Before I get too deep in my program and end up doing an overhaul, I think I'd rather get it right the first time. I'm writing some classes and methods to draw various opengl primitives like the 2d faces, and then the next level up, drawing whole cubes and pyramids and such. I don't know which is better for the 3d objects: storing the data on the points, or data on the faces. Here's my pro/con breakdown: Note: for "points" I have written a struct containing x,y,z,red,green,blue. "Faces" are a struct of three or four points. Storing points: PRO - Smaller total data storage, no redundant information - Transformations performed once per point to save processing time CON - Functions that draw objects will have to be more literal, taking four points for a pyramid and explicitly drawing each face. The alternative is constructing four triangles on the fly and then drawing those. This takes more processing time per frame. - Cannot store differing color information for each face without some other method I haven't thought of yet. Storing as faces: PRO - Since faces are already constructed, only the face-drawing function needs to be called each frame. They don't need to be rebuilt out of points. - Each face can store it's own color and texture information. CON - Faces that share points store redundant data on them, waste of memory. - Redundant points are transformed repeatedly by rotations, waste of processing. Is there some happy medium here? Or is one just better than the other and I haven't realized it yet? Does it matter / depend on the type of program I'm creating? What do you usually do?

Where do you suggest I store data pertaining to vertices that have one color for one face and another for an adjacent face? Should I just make those objects as composites of faces then as a special case? Like a "cube" is one color or corner blended colors, but a "open box with a different colored top" is something else, made of four quads?