This dictionary defines and describes all technical expressions related to Primstar and Blender. We added some cross references to Second Life notation where necessary. This dictionary applies to our entire Documentation set:
Vertex: |
a point in 3D space: Note: A point is defined by its 3 axis coordinates x,y,z. In blender the z-axis points “upwards”, hence when you are in top view, you see the x-y plane (x from left to right, y from bottom to top) |
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Edge: |
a line in 3D space between 2 vertices. Note: A line between 2 vertices is always straight. You might be tempted to think that Blender also supports bended lines. For example when you use a Subdivision modifier then the lines between two visible vertices look like they are bended. But this is because the modifier actually subdivides the edges by adding more vertices. |
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Path: |
a series of connected edges. Note: Pathes are always straight and have no junctions and no crossings. |
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Closed Path: |
a path where the start-point and the endpoint are connected. |
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Corner: |
The vertex where two (or more) edges connect. | |
Polygon: |
A plane figure that is bounded by a Closed path.Note: Blender currently only supports polygons with 3 corners (Tris) and 4 corners (Quads). |  |
Face: |
Synonym for Polygon. Sometimes also used as Synonym for Quad (see below) | |
Tri: |
Short for Triangle, a Face defined by a closed path with 3 connected Edges.Note: Tris are the only Polygons which always are absolute planar. |  |
Quad: |
Short for Quadrilateral, a Face defined by a closed path with 4 connected edges. Note: Quads are not necessarily planar! Quads can always be constructed from 2 Tris. But take care! the construction can always be done in 2 ways and the results look different! See also the video I love Quads on Youtube. |
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N-gon: |
A Face defined by a closed path with n connected edges. N-Gons can be constructed from n-2 Tris. Note: N-gons will be supported by Blender in a future release. |
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UV-Map: |
Map which relates the faces of the mesh to areas on a 2-dimensional image. Important: The UV-Map is not(!) the image, but a list of face-pairs. The grid lines shown in the UV image editor are a visual representation of the UV map. |
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Surface-Texture: |
2-dimensional image for storing texture information for one surface of an object. Note: “Surface” is a synonym for “Face” in SL-notation. |
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Surface: |
Part of a Mesh associated to one single Surface-Texture. (equivalent to “Face” in “SL-notation”) Note: For Meshes a Surface does not necessarily need to be a contiguous area of faces. |
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Mesh: |
A 3D-representation of a primitive as a set of Polygons and optional up to 8 Surface-Textures. | |
Sculptie: |
Mesh with a fixed UV-map and an associated Sculpt-Map for baking, and optional one additional Surface-Texture. | |
Primitive: |
procedural Mesh defined (generated) by use of “Prim Parameters” (equivalent to SL-Primitives) and optional up to 6 additional Surface-Textures. | |
Sculpt-Map: |
2 dimensional image for storing vertex locations of a sculptie (used with UV-Map). | |
Blender related definitions |
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Object: |
any Object in the Blender scene. | |
Mesh Object: |
Object with mesh-data. | |
“sculptie”: |
UV Map for baking the Sculptie’s location information. | |
“UVTex”: |
UV Map for the Sculptie’s Surface-Texture.Note: a primitive can have more than one UVTex. The additional ones are named UVTex1, UVTex2, … | |
