizes with Lanczos resampling, Floyd-Steinberg dithers into the non-remap palette range (indices 10–236), and maps alpha < 128 to transparent.

Geometry helpers

from openrct2_x7_renderer.geometry import (
    rotate_x, rotate_y, rotate_z,
    combine_model_world,
    assign_faces_to_tiles, subset_mesh,
)

# Build a rotation matrix from Euler angles (radians).
rot = rotate_y(math.pi / 2) @ rotate_z(angle_z) @ rotate_x(angle_x)

# Bake a multi-part animated Model into a single world-space Mesh.
world_mesh = combine_model_world(meshes, model, frame=0)

# Assign each face to the nearest tile center (for large multi-tile scenery).
tile_ids = assign_faces_to_tiles(world_mesh, tile_centers_xz)

# Extract a per-tile sub-mesh (tightens scene bounds, improves AO accuracy).
tile_mesh = subset_mesh(world_mesh, tile_ids == 0)

Multi-frame animation

Model and MeshFrame represent an animated object with up to four frames (OpenRCT2's engine limit). Each placement holds one MeshFrame per frame:

from openrct2_x7_renderer.types import Model, MeshFrame
import numpy as np

model = Model(meshes=[
    [
        MeshFrame(mesh_index=0, position=np.zeros(3),
                  orientation=np.array([0.0, 0.0, 0.0])),   # frame 0
        MeshFrame(mesh_index=0, position=np.zeros(3),
                  orientation=np.array([90.0, 0.0, 0.0])),  # frame 1
    ],
])

orientation is (angle_y, angle_z, angle_x) in degrees, applied as rotate_y @ rotate_z @ rotate_x. combine_model_world(meshes, model, frame=N) selects the pose for frame N; placements with fewer frames fall back to their last frame.

Config files

parse_config reads a JSON or YAML file into a plain dict (PyYAML is already included as a package dependency). The run_cli helper builds the full context from a config automatically, but you can load individual sections by hand:

from openrct2_x7_renderer.config import parse_config
from openrct2_x7_renderer.lights import load_lights, default_lights

root = parse_config("object.json")   # or "object.yaml"
lights = load_lights(root["lights"]) if "lights" in root else default_lights()

A lights block in the config is a list of light objects:

{
  "lights": [
    { "type": "diffuse",  "direction": [1.0, 1.65, -1.0], "strength": 0.8, "shadow": true },
    { "type": "specular", "direction": [0.0, 1.0,  0.0],  "strength": 0.5, "shadow": false },
    { "type": "hemi",     "direction": [0.0, -1.0, 0.0],  "strength": 0.1, "shadow": false }
  ]
}

output_directory (string) sets where generated files are written; omitting it defaults to the current working directory.

meshes (array of strings) lists OBJ files to load. preview (string) points to a preview PNG. Both accept absolute paths; relative paths are resolved against the config file's parent directory when a base_dir is passed to load_meshes() / load_preview() (the CLI does this automatically).

Test-mode remap colours

Remap1/Remap2/Remap3 materials render into reserved palette windows that OpenRCT2 repaints to the player-chosen colour in-game, so they look wrong in a static preview. An optional test_remap_colors block recolours those windows in --test previews to show the repainted result. It is ignored outside test mode, so real renders keep the raw remap windows OpenRCT2 expects.

{
  "test_remap_colors": {
    "1": "bordeaux_red",
    "2": "dark_green",
    "3": "yellow"
  }
}

Keys are remap regions (1–3); values are OpenRCT2 colour names (the 32 standard colours, e.g. grey, bright_red, teal, light_pink). Any region you omit keeps its raw remap window. make_context(..., root=root) reads the block, and Context.render_view applies the substitution; the per-colour shade ramps in openrct2_x7_renderer.remap are taken from OpenRCT2's own palette-map sprites, so the preview matches the in-game repaint.

Performance

The renderer maintains a persistent thread pool for the lifetime of each Context — one worker thread per logical CPU core by default (capped at 256). The pool is created when the Context is constructed and reused across all render calls, so there is no thread-creation overhead on subsequent renders. Set OPENRCT2_X7_NUM_THREADS to override the thread count:

OPENRCT2_X7_NUM_THREADS=4 python generate.py

Sprite output format

images_dat.write_images_dat writes a single binary blob images.dat containing all sprites, referenced from an OpenRCT2 object.json via the $LGX: syntax ("images": ["$LGX:images.dat[0..N-1]"]). This is the same format the vanilla OpenRCT2 parkobjs use.

images.dat layout

+--------------------+--------------------+
| num_entries (u32)  | total_pixels (u32) |   8-byte header
+--------------------+--------------------+
| element 0          (16 bytes)           |
| ...                                     |   num_entries * 16 bytes
+-----------------------------------------+
| sprite 0 pixels    (w * h bytes)        |
| ...                                     |   total_pixels bytes
+-----------------------------------------+

Each element is u32 offset, u16 width, u16 height, i16 x_offset, i16 y_offset, u16 flags, u16 zoom; width and height are unsigned. flags = 0x0001 (G1_FLAG_BMP) indicates raw indexed pixel data — palette index 0 is transparent. RLE compression (flags = 0x0008) would be more compact but is not implemented.

License

GPL-3.0-or-later. The distributed wheels bundle Embree and TBB (Apache-2.0); their license texts ship alongside.