I am assuming that I shouldn’t use display lists on max models that will animate because I read that these lists are good for things that are static meshes. Is this correct?
I know I can create display lists for different parts of the model and then rotate/translate it but that was from a simple example in a book. I am wondering about real world performance with realistic animation from Max. Do game engines use GL_COMPILE for animated objects? Or do I need to use glDrawArrays instead?
Thanks!
Display Lists are immutable in that once created, they can’t be changed as the memory they occupy is not addressable, AFAIK.
Display lists are still among the fastest of ways to draw things. But the data stored within them cannot be changed once they’re compiled and uploaded to the OpenGL server.
Display lists are good for things that don’t change shape or color, and generally just sit there. You might use them for static backgrounds, for instance.
For models that move and animate though, vertex arrays are much easier and more popular and still get good performance. Some extensions give vertex arrays even more of a boost.
For models that move and animate though, vertex arrays are much easier and more popular and still get good performance. Some extensions give vertex arrays even more of a boost.[/b][/QUOTE]
Would it be even faster if I wrote all of my data to vertex arrays and then made a display list for calling it?
Would it be even faster if I wrote all of my data to vertex arrays and then made a display list for calling it?
Most certainly, no it won’t. Dislpay lists is for a STATIC data set. A dynamic vertex array is not a static data set.
Keep in mind that you can’t store a vertex array in a display list. You can, however, build a display list form a vertex array, but the vertex data will be extracted when compiling the dislpay list, and moved from the vertex array into the display list.