As many of the glossary entries are very inconsistent in style, here's a proposed "style guide" for glossary entries to follow
- Avoid adding terms not found in blender's UI or the manual.
- Avoid overly long entries. If an explanation of a complex term is needed, supplement with external links.
- Avoid duplicating documentation; if explaining the term is the primary focus of another section of the manual (e.g. if the term is the name of a tool), either just link to that section, or avoid creating a glossary entry entirely.
- Define the term before providing any further information.
- Avoid using constructs like "It is" or "xyz is" before the definition.
- Avoid repeating the term immediately or using it in the definition.
- For external links included as an addendum, make the anchor text the title or subject of the target page. Optionally include the domain name after the link.
For example
This entry:
Displacement Mapping
Uses a greyscale heightmap, like Bump Mapping, but the image is used to physically move the vertices of the mesh at render time. This is of course only useful if the mesh has large amounts of vertices.
Would be written like this instead, putting a definition first:
Displacement Mapping
Method for distorting vertices based on an image. Similar to Bump Mapping, but instead operates on the mesh's actual geometry. This relies on the mesh having enough geometry.
This entry:
Doppler Effect
The Doppler effect is the change in pitch that occurs when a sound has a velocity relative to the listener.
When a sound moves towards the listener the pitch will rise.
When going away from the listener the pitch will drop. A well known example is the sound of an car passing by.
Would be written more like this, avoiding the immediate repetition of the term:
Doppler Effect
Perceived change in pitch that occurs when the source of a sound is moving relative to the listener.
When the source and listener are moving closer to one another, sound will rise in pitch.
When the source and listener are moving away from one another, sound will descend in pitch. For a real-world example, consider the sound of a car passing by.
This entry:
Curve
It’s a class of objects. In Blender there are Bézier curves and NURBS curves.
Would be written more like this, avoiding the "it's":
Curve
A type of object defined in terms of a line interpolated between Control Vertices. Available types of curves include Bézier and NURBS.
This entry:
Subdivision surface
Is a method of creating smooth surfaces, which can take a low polygon mesh as input.
Sometimes abbreviated to Subsurf.See Wikipedia’s Catmull-Clark subdivision surface
Would be written more like this, placing the domain name after the link text:
Subdivision surface
Is a method of creating smooth surfaces, which can take a low polygon mesh as input.
Sometimes abbreviated to Subsurf.Also see Catmull-Clark subdivision surface on Wikipedia.