Does OpenGL ES 2.0 vertex scan the maximum number of bones?

Question

When drawing a model with a shell of vertices, what is the maximum number of bones on draw-call / batch for different iOS devices?

In OpenGL ES 1.1, the limit is set by the number of matrices in the palette, but what about OpenGL ES 2.0, what sets the limit?

Answer 1

OpenGL ES 2.0 uses shaders for all its vertex processing. It depends on how many homogeneous matrices you can create. This is the limit defined by the implementation, so it depends on the hardware and equipment.

You can also use quaternions + bone position instead of full matrices to save space.

Answer 2

From iOS 7, you can access the texture blocks from the vertex shader so that you can create the texture, fill it with matrices and access the matrices from the vertex shader. This will allow access to many other matrices due to a more complex implementation.