It is deprecated, but many ES2 implementations don't support
EXT_texture_rg, thus this is the only way to have single- and
two-component textures without wasting precious memory. The enum value
isn't exposed on desktop OpenGL and ES3. GL_ALPHA is not supported, as
it doesn't bring any new functionality (it is also single-component
and thus can be interchanged with GL_LUMINANCE).
Advantages:
* The enums were large (600-800 lines) and they polluted the header,
now they are in separate files (except for BufferTexture, which has
the enum small enough to be left in the same file).
* Image classes now don't need to include OpenGL headers, as they were
needed only for the enum values. With advantage of C++11's forward
enum declarations there is no need to include the enum headers
anywhere in implementation, only when particular values are needed.
* The values are now less verbose:
AbstractTexture::InternalFormat::RGB8 // before
TextureFormat::RGB8 // now
* Resolved another "trivial choice" problem (thanks @JanDupal for
introducing this term to me): how to specify the format if there are
ten ways to do it (some being massively confusing):
Image2D::Format f = AbstractImage::Format::RGB; // too long...
Image2D::Format f = Image3D::Format::RGBA; // why 3D? this works?
Image2D::Format f = BufferImage1D::Format::RGBA; // wat?
It is even worse (and more verbose) with textures:
Texture2D::InternalFormat f =
CubeMapTextureArray::InternalFormat::RGB8; // this is allowed?
To have consistent naming this change was done also with
BufferTexture::InternalFormat (now BufferTextureFormat), although there
were no trivial choice issues and the enum isn't too large. But at least
it is now less typing.
Vladimír Vondruš