Should I ever use a `vec3` inside of a uniform buffer or shader storage buffer object?

NO! Never do this! When declaring UBOs/SSBOs, pretend that all 3-element vector types don’t exist. This includes column-major matrices with 3 rows or row-major matrices with 3 columns. Pretend that the only types are scalars, 2, and 4 element vectors (and matrices). You will save yourself a very great deal of grief if you do … Read more