More lighting problems

Chuffy_345,

If you are updating your loads of QUADS, then you need to recalculate the normal. otherwise, calculating it once will do.

To calculate the normal for a point, lets think of these quads as a plane in the xz plane (assuming x is the horizontal with respect to the monitor, y is vertical, and z is in and out of the monitor). Our normal is the cross product between two vectors, so if we take the cross product of this xz plane, its either in the +/- y direction.

For a more advanced algorithm to calculate normals, lets take a triangle like this:

...x1----------x2.....
.....\............/.......
......\........../........
.......\......../.........
........\....../..........
.........\..../...........
..........\../............
...........x3.............

First thing we need to know the culling direction, this will determine which direction the normal is pointing (in this case, either in or out of the screen). to calculate the normal at point x1 assuming clockwise rotation and using a righthand rule, we need to take the cross product of (x1-x3)x(x1-x2), which gives us the normal. For x2, we will calculate the normal by (x2-x1)x(x2-x3). Finally for x3, it is (x3-x2)x(x3-x1).

Hope that helps you out,

-brad

EDIT - sorry, stupid ascii art isn't workin right for me

[edited by - Galapaegos on March 26, 2004 6:43:55 AM]

[edited by - Galapaegos on March 26, 2004 6:44:56 AM]