to get the x position of the next character, one should shift by xadvance.

but should one also add any possible kerning amount?

so:

x_pos_for_next_char = current_x_pox + character.xadvance

or

x_pos_for_next_char = current_x_pos + character.xadvance + kerning

thanks!

The latter :)

Of course, the kerning will be different for different character sequences so you need to lookup the correct kerning based on the current and next character pair.