Guide:Glossary
Explanation of jargon used on this blog. Please ask if there's something you don't understand!
Terms are linked here with anchors (I guess this is the best way???)
3-D Modelling
Normals
The typical way to render a polygon is with a single side. The 'normal' is the side that is able to be seen.
Primitives
Primitives are basic, building-block shapes. For example spheres, cubes, planes, toruses, pyraminds... I guess they're usually generated procedurally.
Audio
DAW
DAW stands for Digital Audio Workstation; a program for recording and manipulation audio.
General Computing
API
Open-Source
Procedural Generation
Procedural generation describes content that it generated by a program (algorithmically) rather than being made specifically. A common use it to provide random and effectively infinte level layouts, but it can also be used for sound, textures, terrain, and much more.
Workflow
WYSIWYG
Pronounced whizzy-wig, stands for What You See Is What You Get. Used to describe software that lets you edit in a form that looks like what the end user will receive. Think MSWord over writing your document in markup or LaTex.
Virtual Machine
A virtual machine (or VM) is an emulation of one computer system within another. For example a person may run Windows XP as a virtual machine from within their main Linux operating system to give them access to older Windows programs. Some people do it for security reasons too. Virtual Box is a common tool, and allow you to save configurations for multiple systems, which you can quickly launch.
