Graphics Programs Reference
In-Depth Information
Polygons
pol
y
gon
n
. A closed plane figure bounded
by three or more line segments. (
The Amer-
ican Heritage Dictionary
)
Polygons are the second-most-
basic building block for creating
objects in LightWave (second
only to the point). The most
common polys you'll be working
with will have three or four
vertices and three or four sides
(tris and quads). But in
LightWave, you aren't limited to
tris and quads. You can make
polygons with up to 1,023 points,
while single-point polygons are
often used in creating the stars
in space scenes.
Figure 3-4: Polygons in LightWave can be made up of as many
as 1,023 points or as few as a single point.
Polygons are the most elemental piece of
geometry that shows up in LightWave's
renderer because polygons have
surfaces
.
(More on surfaces, how to assign them, and
how to change them later on in this chap-
ter.) When you make a polygon, LightWave
assigns it a default surface (initially a light
gray). Once LightWave has a surface from
which to scatter its light, its camera can
“see” it.
But in order for LightWave's camera to
see a surface, it has to know which direc-
tion the surface is pointing. In LightWave,
that direction is defined by a
surface normal
.
Note
The key to doing anything in 3D is to find
the most elegant way of doing something.
By “elegance,” I mean to use the absolute
minimum to get the job done.
When you're building a polygon, use the
smallest number of points you need to hold
that shape in place.
Sure, you can see flat spots on the back of
the dog's ear at this distance in Figure 3-4,
but if he were
intended
to only be viewed at
half that size (or from twice that distance),
the viewer wouldn't notice those flat spots. It
is only when the object is going to be
brought close to the camera that you nail in
a lot of detail and then only in the areas on
which the camera will be focusing.
