Can someone explain the constants written in class descriptions

1000h

I just don't get the list of constants written in the class descriptions.  Can someone explain their significance and give an example of using a constant, not as in creating your own, but the ones written in class descriptions.  It has usually: return_type method_name() const and then a list of 'CONSTANTS:' for instance there is a Vertex Array constant in the Mesh class, but I don't get how you use that to reference the vertices

razvanc-r

Well, you can't really get a question like this answered, it's way too general. Some constants are used for some things while others are used for other things. But most of the time they're useful in giving you (as a game dev.) some information, for example KEY_W, or when checking for inputs, take for example a look at InputEvent, which gives you the type of event that was propagated, key pressed, mouse moved, mouse pressed etc.. For the Mesh, going through the docs I found:

void add_surface ( int primitive, Array arrays, Array morph_arrays=Array(), bool alphasort=false )

Create a new surface (get_surface_count that will become surf_idx for this.Surfaces are created to be rendered using a “primitive”, which may be PRIMITIVE_POINTS, PRIMITIVE_LINES, PRIMITIVE_LINE_STRIP, PRIMITIVE_LINE_LOOP, PRIMITIVE_TRIANGLES, PRIMITIVE_TRIANGLE_STRIP, PRIMITIVE_TRIANGLE_FAN. (As a note, when using indices, it is recommended to only use just points, lines or triangles).The format of a surface determines which arrays it will allocate and hold, so “format” is a combination of ARRAY_FORMAT_* mask constants ORed together. ARRAY_FORMAT_VERTEX must be always present. “array_len” determines the amount of vertices in the array (not primitives!). if ARRAY_FORMAT_INDEX is in the format mask, then it means that an index array will be allocated and “index_array_len” must be passed.Now it isn't clear exactly because the documentation still lacks a bit, but it is clear enough. If you go search a bit more you'll find:

int surface_get_format ( int surf_idx ) const

Return the format mask of the requested surface (see add_surface).So what I understand is that once you have your mesh imported, you can get the format of the arrays holding the vertex information for whatever reason (I have no experience with 3D so I wouldn't know why you'd want this info). In this example you'd do something like:

mesh.surface_get_format(surf_idx) == Mesh.ARRAY_FORMAT_VERTEX | Mesh.ARRAY_FORMAT_INDEX

let's say... which I don't really know why it would be useful because I also don't know what those specific array formats mean but anyway, this is how you go about learning about these things and with experimentation :).