Meshes

Sometimes it is useful to define a static mesh programmatically. To turn such meshes into an actual vertex-array, you can use a mesh-loader, or the mesh asset.

The mesh-loader can convert from of the following types:

• vertex-mesh
  Packs the (legacy) vertex mesh structure into a single vertex buffer and index buffer, and then puts them together into a vertex-array.

• mesh-data
  Converts the data directly using make-vertex-array.

• primitive
  Converts the primitive to a convex-mesh and then translates that into a vertex-array.

• pathname
  Loads via the read-geometry function.

Static meshes like these are mostly used for very simple meshes that can be constructed using the geometry construction functions that trial ships:

• make-rectangle-mesh

• make-triangle-mesh

• make-cube-mesh

• make-quad-grid-mesh

• make-line-grid-mesh

• make-sphere-mesh

• make-disc-mesh

• make-cylinder-mesh

• make-cone-mesh

• make-tube-mesh

• make-lines

The functions should be self-explanatory in what they construct. All of them also take a :mesh argument so that you can combine multiple meshes together, and :x, :y, :z arguments to shift the constructed shape around.

Trial also provides a couple of assets that are generally useful from its own pool:

• fullscreen-square
  A centred square with its edges each 1 unit away from zero on X/Y. Ideal for rendering without any transformation matrices.

• empty-vertex-array
  An empty vertex array, which can be useful when the vertex shader generates the vertices on its own.

• unit-cube
  A cube with a diameter of 1.

• axes
  A line mesh with a coloured line along every axis.

• 2d-axes
  A mesh with infinite extent to mark the zero axes in 2D.