Helper for writing gpu data
Gpu data like uniforms and storage need special rules for alignement of data. It would be nice if we have some sort of convenince methods that would automatically align data and place data.
For example consider a matrix of 3x3. On the gpu the data is arranged as:
m11, m12, m13, PAD_BYTE, m21, m22, m23, PAD_BYTE, m31, m32, m33, PAD_BYTE
due to how the data is 16byte aligned
Similaraly for vec3 it is also 16byte aliged so that a structure of kind:
Struct Example {
a: vec3<f32>,
b: vec3<f32>,
}
Is actually in memory
Struct ExampleOnCpu {
a: [f32; 3],
pad_a: f32,
b: [f32; 3],
pad_b: f32,
}
Having some way to consistenty serialise this would reduce code complexity and reduce errors caused by missunderstood alignments
I agree we need some rules. And I like your suggestion with pad_ prefix with name of padded property.
You suggest to write down rules somewhere? Or prepare some tool to handle this? Like macro or something?