Hi guys,

developers love to give the user the freedom they want, but sometimes, too much freedom is quite bad, as some things are just too complicated, or just not practical, or might mess stuff up if done wrong.

One example of this was where I had to decide whether to use fixed functions for normal mapping, or leave that to the user to do while editing their custom material. But normal mapping isn't just something that's done within a seconds (copy... paste... ), so I decided to make it fixed, like: (And it's used so much, and if you mess it up, features like, ssao, lighting, just doesn't work!)

// Enable Normal Mapping
myMaterial->SetFlag(MAT_FLAG_NORMALS);

// Set the texture
myMaterial->SetNormalMap(myTexture);

So...

Is leaving the normal mapping to a fixed function the way to go, or not? What experiences do you have where you needed to decide whether making a feature fixed, or leave it to the user?

Thanks!

PS. I don't know if this is too specific, if so, please say!

My take on this is to make the system as flexible as possible, and then if there are 'norms' that you want to include in the engine then you just implement them for the user in the flexible system. This serves multiple purposes - they provide functionality out of the box, they serve as examples for others to use, and they force you to use your own system to implement something that you could reasonably expect your users to be able to do. Sometimes that experience can be eye opening, and it will help you improve the usability of your engine.

By maximizing flexibility, this also lets you update things over time without breaking your whole engine. Encapsulate your rendering code into logical chunks that are easily interchanged and supported by the structure of your engine, and you will be much happier in the long run. Especially if you are the sole maintainer of the project, this will really be useful if you work on the engine for a long time (like I have with Hieroglyph 3!).