0

I am new to game engines. I started reading about html5 browser games recently since turbulenz engine became open sourced.

Its not difficult to grasp the javascript code and the concepts from the samples. I just wanted to know how the vertex buffers and index buffers work in any game engine and how they are useful

I have pasted a very simple example here. When I modify the data in vertexBufferParameters variable, the box gets twisted etc etc. I couldn't understand how the vertex buffers and index buffers affect the rendering of the box.

Any relevant links on understanding these buffers would also be appreciated. Thanks in advance.

gopi1410
  • 6,567
  • 9
  • 41
  • 75
  • Have you tried Google? Read this http://www.opengl.org/wiki/Vertex_Specification and this http://learningwebgl.com/blog/?p=28 – Ivan Kuckir Jun 06 '13 at 09:19
  • 1
    And most important: Don't use engine, when you want to learn low-level features of the platform. The purpose of an engine is to hide low-level features. – Ivan Kuckir Jun 06 '13 at 09:20

1 Answers1

1

Looking here at the rather concise notes from one of my lecturers a few years back:

Polygon Meshes

You can see that in the Data Structures for Representing a Mesh section there is alot of information relevant to the topic, particularly the section on index to vertex lists. The entire document is well worth a read as a primer for this:

Index and Vertex Buffers

This shows the use of the buffers, and their application in graphics. Essentially, a vertex list is a list of the coordinates (2d/3d) of each point on each triangle in say a square. Drawing these without an index list, some of these vertexes are repeated, unnecessarily. An index list is a 'quick reference' to the vertexes, and when drawing more complex shapes becomes quite a time saver.

John Langan
  • 51
  • 1
  • 6