C++: std::vector - std::find & std::distance query - c++

Question

To give context to my question I will describe what it is I am ultimately trying to achieve - I am developing a game, I have a .obj model that I am using as my terrain and I must update the players height as they traverse the terrain (because the terrain is far from flat). I am achieving this currently by doing the following - when I load the mesh (terrain.obj) I store all its vertices (each vertex is a Vector3f object that has an x y and z value) in a std::vector<Vector3f> meshVertices, then every second in the "main game loop" I loop through every one of the Vector3f objects in meshVertices and check its x and z value against the players x and z value, if they are colliding I set the players height as the y value of the matched Vector3f object.
This system actually works and updates my players height as they traverse through the terrain, the only issue is this - my approach of checking every single mesh vertex against player position every second kills my frame rate, I need a much better system.
I will now describe my new optimized approach in the attempt of saving my frame rate - Firstly, when creating the mesh I don't just store each Vector3f vertex in a single std::vector<Vector3f>, I store the x y and z values of each Vector3f vertex of the mesh in three seperate std::vector<Vector3f>'s, named meshVerticesX, mechVerticesY and meshVerticesZ. These std::vector's can be seen in the following code:
for (Vector3f currentVertex : meshVertices) {
meshVerticesX.push_back((int)currentVertex.GetX());
}
for (Vector3f currentVertex : meshVertices) {
meshVerticesZ.push_back((int)currentVertex.GetZ());
}
for (Vector3f currentVertex : meshVertices) {
meshVerticesY.push_back((int)currentVertex.GetY());
}
Now every second I get the x and z value of the players position (casted to an int because I feel like making this system work with int values and not float values will be much easier for comparisons later) and then send them to functions that check to see if they exist in the before mentioned meshVerticesX and mechVerticesZ by returning a bool, the code responsible for this is as follows:
int playerPosX = (int) freeMoveObjects[0]->GetParent()->GetTransform()->GetPos()->GetX();
int playerPosZ = (int) freeMoveObjects[0]->GetParent()->GetTransform()->GetPos()->GetZ();
bool x = meshObjects[0]->checkMeshVerticesX(playerPosX);
bool z = meshObjects[0]->checkMeshVerticesZ(playerPosZ);
The functions checkMeshVerticesX and checkMeshVerticesZ are as follows:
bool Mesh::checkMeshVerticesX(int playerPosX)
{
return std::find(meshVerticesX.begin(), meshVerticesX.end(), playerPosX) != meshVerticesX.end();
}
bool Mesh::checkMeshVerticesZ(int playerPosZ)
{
return std::find(meshVerticesZ.begin(), meshVerticesZ.end(), playerPosZ) != meshVerticesZ.end();
}
Using the returned boolean values (true if the players position was in the respective std::vector or false if it was not) I then call another function (getMeshYHeight) that also gets passed the players x and z position that then checks the index of the respective std::vector's (meshVerticesX & meshVerticesZ) were the match was found, then checks if these indexes are equal and if so returns an int of that index from the meshVerticesY std::vector mentioned earlier, this code can be seen in the following:
if (x == true & z == true) {// boolean values returned by checkMeshVerticesX & checkMeshVerticesZ
int terrainVertexYHeight = meshObjects[0]->getMeshYHeight(playerPosX, playerPosZ);
freeMoveObjects[0]->GetParent()->GetTransform()->GetPos()->SetY(terrainVertexYHeight);
}
The function getMeshYHeight is as follows:
int Mesh::getMeshYHeight(int playerXPos, int playerZPos) {//15/2/20
auto iterX = std::find(meshVerticesX.begin(), meshVerticesX.end(), playerXPos) != meshVerticesX.end();
auto iterZ = std::find(meshVerticesZ.begin(), meshVerticesZ.end(), playerZPos) != meshVerticesZ.end();
int indexX = std::distance(meshVerticesX.begin(), iterX);
int indexZ = std::distance(meshVerticesZ.begin(), iterZ);
if (indexX == indexZ)
{
return meshVerticesY[indexX];
}
}
The idea here is that if the index from the meshVerticesX and meshVerticesZ std::vectors's for the original check match, then they must be the x and z values from an original Vector3f object when I first made the mesh as described earlier, and so that same index in meshVerticesY must contain that same Vector3f's objects y value, therefore return it and use it to set the players height.
The issue is that I cant even test if this works because the line of code int indexX = std::distance(meshVerticesX.begin(), iterX); gives an error saying the arguments supplied to std::distance are wrong (it says iterX is a bool instead of an int which is what I thought it would be).
So my question is - Firstly, if I diden't have this error would my approach even work? and if so, how can I fix the error?

Answer 1

I kind of lost track of your logic somewhere in the middle there, but to address the issue at hand: iterX is a bool!
auto iterX = std::find(...) != meshVerticesX.end();
In this statement, find returns an iterator, which you compare to another iterator, meshVerticesX.end(). The result of that expression (the comparison operator) is a bool, which is then assigned to iterX, so auto deduces that iterX needs to be of type bool.

Answer 2

could you convert your terrain's x,y coordinates to ints, you may need to scale it, then when you load the mesh you could just store the z value for every x,y point (you may have to take some sort of average over the 1x1 square). Now you don't have to look for collisions, instead for each object in the game you can just look up it's z value by it's (scaled) x,y coordinates.