Hi I know this sounds really stupid. But could someone please explain what a plane is and what a vector is. thx Edited by - Lukerd on January 17, 2001 7:57:55 AM

A plane is like a flat piece of paper, only it has infinite width and height. A normal is a unit vector (length = 1) which is perpendicular to the plane.

Nate Miller has written a very nice tutorial about planes and normals.

Basiclly a vector is a "line" from point A to B.
Were A is the origin and B is a point that the "line" (Vector)
passes thru, and into infinity...
That''s the mathematical defenition...

In most of 3d stuff, a vector is a line from the origin (0, 0, 0) to another point, so a vector is usually stored as an X, Y and Z component with each being the distance from the origin. This tells you a direction and also a magnitude, so a vector such as (5, 0, 0) could translate to "travel along the X axis at a speed of 5 units per time unit ".

They are often used to describe the velocity of something, so a car might use a vector to describe which direction it is travelling and at what speed.


Just beware that many people will confuse Vectors with Points because a point in 3d is also stored as X, Y and Z and it is often convenient to use the vector data type to store them.

Trying is the first step towards failure.

Huh..all that physics and algebra in highschool really comes in handy now....?

lol. Absolutly.. and most people say that you''ll never use algebra in your entire life. Ha.