title: 1 Byte Alignment vs 4 Byte Alignment (Pixel Packing)
body: <p>I am reading the OpenGL SuperBible for OpenGL 3.x. I am having a hard time understanding the whole "pixel packing concept." I get that typically a 199px wide image would require 597 bytes [(199 * 3)3 for each color channel RGB]. My first question is why would this only sometimes be right, the author says this only woks with a 4byte alignment system. He goes on to say that an extra three bytes will be added to make it divisible by four easily, which I don't understand either. So really my question is what is the significance of a 4 byte alignment -- what does that actually mean?? The author then says the alternative is 1-byte alignment, which I don't understand either.</p>
  
  <p>The author says that .TGA is 1 byte aligned or "tight" and .bmp is 4 byte aligned.</p>
  
  <p>What is a 4 byte alignment, a 1 byte alignment, and why should I use one over the other? When should I use .tga or .bmp for texturing?</p>