I would like to implement entity system in my game and I've got some question about entity system and rendering.

Currently, my renderer got two types of elements:

Current design

• Mesh : A default renderable with a Material, a Geometry and a Transformable
• Sprite : A type of mesh with some methods like "flip" and "setRect" methods and a rect member (With an imposed geometry, a quad)

This objects inherit from "Spacial" class.

Questions:

• How can I handle this two types in an entity system?
• I'm thinking about using "MeshComponent" and "SpriteComponent", but if I do that, an entity could have a Mesh and a Sprite at the same type, it's look stupid, right?

I thought the idea to have a parent "rendering" component : "RenderableComponent" for "MeshComponent" and "SpriteComponent" but it will be difficult to handle "cast" in the game (ex: did I need to ask entity->getComponent or SpineComponent, …)

Thanks a lot for reading me!

My entity system work like that:

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Entity* entity = world->createEntity();

MeshComponent* mesh = entity->addComponent<MeshComponent>(material);
mesh->loadFromFile("monkey.obj");

PhysicComponent* physic = entity->addComponent<PhysicComponent>();
physic->setMass(5.4f);
physic->setVelocity( 0.5f, 2.f );
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class RenderingSystem
{
    private:
        Scene scene;
    public:
        void onEntityAdded( Entity* entity )
        {
            scene.addMesh( entity->getComponent<MeshComponent>() );
        }
}

class PhysicSystem
{
    private:
        World world;
    public:
        void onEntityAdded( Entity* entity )
        {
            world.addBody( entity->getComponent<PhysicComponent>()->getBody() );
        }

        void process( Entity* entity )
        {
            PhysicComponent* physic = entity->getComponent<PhysicComponent>();
        }
}

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