bevyengine / bevyengine/bevy

Accept raw vertex buffer data when creating a Mesh

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#16,681 4 comments 0 reactions 0 assignees View on GitHub
A-Rendering C-Usability D-Modest S-Ready-For-Implementation
Dominant language
Rust
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Avg merge
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Merged PRs (30d)
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Description

## What problem does this solve or what need does it fill?

Currently, to build a custom mesh, we have to do provide each vertex buffer independently like so:
```rs
Mesh::new(
PrimitiveTopology::TriangleList,
RenderAssetUsages::default(),
)
.with_inserted_indices(Indices::U32(indices))
.with_inserted_attribute(Mesh::ATTRIBUTE_POSITION, positions)
.with_inserted_attribute(Mesh::ATTRIBUTE_NORMAL, normals)
.with_inserted_attribute(Mesh::ATTRIBUTE_UV_0, uvs)
```

If I have a buffer where the data is already interleaved like so:
```
[position, normal, uv, position, normal, uv, position, normal, uv, ...]
```

Splitting it in different buffers to provide each of them to `with_inserted_attribute` is a waste of memory and CPU time because in the end, the different buffers are merged into one inside [`write_packed_vertex_buffer_data`](https://github.com/bevyengine/bevy/blob/24c3bd5f005867aa483237071e3add4f13a43904/crates/bevy_mesh/src/mesh.rs#L469) before being sent to the GPU.

## What solution would you like?

So I would like to be able to provide my buffer that is already ready to be sent to the GPU and avoid all that decomposition (done by me) then recomposition (done in [`write_packed_vertex_buffer_data`](https://github.com/bevyengine/bevy/blob/24c3bd5f005867aa483237071e3add4f13a43904/crates/bevy_mesh/src/mesh.rs#L469)):
```rs
Mesh::new(
PrimitiveTopology::TriangleList,
RenderAssetUsages::default(),
)
.with_inserted_indices(Indices::U32(indices))
.with_raw_vertex_buffer(buffer, vec![Mesh::ATTRIBUTE_POSITION, Mesh::ATTRIBUTE_NORMAL, Mesh::ATTRIBUTE_UV_0]);
```

## What alternative(s) have you considered?

Currently, I split my existing buffer into multiple buffers (one for each vertex attribute), and I call with_inserted_attribute multiple times.

## Additional context

The workaround I'm using seems to be used in the [glTF file loader](https://github.com/bevyengine/bevy/blob/24c3bd5f005867aa483237071e3add4f13a43904/crates/bevy_gltf/src/loader.rs#L659-L667). So maybe this feature will greatly speed up the loading of large glTF files too?

Contributor guide

Open the contributing guide

Research direction

Start in crates/bevy_mesh/src/mesh.rs at write_packed_vertex_buffer_data to understand how inserted attributes are combined before reaching the GPU. Compare that path with the glTF loader in crates/bevy_gltf/src/loader.rs around lines 659-667; done means Mesh can accept the already interleaved buffer and the attribute layout without requiring the caller to split and recombine it.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Tech stack
rust
Domain
computer-graphics, game-dev
Issue type
Feature
Difficulty
4/5
Estimated time
3-5 days
Activity status
Stale
Clarity
Mostly clear
Newbie friendliness
42/100

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