Matrix Transformations — Soft8Soft
Description: Find out how to perform object and matrix transformations in Verge3D toolkit.

# Matrix Transformations

Verge3D uses matrices to encode 3D transformations — translations (position), rotations, and scaling. Every instance of Object3D has a matrix which stores that object's position, rotation, and scale. This page describes how to update an object's transformation.

## Convenience properties and matrixAutoUpdate

There are two ways to update an object's transformation:

1. Modify the object's `position`, `quaternion`, and `scale` properties, and let Verge3D recompute the object's matrix from these properties: `object.position.copy(start_position); object.quaternion.copy(quaternion);` By default, the `matrixAutoUpdate` property is set `true`, and the matrix will be automatically recalculated. If the object is static, or you wish to manually control when recalculation occurs, better performance can be obtained by setting the property false: `object.matrixAutoUpdate = false;` And after changing any properties, manually update the matrix: `object.updateMatrix();`
2. Modify the object's matrix directly. The Matrix4 class has various methods for modifying the matrix: `object.matrix.setRotationFromQuaternion(quaternion); object.matrix.setPosition(start_position); object.matrixAutoUpdate = false;` Note that `matrixAutoUpdate` must be set to `false` in this case, and you should make sure not to call `updateMatrix`. Calling `updateMatrix` will clobber the manual changes made to the matrix, recalculating the matrix from `position`, `scale`, and so on.

## Object and world matrices

An object's matrix stores the object's transformation relative to the object's parent; to get the object's transformation in world coordinates, you must access the object's Object3D.matrixWorld.

When either the parent or the child object's transformation changes, you can request that the child object's matrixWorld be updated by calling updateMatrixWorld().

## Rotation and Quaternion

Verge3D provides two ways of representing 3D rotations: Euler angles and Quaternions, as well as methods for converting between the two. Euler angles are subject to a problem called "gimbal lock," where certain configurations can lose a degree of freedom (preventing the object from being rotated about one axis). For this reason, object rotations are always stored in the object's quaternion.

## Puzzles

The puzzles which change 3D transformations for objects perform all required matrix updates automatically.