model format

Hi,

Same problem as last time: I’ve got a model, saved as definitions of triangles (not strips or fan) and points (position, TexCoord, and normal).

The model is static (body parts for skeletal animation), and I need to render it fast.

I tried with glDrawElement, but situation when position, TexCoord, and normal of two points are same, is rare.

Any ideas how to do it?
Compile a display list?
Will it help much?

Someone said something about VBOs. Unfortunatley, in my country, there are only two books about OGL on market, and there is nothing about it in any.
What is it, how to use it? Will it help?

Someone said something about VBOs. Unfortunatley, in my country, there are only two books about OGL on market, and there is nothing about it in any.
What is it, how to use it? Will it help?

VBOs are buffers managed by graphics card driver (so they may be stored in video memory) which contain data like ordinary OGL vertex array would. In fact the most of the setup is same regardless if memory based vertex arrays or VBOs are used.
There is Nehe tutorial describing how they are used.

All extensions:
http://oss.sgi.com/projects/ogl-sample/registry/

VBO Spec:
http://oss.sgi.com/projects/ogl-sample/registry/ARB/vertex_buffer_object.txt

And to get started with extensions easily, try out GLEW, one function call and you can use VBOs.

Jan.