My concrete goals were to get building through CMake when using the Assimp library to work without manually copying the .dll, and to get uv-mapped textures working. Then, if I had more time, to work on refining the code for collisions.
I was able to get the CMake with Assimp working by having a command after building to copy over the .dll if on a Windows computer. UV-mapped textures are functional, and I reorganized how meshes would be organized, individual meshes are now collected under a model class, which moves the meshes together, while the scene class holds a collection of models in one structure (this is aimed to help collisions).
Implementing textures were simpler than I had expected, though I am a bit concerned for whether the current library I am using to load in the texture data from a file path is robust enough to use later, as stb_image is quite a small library.
My specific goals for the next week are to get working on animations -- for which I've portioned two weeks, I will likely be working with getting a skeleton and its related classes created, then getting that skeleton to move to match a loaded animation. If I have more time, I will likely be working on getting the mesh to move to match the skeleton (skinning) which would mean I would be looking into where the weight values are stored in Assimp.
I learned about how texture mapping works and some details on how OpenGL's binding and uniform functions work. I also, once again, learned about CMake and its many quirks.
My morale is better than last week, though I am a bit nervous about how animations are going to go, as it seems like a pretty daunting task.