Shapes, Properties, and Binding

• Simple Shapes
• Complex Shapes
• Property Nodes
• Binding Nodes
• Transformations
• Additional Shapes
• Images

Chapter Objectives. After reading this chapter, you'll be able to do the following:

• Use a variety of shapes in the scene, including complex shapes that use information from coordinate and normal nodes
• Explain how indexed shapes specify their own order for using coordinate, material, normal, and texture values
• Experiment with different effects for color values, shininess, and transparency
• Render a scene using different drawing styles for different parts of the scene
• Render a scene using different light models
• Create a scene with fog in it
• Use the shape hints, complexity, and level-of-detail nodes to speed up performance
• Experiment with different types of material and normal binding For convenience, shapes are divided into two categories: simple shapes and complex shapes. Simple shapes are self-contained nodes that hold their own geometrical parameters. Complex shapes, in contrast, may refer to other nodes for their coordinates and normals. This chapter also discusses important property nodes, including material, draw-style, and lighting- style nodes. Other chapter examples illustrate key concepts pertaining to geometric transformations and to binding nodes for materials and normals.