What are normals? and colors? (3D modelling)

Neverwinter Nights 1
1

Normals
The lexicon states only, that you need one line with 3 values for each vertice.

What do they do exactly?
How they are used in calculations?

And most important: :wink:
Can they safely tossed out, if I can assume, that the engine doesn’t support them (1.69)? Most commonly there are only zeros, but sometimes real values.

Colors
From the lexicon I take that they are only used by “advanced shaders”. So, if there aren’t any shaders, the can be eliminated?

2

Normals are used by the 3d engine to know which end of a face is “up.” You can go without them but they’re helpful the moment you start animating. If it’s static/not animated then no need to worry.

Colors - PLT textures are a tool of satan and I hate them, maybe someone else can explain them.

3

I thought this is a question of stirring the tree verts of a face, clockwise or counterclockwise.

So probably quite useless on a very static tile of a tileset (without animation loop or something)?

100% agree :slight_smile:

4

You will want them if you use MTR textures, as the lighting engine will use them to render the fake shadows, bump map, etc etc.

If you don’t use MTR textures, so far as I’ve seen its safe to ignore them.

5

Vertex Colors in mdl files are unsupported in 1.69 and unused by the standard shaders in EE. You’d need to write a custom shader to make use of them. As of now, I don’t know of any shader or model that uses them. You can dump them safely.

Vertex Normals you can dump safely in 1.69. They are used for shading. Some newer EE stuff does actually use them, however.
I should add that compiling an ascii mdl will add them back (along with vertex tangents), they are calculated from the smooth groups in the faces section of the ascii mdl. So they never truly disappear. Defining the normals yourself allows for more control though.

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