I've got a basic setup like this:
model class, each model has:
a 'heap' of vertices
a 'heap' of triangles
a 'heap' of meshes
and a 'heap' of materials
each mesh stores indices into the heap of materials and triangles
each triangle stores indices into the heap of vertices. This seems to be a pretty good way to store a model if you don't intend on using triangle strips of some variant to draw models (which I'm not). I was wondering if 'you people' think it would be too costly to instead of having indexes into the different 'heaps' if i should just copy the appropriate values themselves into the data structures and separating the large heaps of data into smaller heaps of data specific to each mesh and triangle. This will mean more memory will be used in the process but it seems it will make things a bit simpler.
Well post your thoughts. I'll probably implement skeletal animations before I make my final decision, I'm just throwing this out there to maybe see what to expect.
thanks
EDIT: Just to make things clear I am biased towards copying the same values into each individual structure instead of keeping the large heap. for example instead of having a triangle that indexes to vertices 1, 2, and 3, while having another triangle that indexes to triangles 2, 3, and 4 of the smae heap I would rather just copy 1, 2, and 3 to the first triangle and then copy 2, 3, and 4 to the other triangle. This means it would use 33% more memory but it would simplifiy things. Now that I think about it I might jsut try to find an effective way of just doing triangle strips, but I don't want to make things too difficult before I even get a chance to make anything. poly I expect you to reply to this post