Triangles over quads
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in creating my graphics environment(only a small room) for my university project i have used a quad strip to create the walls of the room, rather than triangles as with little experience in CG i thought it would be ok at the time.
as my project involves the use of shaowing algorithms i was suprised to just read that an advantage triangles have over quads is something about the way they are lit, could someone explain to me why this is, and whether i will have to change my environment before i start implementing the shadowing algorithms(shadow mapping and shadow volumes)
Thanks
Considering that quad strips are converted to tri strips internally, I can't think of how either one would have an advantage.
hmmm... quads have 4 points, triangles have 3
3 points lay always in the same plane wheareas 4 poins don't. So if you were to calculate the normal of a plane formed by 3 points, you wouldn't have a problem. If the 4 points of your quad wouldn't lay in the same plane however, then you'd have trouble calculating the normal.
it's late, it's badly explained, but I tink it's about right
edit: if what JohnBolton said is true (and it more than likely is) then OpenGL makes the conversion for you and you won't have anything to worry about.
3 points lay always in the same plane wheareas 4 poins don't. So if you were to calculate the normal of a plane formed by 3 points, you wouldn't have a problem. If the 4 points of your quad wouldn't lay in the same plane however, then you'd have trouble calculating the normal.
it's late, it's badly explained, but I tink it's about right
edit: if what JohnBolton said is true (and it more than likely is) then OpenGL makes the conversion for you and you won't have anything to worry about.
As far as I know, the only advantage to tris over quads is that they draw faster. But JohnBolton hit it dead on, they turn out to be the same thing in the end.
Edit: Just listen to Shai. He knows what he is talking about.
Edit: Just listen to Shai. He knows what he is talking about.
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