Question

In response to my previous qeustion posted here:

What is a good code structure for api-independant vertex processing?

If I have say a vertex structure with an array of floating point values such as:

public struct Vertex
{
    float[] array = new float[4];

    public Vertex(float x, float, y, float z, float w)
    { 
         array[0] = x; array[1] = y; array[2] = z; array[3] = w;
    }
}

Could that vertex structure be sent to a vertex buffer (using OpenGL or DirectX)? Does an array contain any other byte data or does it only contain the data of the floating point values? Like if I were (in DirectX) use this vertex as Transformed in a declaration could I send the vertex to a buffer and all that will be sent is the floating point values, or will the array contain other information that could break my shader program?

Answer 1

I’m not a C# programmer, but it looks here that you store a array reference (pointer) in the Vertex struct, hence an array of Vertex would be an array of pointers. A graphics API demands a continous sequence of floats.

Try:

public struct Vertex
{
    public fixed float array[4];

    public Vertex(float x, float, y, float z, float w)
    { 
         array[0] = x; array[1] = y; array[2] = z; array[3] = w;
    }
}