What is the proper way to modify OpenGL vertex buffer?

Question

I'm setting up a vertex buffer in OpenGL, like this:

int vboVertexHandle = glGenBuffers();
glBindBuffer(GL_ARRAY_BUFFER, vboVertexHandle);
glBufferData(GL_ARRAY_BUFFER, vertexData, GL_DYNAMIC_DRAW);

Later, if I want to add or remove vertices to "vertexData", what is the proper way to do this? Is it even possible? I'm assuming I can't just modify the array directly without re-sending it to the GPU.

If I modify the vertexData array, then call this again:

glBindBuffer(GL_ARRAY_BUFFER, vboVertexHandle);
glBufferData(GL_ARRAY_BUFFER, vertexData, GL_DYNAMIC_DRAW);

...will that overwrite the old buffer with my new data? Or do I also have to delete the old one? Is there a better way?

Answer 1

The size of any OpenGL buffer object is set when you call glBufferData. That is, OpenGL will allocate the amount of memory you specify in the second argument of glBufferData (which isn't listed in the OP). In fact, if you call, for example glBufferData( GL_ARRAY_BUFFER, bufferSize, NULL, GL_DYNAMIC_DRAW ); OpenGL will create a buffer of bufferSize bytes of uninitialized data.

You can load any amount of data (up to the size of the buffer) using glBufferSubData, glMapBuffer, or any of the other routines for passing data. The only way to resize the buffer is to call glBufferData with a new size for the same buffer id (the value returned from glGenBuffers).

That said, you can always use a subset of the data in the buffer (which would be akin to deleting vertices), and if you render using glDrawElements, you can randomly access elements in the buffer. Adding vertices to a buffer would require allocating a larger buffer, and then you'd need to reload all of the data in the buffer.