Array Mesh: Godot renders in a clockwise direction (relative to what?)

[charjr]

Docs Version:

Both Stable and Latest

Issue description:

Array Mesh - generating a rectangle

godot-docs/tutorials/3d/procedural_geometry/arraymesh.rst

Lines 314 to 316 in 0863d63

	The ``indices`` array defines the order vertices are drawn. Godot
	renders in a *clockwise* direction, meaning that we must specify the vertices
	of a triangle we want to draw in clockwise order.

Godot renders the vertices clockwise... Relative to what? A specific axes, the camera, the mesh normals?

I was trying to do this with what I thought was clockwise and the rendered polygon faced away from the camera. Have I got my vertices' positions mixed up, or did I misunderstand "clockwise"? 🤷

By clarifying what is meant by "clockwise" here, it eliminates one possibility of where I, and others, may go wrong.

Solution

Either:

• a link or a (see X) to something else that describes this rendering
• explain it inline

[AThousandShips]

It's clockwise when looking at the triangle from the front, i.e. from the side it is meant to be visible from, see in the text below:

For example, to draw the first triangle, we will want to draw the vertices (0, 0, 0), (1, 0, 0), and (0, 0, 1) in that order.

I'd say the text is a bit dense but it gives a clear practical example I'd say, maybe we can add an illustrative example like this (don't add this one it's not sourced from a page with a usable license, just an example)

[charjr]

It's clockwise when looking at the triangle from the front, i.e. from the side it is meant to be visible from, see in the text below:

I think I understand now; the front face of the triangle is whichever side it was drawn clockwise from.

So if I pick them clockwise relative to the camera, then the front face is facing the camera.

I'd say the text is a bit dense but it gives a clear practical example I'd say, maybe we can add an illustrative example

I can't say when, but I can recreate that as an SVG, matching this style? https://docs.godotengine.org/en/stable/tutorials/math/vector_math.html#vector-math

[AThousandShips]

That would be great!