Exploring the usage of meshes and materials

For a computer to visually represent a 3D object, it needs two things: a 3D mesh and a material. 3D meshes allow us to specify the shape of an object and its size, while a material allows us to specify its color and visual tones, among other things. We’ll dive deeper into both of these in the following sections and see how UE5 allows us to work with them.

Meshes

3D meshes allow you to specify the size and shape of an object, like this mesh representing a monkey’s head:

Figure 1.49 – A 3D mesh of a monkey’s head

Meshes are comprised of several vertices, edges, and faces. Vertices are simply 3D coordinates with X, Y, and Z positions; an edge is a connection (that is, a line) between two vertices; and a face is a connection of three or more edges. The preceding screenshot shows the individual vertices, edges, and faces of the mesh, where each face is colored between white and black,...