calculating normals for quad mesh

Question

I have a struct QUAD that stores 4 pointers to 4 VECTOR3D (which contains 3 floats) so that I can draw the quad mesh. From what I understand is whenever I draw a mesh, I need normal as well to properly light/shade a mesh and it's relatively easy when it's a mesh laying on a plain, using normal per face.

When I have 2 by 2 quad meshes laying on XZ coordinate and tried to raise it's centre (0,0,0) by a certain point, say (0, 4, 0) it would start to form real 3D shapes, then I need to calculate normals again. I'm having hard time understanding how and what is to be to calculated normals. As expected, the 3D shape shades like it's still a flat mesh, so it does not represent real shape. One of the explanation says I need to calculate normals per vertex instead of per face. Does it mean I need to calculate normals for all corners of mesh? once i have normals what would i do? I was still using old glBegin glEnd methods but now I feel like i need to use DrawArray method. I'm deeply confused and I'm pretty sure I don't make much sound but i'd much appreciate your help.

Answer 1

If you need flat looking surface then your normals will be normals to the quad plane. If you need "soft looking" surface you need to blend(read this and watch this cool simple video) normals - that will add sort of gradient.