   Tangent vector issues
  Hi all,I can't seem to reply to this thread, but I had a question concerning one of the responses.http://www.gamedev.net/community/forums/topic.asp?topic_id=3204131)Quote:The basic rule is this: if one polygon has the texture "face-up", and another texture has the texture "face-down", then those two polygons may not be part of the same mesh.I understand how mirroring can screw-up the basis calculations, but what is meant by face-up and face-down?2)Quote:If I warp the texture a little, then you have to fudge the tangent and binormal a littleWhat is meant by 'warping' the texture?  And what is needed to 'fudge' the tangent and binormal.3) In this example, which I'm sure you've all seenhttp://www.terathon.com/code/tangent.htmlAm I correct in saying there's no 'fudging' going on here?  And that this assumes no uv mirroring?4)Is it reasonable to require an artist to not mirror uvs or do any other kinds of uv tricks (laying uvs on top of each other, or whatever) in order for my algorithm to work properly.  I'd really really prefer not to split up a mesh.5)Are there any other things that can break calculation of these basis vectors?Thanks   
  3) Yes, there's no 'fudging' going on here, but that doesn't mean you can't have flipped UVs. The code posted there specifically handles mirrored texture coordinates by storing a handedness value in the tangent's w-coordinate.'Fudging' of some kind might be necessary to handle sheared texture coordinates in which the tangent and bitangent may not be perpendicular.;  Ah, reply from the guy at that website.  Much appreciated!Ok, I see.  I overlooked that handedness check.So lets go back to this fudging, cause my problem is that my vectors are sometimes not perpendicular.  What do you mean by 'sheared texture coordinates' and are there other causes?Are there other causes?  How is it fixed?Thanks;  By sheared, I mean texture coordinates that have been laid out so that the s and t directions aren't perpendicular across some triangle. That is, the texels aren't square any more, but form little parallelograms. There's no perfect solution for dealing with this because the tangent space for any triangle mapped this way is no longer orthogonal. It may be possible to come up with a way to make the best approximation with an orthogonal tangent space in these cases, but this is not something I've tried. In my opinion, it's just best to avoid sheared mapping.;  Ah, ok.  I think I got it now.Thank you very much for your response.   