The word polygon comes from Greek πολύγωνος (polúgōnos) and is composed of poly (many) and gnow (angles). By definition, a polygon refers to a closed flat figure bounded by line segments.
A primitive is a three-dimensional geometric object formed by polygons and is used as a predefined object in different development software. Within Unity, Maya or Blender, you can find other primitives. The most common are:
- Spheres.
- Boxes.
- Quads.
- Cylinders.
- Capsules.
All these objects are different in shape but have similar properties; all have:
- Vertices.
- Tangents.
- Normals.
- UV coordinates.
- Color.
Which are stored within a data type called Mesh.
All these properties can be accessed independently within a shader and kept in vectors. This is very useful because you can modify their values and thus generate interesting effects. To understand this concept better, here is a simple definition of the properties of a polygonal object.
