I've released a beta version of my SDF Model editor project. This is my first major project that I'm trying to "push past MVP".
How it all began
I've long been interested in real-time rendering. I started learning glsl. I came across this article by Inigo Quilez and realized that my mathematical knowledge...
Long story short, I decided to create my own full-fledged 3D editor that would allow artists to create 3D models using simple shapes. The main idea was a fresh approach (not really all that new, to be honest) to traditional modeling – to ditch all that sculpting and polygonal editing, and instead move spheres and boxes around like a little kid.
Process
| Initial, December 2025 | Beta, January 2026 |
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I read a lot of articles and used a fair number of AI models to learn. I used the AI not as a co-developer, but as a "teacher." I didn't ask questions like "how to do it", but rather "how and why it works." And after I understood "how and why", I started asking copilot to write code based on the AI's thinking.
And what happened?
It was terrible. But it worked. I started studying the code. It was a far cry from what it is now. It was written in Pygame and consisted of 500 lines of code. I couldn't do anything except rotate the camera, which didn't even do that correctly 🤦♂️.
I got bored. I abandoned it. But I got bored, so I continued. It took me a month to move away from Pygame and switch to Imgui, as well as fix the code. Everything worked well, and I was thrilled with the result.
Cursor
I decided to download cursor ai. Everyone was talking about how much it could do. I prompted it to completely refactor the code and add functionality, adding primitives and operations. And it was a miracle. I started studying the new code and customizing it.
That was good, but I still had to do the input. I turned to cursor and... It turned out my limit had been reached 👎. I went back to copilot. And it was strange - for some reason, copilot kept putting spaces after periods! It took me half an hour to fix the code. And what happened? It didn't work. I repeated this until I reached my limit. I'm already tired and barely got everything working. I posted the project on GitHub.
Publish
Publishing on GitHub motivated me to develop the project. Even though views were low, I still wanted to finish the project. Step by step, I improved the bugs slightly, sometimes using AI for refactoring, testing, and bug detection (even though it often created these bugs itself). Overall, I realized how bad AI is for large projects.
Now
24 days have passed since then.
It felt like months had passed. I can't believe I've accomplished so much. I can't believe my code is 80,000 characters long. Even though I still haven't achieved all of my MVP goals, I'm very happy with the result.
And by the way, I changed my device (Windows 7 was better than 10...)
Final
I learned a lot, made a ton of mistakes, corrected them, and didn't sleep a single night. I think I realized that AI is like a casino: you either hit the jackpot and get a fantastic app, or you waste all your limits, lol. I'm tired of writing this post...
Top comments (3)
This is a really inspiring journey—pushing a complex idea past MVP while actually learning the why behind it is impressive. I love your approach to AI as a teacher, and I’m excited to see how this SDF editor evolves as you refine the core ideas and usability.
Thanks!
Looking forward to your next post!