Use of VBOs

So I’m trying to turn my fixed-function OpenGL application into something that uses VBOs, for improved performance. However, I’m having a bit of trouble - my application ends up rendering things in a bizarre pattern. I’m 90% sure this is because it’s using normal data for vertices and vice versa, but I don’t completely understand what I’m telling OpenGL versus what I think I’m telling it, or the exact use of the various functions, and I’m not sure how to deal with my array.

Currently, the array I use to create the VBO is a straight vector of floats, in the form {x, y, z, nx, ny, nz, x, y, z, nx, ny, nz, …}, and it represents a simple cube. If I removed the normal data from the array and comment out the code relating to normal data in the loop, I get a perfectly fine white cube; but if I add normal data, things mess up terribly, as though my cube exploded while a black hole was trying to eat it from the inside out.

Here is how I have been using the VBO, normals included (this is in the game loop):

        glBindBuffer(GL_ARRAY_BUFFER, WorldBuffer);

        glEnableClientState(GL_VERTEX_ARRAY);
        glVertexPointer(3, GL_FLOAT, 0, 0);
        glEnableClientState(GL_NORMAL_ARRAY);
        glNormalPointer(GL_FLOAT, 0, (void*)12);

        glDrawArrays(GL_TRIANGLES, 0, 36);

        glDisableClientState(GL_VERTEX_ARRAY);
        glDisableClientState(GL_NORMAL_ARRAY);

        glBindBuffer(GL_ARRAY_BUFFER, 0);

Interestingly, if I use the above but leave the normal floats out of the array, I still get a cube, just one with ridiculously disjointed shading.

So can someone tell me what I’m doing wrong, and why? I have a feeling it’s because I’m not using the offset parameter properly in glNormalPointer(), but I can’t find any tutorials that clear things up for me. :frowning:

You need to provide the correct strides, which for your example is 24 = 6*sizeof(float). If using a structure to represent each vertex, then sizeof(vertex) would be used:


  glVertexPointer(3, GL_FLOAT, sizeof(vertex), 0);
  glNormalPointer(GL_FLOAT, sizeof(vertex), (void*)12);

Using a stride of 0 means that the data for that attribute is tightly packed, which would mean the data shouldn’t be interleaved, it would either be at different offsets in the same buffer, or in a separate buffer object.

Thank you! It worked!