OpenGL Question

What do normal points actually do? There are 3 axises for vertex position, 2 texture coordinates, but what are the normals for, and how does one determine what they should be?

sage

>>2
Why?

If the normal points towards the screen, draw the polygon.

They're also used for reflection and other effects.

>>4
Ah, so it's a vector, relative to the mesh, that points out from the mesh?

>>1
They're points normal to the mesh. You can't figure out why this information might be useful?

>>6
They're normalized (i.e. unit) vectors. Face normals are simply perpendicular to the face, in the direction of the face. You can probably guess how to compute vertex normals if you need them.

Just about any shader apart from flat shader pays attention to normals, it's not just for fancy stuff.