   Tilemap Animations
  I was going to use display lists for rendering my tilemaps. The topic of animation though presents an interesting twist.1) Are display lists still okay to use, or should I be going for VBOs? I read the next OpenGL is just going to be using VBO as the "one true path" for vertex data.I've come up with two ways to do animations.I could dynamically update the texture for each tile that has changed animation frames (glSubTexImage). Performance would probably be ok, because animation frames don't usually switch every frame. But maybe there would be some sort of lock OpenGL has to perform to update the texture. This would also make all tiles synchronized.Or I could divide the tilemap between static and dynamic, using display lists for the static tiles and vertex arrays for the animated tiles.[Edited by - Boder on June 19, 2006 1:55:00 PM]
  I just switched out the texture for the tiles to animate on a central timer. Very simple.   ;  Ravuya, do you mean you switch the whole texture? If so, is it noticeable that all the tiles animate at the same time?   ;  Yes, I switch the whole texture. It is sort of stilted, but it's not honestly that bad (with enough frames it would be very smooth; I am only using three frames).I'm only using it in a few places (animated water and fans). I believe this is effectively what Quake/Quake2 do for animated textures.   