Consider this output I got from my maya exporter that I wrote, when exporting a textured cube:
----------------------------------------
// Mesh Name
pCubeShape1
// Vertices
//
// Format:
// v[index] x y z
v[0] -0.5 -0.5 0.5
v[1] 0.5 -0.5 0.5
v[2] -0.5 0.5 0.5
v[3] 0.5 0.5 0.5
v[4] -0.5 0.5 -0.5
v[5] 0.5 0.5 -0.5
v[6] -0.5 -0.5 -0.5
v[7] 0.5 -0.5 -0.5
// Colors
//
// Format:
// c[index] r g b a
c[0] -1 -1 -1 -1
c[1] -1 -1 -1 -1
c[2] -1 -1 -1 -1
c[3] -1 -1 -1 -1
c[4] -1 -1 -1 -1
c[5] -1 -1 -1 -1
c[6] -1 -1 -1 -1
c[7] -1 -1 -1 -1
c[8] -1 -1 -1 -1
c[9] -1 -1 -1 -1
c[10] -1 -1 -1 -1
c[11] -1 -1 -1 -1
c[12] -1 -1 -1 -1
c[13] -1 -1 -1 -1
c[14] -1 -1 -1 -1
c[15] -1 -1 -1 -1
c[16] -1 -1 -1 -1
c[17] -1 -1 -1 -1
c[18] -1 -1 -1 -1
c[19] -1 -1 -1 -1
c[20] -1 -1 -1 -1
c[21] -1 -1 -1 -1
c[22] -1 -1 -1 -1
c[23] -1 -1 -1 -1
c[24] -1 -1 -1 -1
c[25] -1 -1 -1 -1
c[26] -1 -1 -1 -1
c[27] -1 -1 -1 -1
c[28] -1 -1 -1 -1
c[29] -1 -1 -1 -1
c[30] -1 -1 -1 -1
c[31] -1 -1 -1 -1
c[32] -1 -1 -1 -1
c[33] -1 -1 -1 -1
c[34] -1 -1 -1 -1
c[35] -1 -1 -1 -1
// Normals
//
// Format:
// n[index] x y z
n[0] 0 0 1
n[1] 0 0 1
n[2] 0 0 1
n[3] 0 0 1
n[4] 0 1 0
n[5] 0 1 0
n[6] 0 1 0
n[7] 0 1 0
n[8] 0 0 -1
n[9] 0 0 -1
n[10] 0 0 -1
n[11] 0 0 -1
n[12] 0 -1 0
n[13] 0 -1 0
n[14] 0 -1 0
n[15] 0 -1 0
n[16] 1 0 0
n[17] 1 0 0
n[18] 1 0 0
n[19] 1 0 0
n[20] -1 0 0
n[21] -1 0 0
n[22] -1 0 0
n[23] -1 0 0
// UV Set
//
// Format:
// Set Name
// uv[index] u v
map1
uv[0] 0.998102, 0.747899
uv[1] 0.332801, 0.998073
uv[2] 0.664636, 0.748652
uv[3] 0.332383, 0.748515
uv[4] 0.664103, 0.500466
uv[5] 0.33185, 0.500133
uv[6] 0.663684, 0.249599
uv[7] 0.331431, 0.250208
uv[8] 0.66323, 0.001333
uv[9] 0.330977, 0.0019455
uv[10] 0.000774436, 0.500205
uv[11] 0.00138454, 0.748372
uv[12] 0.998518, 0.499788
uv[13] 0.665054, 0.998491
// Polygon Set
//
// Format:
// Polygon Set Name
// Texture Filepath
// Faces Indices
blinn1SG
c:/Users/cpisz.HOMENETWORK/Documents/Visual Studio 2005/Projects/Maya_Import/dice.png
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11
// Faces
//
// Format:
// 'Face Index' 'Vertex Index' 'Normal Index' 'Color Index' 'UV Index - map1'
0 0 0 0 13
0 1 1 1 1
0 2 2 2 2
1 1 1 3 1
1 3 3 4 3
1 2 2 5 2
2 2 4 6 2
2 3 5 7 3
2 4 6 8 4
3 3 5 9 3
3 5 7 10 5
3 4 6 11 4
4 4 8 12 4
4 5 9 13 5
4 6 10 14 6
5 5 9 15 5
5 7 11 16 7
5 6 10 17 6
6 6 12 18 6
6 7 13 19 7
6 0 14 20 8
7 7 13 21 7
7 1 15 22 9
7 0 14 23 8
8 1 16 24 11
8 7 17 25 10
8 3 18 26 3
9 7 17 27 10
9 5 19 28 5
9 3 18 29 3
10 6 20 30 12
10 0 21 31 0
10 4 22 32 4
11 0 21 33 0
11 2 23 34 2
11 4 22 35 4
Question 1)
It would appear that the DirectX "Vertices" would be created for each face index in the maya file, making 36 vertices, although there are only 8 unique vertex positions. There are 24 unique vertex position & normal combinations. And then 12? extra unique postion-normal-uv combinations? All the examples in the SDK I saw contain both position and normal data in each vertex. Therefore I am duplicating position data 3 times for each vertex, as there are 3 possible normals, that seems rather wasteful...
Is there a more efficient way to represent vertex positions, normals, and UVs, to minimize the duplication when creating a vertex for each unqiue combination of the 3?
Question 2)
I also don't understand why I have 14 UV coordinates.
Since it is a cube, I understand 8 vertex positions, one for each corner of the cube. I also unerstand the 24 normals, as each corner is used 3 times for 3 differant faces of the cube. I don't understand how there are 14 UV coordinates.
any idea why it came out that way?
Question 3)
Given the format of the incoming data from the exporter. How would you go about defining your vertices, buffers, and input layours in dx 10?
