raylib data structures

raylib provides a set of data structures to help with organizing game data. These structs are common to most engines, and will be familiar to anyone who has authored video games before.

raylib data structures

    Struct name             [32bit size] [64bit change] Description
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    // Basic data structures
    struct Color;            [ 4 bytes]         -       // RGBA values, 4 char, 32bit color
    struct Rectangle;        [16 bytes]         -       // 4 float values
    struct Vector2;          [ 8 bytes]         -       // 2 float values
    struct Vector3;          [12 bytes]         -       // 3 float values
    struct Vector4;          [16 bytes]         -       // 4 float values
    struct Matrix;           [64 bytes]         -       // 16 float values, right handed, column major
    struct Quaternion;       [16 bytes]         -       // Vector4 alias

    // 2D data structures (pixels, font...)
    struct Image;            [20 bytes]    [+4 bytes]   // Image data pointer (RAM) and 4 data parameters
    struct Texture;          [20 bytes]         -       // OpenGL texture id (VRAM) and basic info
    struct Texture2D;        [20 bytes]         -       // Texture alias
    struct TextureCubemap;   [20 bytes]         -       // OpenGL cubemap, texture alias
    struct RenderTexture;    [44 bytes]         -       // OpenGL framebuffer id and color + depth textures
    struct RenderTexture2D;  [44 bytes]         -       // RenderTexture alias

    struct NPatchInfo        [36 bytes]         -       // Source rectangle and border offsets
    struct CharInfo;         [32 bytes]    [+4 bytes]   // One character image and info properties
    struct Font;             [40 bytes]    [+12 bytes]  // Texture atlas and recs+chars data array pointers
    
    // Screen view structures
    struct Camera2D;         [24 bytes]         -       // 2D camera offset, target, rotation and zoom
    struct Camera3D;         [44 bytes]         -       // 3D camera position, target, up vectors and parameters
    struct Camera;           [44 bytes]         -       // Camera3D alias
    struct VrDeviceInfo;     [64 bytes]         -       // Head-Mounted-Display device configuration parameters
    struct VrStereoConfig;   [304 bytes]        -       // VR stereo rendering configuration for simulator
   
    // 3D data structures (vertex, material properties...)
    // NOTE: Those structures are more complex so they use some internal pointers to data
    struct Mesh;             [60 bytes]    [+52 bytes]  // Vertex data, OpenGL buffers ids, animation data (skeleton bones and pose)
    struct Shader;           [ 8 bytes]    [+8 bytes]   // OpenGL program id, locations array pointer
    struct Material;         [16 bytes]    [+16 bytes]  // Shader and maps array pointer
    struct MaterialMap       [28 bytes]          -      // Texture, color and value
    struct Model;            [96 bytes]    [+24 bytes]  // Meshes+materials array pointers, transform matrix (64 bytes)
    struct ModelAnimation;   [16 bytes]    [+8 bytes]   // Skeletal bones data and frames transformation
    struct BoneInfo;         [36 bytes]          -      // Bone name (32 bytes) and parent id
    struct Transform;        [40 bytes]          -      // Vertex transformation: translation, rotation, scale

    struct Ray;              [24 bytes]          -      // Ray-casting position+direction vectors
    struct RayCollision;     [32 bytes]          -      // Ray collision information
    struct BoundingBox;      [12 bytes]          -      // Defined by min and max vertex
 
    // Audio related data
    struct Wave;             [20 bytes]    [+4 bytes]   // Wave data pointer (RAM) and data parameters
    struct AudioStream;      [16 bytes]    [+8 bytes]   // Audio buffer pointer (private) and parameters
    struct Sound;            [20 bytes]    [+12 bytes]  // Audio stream and samples count
    struct Music;            [32 bytes]    [+16 bytes]  // Audio stream and music data pointer for streaming

raylib slightly abuses the ability to pass-by-value. In fact, only around 10% of its functions need to deal with data pointers. With this in mind, data structures are kept as small as possible (usually under 64 bytes), and internal pointers are used with functions that need to modify the data (usually Load, Update and Unload functions).

raylib functions that modify data passed by reference

// core.c
char **GetDirectoryFiles(const char *dirPath, int *count);  // Get filenames in a directory path (memory should be freed)
char **GetDroppedFiles(int *count);                         // Get dropped files names (memory should be freed)

// camera.h
void UpdateCamera(Camera *camera);                          // Update camera position for selected mode

// textures.c
// NOTE: By design, MOST of the [Image*()] functions require passing an [Image *image] for modification
void GenTextureMipmaps(Texture2D *texture);                 // Generate GPU mipmaps for a texture

// text.c
Image GenImageFontAtlas(const CharInfo *chars, Rectangle **recs, int charsCount, int fontSize, int padding, int packMethod);  // Generate image font atlas using chars info
const char **TextSplit(const char *text, char delimiter, int *count);         // Split text into multiple strings
int *GetCodepoints(const char *text, int *count);                             // Get all codepoints in a string, codepoints count returned by parameters
int GetNextCodepoint(const char *text, int *bytesProcessed);                  // Returns next codepoint in a UTF8 encoded string; 0x3f('?') is returned on failure
const char *CodepointToUtf8(int codepoint, int *byteLength);                  // Encode codepoint into utf8 text (char array length returned as parameter)

// models.c
Mesh *LoadMeshes(const char *fileName, int *meshCount);                       // Load meshes from model file
void SetMaterialTexture(Material *material, int mapType, Texture2D texture);  // Set texture for a material map type (MAP_DIFFUSE, MAP_SPECULAR...)
void SetModelMeshMaterial(Model *model, int meshId, int materialId);          // Set material for a mesh
ModelAnimation *LoadModelAnimations(const char *fileName, int *animsCount);   // Load model animations from file
void MeshTangents(Mesh *mesh);                                                // Compute mesh tangents
void MeshBinormals(Mesh *mesh);                                               // Compute mesh binormals
bool CheckCollisionRaySphereEx(Ray ray, Vector3 center, float radius, Vector3 *collisionPoint); // Detect collision between ray and sphere, returns collision point
void UpdateVrTracking(Camera *camera);                                        // Update VR tracking (position and orientation) and camera

// audio.c
void WaveFormat(Wave *wave, int sampleRate, int sampleSize, int channels);    // Convert wave data to desired format
void WaveCrop(Wave *wave, int initSample, int finalSample);                   // Crop a wave to defined samples range