The problem ultimately turned out to be an issue with the Model Loader provided by my Professor, was somehow incompatible with modern opengl and would only "mostly" work in that it was clearly missing the left/right normals or they had invalid values. Solved with using an implementation of Assimp.
The code, with assimp linked is like this:
void blInitResWAssimp() {
cout << "blInitResWAssimp" << endl;
blCreateModelViewProjectionMatrix();
//loads object
bool res = loadAssImp("Resources/RCSS-subdiv.obj", indices, indexed_vertices, indexed_uvs, indexed_normals);
//bool res = loadAssImp("Resources/cheb.obj", indices, indexed_vertices, indexed_uvs, indexed_normals);
glGenVertexArrays(1, &VertexArrayID);
glBindVertexArray(VertexArrayID);
// Load it into a VBO
glGenBuffers(1, &vertexbuffer);
glBindBuffer(GL_ARRAY_BUFFER, vertexbuffer);
glBufferData(GL_ARRAY_BUFFER, indexed_vertices.size() * sizeof(glm::vec3), &indexed_vertices[0], GL_STATIC_DRAW);
// Normal buffer
glGenBuffers(1, &normalbuffer);
glBindBuffer(GL_ARRAY_BUFFER, normalbuffer);
glBufferData(GL_ARRAY_BUFFER, indexed_normals.size() * sizeof(glm::vec3), &indexed_normals[0], GL_STATIC_DRAW);
// Generate a buffer for the indices as well
glGenBuffers(1, &elementbuffer);
glBindBuffer(GL_ELEMENT_ARRAY_BUFFER, elementbuffer);
glBufferData(GL_ELEMENT_ARRAY_BUFFER, indices.size() * sizeof(unsigned short), &indices[0], GL_STATIC_DRAW);
//ModelMatrix = ModelMatrix * glm::translate(glm::mat4(1.0f), glm::vec3(-0.5, -0.5, 0));
}
Assimp stuff
bool loadAssImp(
const char * path,
std::vector<unsigned short> & indices,
std::vector<glm::vec3> & vertices,
std::vector<glm::vec2> & uvs,
std::vector<glm::vec3> & normals
){
Assimp::Importer importer;
const aiScene* scene = importer.ReadFile(path, 0/*aiProcess_JoinIdenticalVertices | aiProcess_SortByPType*/);
if (!scene) {
fprintf(stderr, importer.GetErrorString());
getchar();
return false;
}
const aiMesh* mesh = scene->mMeshes[0]; // In this simple example code we always use the 1rst mesh (in OBJ files there is often only one anyway)
const aiMaterial* material = scene->mMaterials[0];
// Fill vertices positions
vertices.reserve(mesh->mNumVertices);
for (unsigned int i = 0; i<mesh->mNumVertices; i++){
aiVector3D pos = mesh->mVertices[i];
vertices.push_back(glm::vec3(pos.x, pos.y, pos.z));
}
// Fill vertices texture coordinates
/*
uvs.reserve(mesh->mNumVertices);
for (unsigned int i = 0; i<mesh->mNumVertices; i++){
aiVector3D UVW = mesh->mTextureCoords[0][i]; // Assume only 1 set of UV coords; AssImp supports 8 UV sets.
uvs.push_back(glm::vec2(UVW.x, UVW.y));
}*/
// Fill vertices normals
normals.reserve(mesh->mNumVertices);
for (unsigned int i = 0; i<mesh->mNumVertices; i++){
aiVector3D n = mesh->mNormals[i];
//aiVector3D n = mesh->mVertices[i];
normals.push_back(glm::vec3(n.x, n.y, n.z));
}
// Fill face ind5ices
indices.reserve(3 * mesh->mNumFaces);
for (unsigned int i = 0; i<mesh->mNumFaces; i++){
// Assume the model has only triangles.
indices.push_back(mesh->mFaces[i].mIndices[0]);
indices.push_back(mesh->mFaces[i].mIndices[1]);
indices.push_back(mesh->mFaces[i].mIndices[2]);
}
// The "scene" pointer will be deleted automatically by "importer"
}