Polygon meshes are one of the basic renderable geometry types in Softimage. They are ideally suited for modeling non-organic objects with hard edges and corners, but they can also be used to approximate smooth, organic objects. Polygon meshes are particularly used for games development because of the requirements of most game engines. Polygon meshes are also the basis of subdivision surfaces.

This chapter discusses some basic concepts of polygonal modeling. It also discusses some special selection commands that apply only to polygon mesh components, in addition to how to hide polygons.