Back to square one again!

Well, I spent a lot of time scratching my head over a problem that turned out to be a simple dumb issue.

As I detailed in my last post, my models consists of pointers to video memory where the actual information is stored. In a fit of genius, I realized that if I deleted the model but forgot to clean up the information, I'd be leaking video memory. That would be bad. So I made sure that, before a model is destroyed, the information is cleaned up.

This seemed like a clever solution, and the subtle problem didn't become obvious to me until I spent two weeks wondering what I was doing wrong.

The problem happened with copying the model. I created the model in one part of the program, and copied it to the cache that would store it. This preserved the pointers, but when the original model was cleaned up it cleaned up the video memory. Just as I told it to. The copy was then left with pointers that were no longer valid. So when I then asked the program to render the model, it couldn't.

Thankfully the problem wasn't hard to solve. I instead created the model in a space in memory where I have more control of when it gets destroyed, and copy instead a pointer to it. This way the model object itself is never copied or destroyed and I can store it directly. In the process I learned a bit, so I call it a success.

I also had to add a shader to the program, which I should have probably worked into the framework before I did the work on the models. Thankfully I had a ready made function that handles all the aspects of reading the shader from file, loading it to video memory, compiling, linking and binding attributes.

So now, after a couple of months, I'm able to render a red triangle to the screen. Which is about what I was at before the rewrite. So, yay?

Well, to be honest I have a lot more than before. I can read input, and configure it (just need to add more input to be read). My storage is a lot more organized and extensible. I need to do some adjustments to my design to account for lessons learned, but I'm very happy with what I have.

Next up, I'll be adding some actual interactivity. Well, first deal with matrices, then interactivity.