I want to make a couple of vec4 vertex attributes in my shaders. I've done quite a bit of googling, but I can't seem to find consistent information for specifically what I want to do.
My goal here is to move skinning to the GPU, so I need a list of bones and weights per vertex, hence why I want to use vertex attributes. I have 2 arrays of floats that represent this data. Basically this:
weightsBuffer = new float[vSize*4];
indexesBuffer = new int[vSize*4];
The part that I can't consistently find is how to upload these and use them in the shader. To be clear, I don't want to upload all the position, normal and texture coordinate data, I'm already using display lists and have decided to keep using them for a few reasons that aren't relevant. How can I create the buffers and bind them properly so I can use them?
Thanks.
Binding your bone weights and indices is no different of a process than binding your position data. Assuming the data is generated properly in your buffers, you use glBindAttribLocation to bind the attribute index in your vertex stream to your shader variable, and glVertexAttribPointer to define your vertex array (and don't forget glEnableVertexAttribArray).
The exact code may vary, depending on whether you're using VAOs and VBOs (or just client buffers). If you want a more specific answer, you should provide your code and shader.