polygons:
polygons are made of 3 components – vetices, edges and faces.
vertices are a point in 3d space.
edges join 2 vertices together
once the vertices are joined it creates a face.
axis:
2 dimensions (2D) = y and x axis. up, down, left and right. it is a flat surface.
3 dimensions (3D) = y, x and z axis. depth has been added and so a 3d space exists.
rene descartes came up with the cartesian coordinate system in the 17th century to describe the position of an object in 3D space (x,y,z). the story is that he created the system to describe the position of a fly buzzing around his room.
it is how maya determines where objects are in a 3d environment and it is useful to artists to model to scale.
alt + left click = tumble
alt + mouse wheel = move around
f = ground
r = scale
w = move on axis