how to implement native rendering plugin

[grassofsky]

Subject: Implementing Native Rendering Plugin in Stride Engine Using STRIDE

Goal: Replicate Unity’s Native Rendering Plugin workflow in Stride for cross-platform GPU optimization.

Background Context

In Unity, the  NativeRenderingPlugin    enables direct C++ GPU communication, bypassing managed-code overhead. Key features include:

Low-level API access (DirectX/Vulkan/Metal/OpenGL) for custom rendering pipelines .

Thread-safe rendering via  GL.IssuePluginEvent  to sync Unity’s render thread with native code .

Multi-platform support (Windows, Android, iOS, WebGL) .

Challenge in Stride

Stride’s documentation lacks explicit guidance for native plugin integration at the rendering-thread level. Specific hurdles:

Context Sharing
How to share Stride’s GPU context (e.g., Direct3D11/12, Vulkan) with a C++ plugin?

Unity Approach: Uses  Texture.GetNativeTexturePtr / Mesh.GetNativeVertexBufferPtr  .

Stride Gap: Equivalent APIs or interop methods are unclear.

Thread Synchronization
How to inject native rendering commands into Stride’s render thread?

Unity Approach:  GL.IssuePluginEvent  triggers native callbacks on the render thread .

Stride Gap: No documented equivalent event system.

Platform-Specific Backends
How to handle graphics API variances (e.g., Metal on iOS, Vulkan on Android)?

Unity Approach: Backend-specific  RenderAPI  implementations (e.g.,  RenderAPIMetal.mm ) .

Stride Gap: Stride’s  GraphicsDevice  abstraction may require adapter patterns.

Thanks.

[Ethereal77]

I think this is already supported, although it can be improved and documented better.

I'm currently in the process of rewriting the DirectX part of Stride.Graphics to use Silk.NET (which is a set of lighter, more modern bindings to OpenGL, Vulkan, DX, etc.). In the current state, the graphics objects already have an internal way of accessing the underlying native resource:

Here you can see the NativeBuffer property of Buffer.

While this is internal, there is also a public set of methods that can be used for marshalling between native types and Stride types:

For example, this method retrieves the ID3D11Resource from any Stride GraphicsResource.

With these, it should be quite simple to interop with any native system, whether in C# or another language. Is that what you were referring to?

[grassofsky]

Thanks for your response. i want to use native texture handle, and will check it in the source code. thanks