a normal is actually just a 3d point like a vertex,
but it represents a direction or vector.
each vertex has a normal, and the vector
obtained from these two points can be
used in several ways.
generally, it is used to describe how to light the
polygons, and the distance of the vector is used
for the light intensity. So, if you were to set all
normals to their vertex positions you should get
a flat-shaded mesh like if you set it with entityfx
(or whatever it is.) If you then scaled them up a bit
you'd start to notice lights starting to effect them.
The more you scale them up the more lights
effect them. a distance of 1 is the standard
value used in normalising polygons.
im pretty sure updatenormals is for smoothing a
mesh, so if it didn't change anything thats probably
because it is already smoothed.
but it represents a direction or vector.
each vertex has a normal, and the vector
obtained from these two points can be
used in several ways.
generally, it is used to describe how to light the
polygons, and the distance of the vector is used
for the light intensity. So, if you were to set all
normals to their vertex positions you should get
a flat-shaded mesh like if you set it with entityfx
(or whatever it is.) If you then scaled them up a bit
you'd start to notice lights starting to effect them.
The more you scale them up the more lights
effect them. a distance of 1 is the standard
value used in normalising polygons.
im pretty sure updatenormals is for smoothing a
mesh, so if it didn't change anything thats probably
because it is already smoothed.