This changes the model loading code such that all index and vertex data
is packed in a single GPU buffer for each data type (index and vertex
data are still in separate buffers). This reduces the amount of buffer
rebinding needed when rendering a scene which will reduce the CPU
overhead. Furthermore, this opens up possibilities of future
improvements for which it is beneficial if all data is in the same
buffer (e.g. MultiDrawIndirect rendering).
To manage where to put the data in the GPU buffer I implemented a
custom HeapAllocator which manages where data can be put. It uses a very
primitive first-fit algorithm but that is sufficient for this usage
type. This does add quite a lot of overhead while allocating GPU model
data (I did some tracing and some allocation calls took as long as
130ms).
This fixes#1457.
This was previously not enforced and some code did not call this
function at the correct time which caused crashes since data was not
initialized correctly. This adds a check to ensure that the function was
called and fixes the code that uses the model_draw_list.
This uses UBOs for building a buffer object of uniform data before
using that data to draw objects. This should reduce the CPU overhead by
reducing the amount of glUniform calls required for executing a single
draw call. This is especially useful if rendering is limited by the CPU
which should help performance for people with slower CPUs.
This fixes#910.
There is nothing specific to OpenGL in that code anymore since it's all
handled in the shaders at this point. This will make the lighting
information available in the normal graphics code which allows to use
those values when filling the uniform buffer for the model rendering.
All transformations are now handled by shaders so there is nothing
special going on in the graphics API specific code anymore. Since model
uniform buffers require access to these matrices I moved the matrix
handling out of the graphics API code.
The new design is centered around the Event Trace JSON format but it
should still be possible to adapt it for other profiling tools. The old
profiling system has been removed.
The codebase had quite a few instances of .size() being called and then checked to see if it was 0 or not (or less than 1, or greater-than-or-equal-to 1, which are basically equivalent), when .empty() could be called instead (negated or not, depending on what the original condition was).
This fixes a few of the bad design descisions of previous shader
iterations. This uses a dedicated class for managing the resources and
uniform locations of a shader program.
Uniforms are also stored in this object which makes a lot more sense
than storing them in the OpenGL state where they had to be reset every
time a new shader was used.
There are still a lot of possible enhancments to make, e.g. by using
uniform blocks and buffers instead of standard uniforms which would make
uniform location handling easier.
Another optimization that I will investigate is reducing the amount or
different compiled shaders by turning some of the current compile-time
defines into bool uniforms.
This uses GL_KHR_debug for exposing debug group information. This is
very useful for tools like apitrace where it's used for assiciating
OpenGL commands with a specific application function.
The groups are created using a utility macro which is removed in release
builds so it should have no impact on the release performance.
This introduces a new mechanism for handling bit flags. Instead of using an int (or two, or three) to write bits into, this uses the std::bitset in a wrapper class that accepts an enum class as input. This means that certain classes of errors we've had a few of in the engine, where a coder used the wrong set of flags or checked them against the wrong variable (SF_STEALTH vs SIF_STEALTH, for example) can now be detected at a compiler level rather than not at all.
This allows to use standard TrueType Fonts for text rendering in FSO. It uses the NanoVG library which provides the ability of drawing 2D shapes. This library is used for most 2D operations now and can also be used directly by using the PathRenderer class.
This is a renaming of the Dumb_rotation infrastructure, which is now called Intrinsic_rotation. Intrinsic rotations are automatically applied to submodels without the need for an associated subsystem. Dumb rotations are now a type of intrinsic rotation, and look_at rotations will be added in a future PR. The same code will handle both; the only difference is in how the intrinsic rotation is calculated. (In the case of dumb-rotation, it is calculated the same way as normal rotation; in the case of look-at, it will be calculated using submodel_look_at.)
Fabian Woltermann