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Editorial Team
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Asked: 2026-05-26T18:59:45+00:00

I am trying to create a scene graph for my 3D game in which

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I am trying to create a scene graph for my 3D game in which every object’s transformations are relative to it’s parent. Each node of the graph has a Rotation, Scaling and Translation vector.

What is the correct way of combining the relative transformation matrices to get the absolute transformation of an object? I would be glad if you could also explain your solution.

Here is an example of to do it WRONG:
This actually turned out to be the solution:

Matrix GetAbsoluteTransformation()
{
    if (!this.IsRoot())
    {
        return this.Transformation * this.Parent.GetAbsoluteTransformation();
    }
    else
    {
        return this.Transformation;
    }
}

In this case, when the parent node is rotated, scaled or moved, the child is transformed the same amount, which is a correct behaviour!
But the child will only rotate around its own origin and does not move around the parent’s origin.

Applications:

There is a car model with four wheels. The wheels are relative positioned around the car’s origin. The wheels can rotate just like real wheels do. If I now rotate the car, the wheels should at all time stay attached to it. In this case the car is the root and the wheels are the child nodes.

Another example would be a model of the solar system. Planets rotate around their own axis, move around the sun, and moons move around planets.

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1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    With regards to your “how to do it wrong”, I hate to break it to you, but it’s not wrong; rather, it’s incomplete. You need to do those kinds of work independently of the parent child relationship.

    Here’s an example of that: The wheel is attached to the car just like you mentioned. If you translate or rotate the car, you don’t need to touch the wheels – they’re in the same location relative to the car. However, when you try to get the wheel’s new location in the ‘real world’, you have to traverse down the tree, applying the matrix transformations as you go. That all works, right?

    When you rotate an object, it rotates around its OWN origin. So a wheel should probably be rotating around its y axis, and a planet around its z axis. But now if you need to move a planet “around the sun”, you’re doing something completely different. This has to be calculated separately. That’s not to say it’s not going to be eased by using some of the same match you already have, (although I can’t say for sure without doing the math myself) but it’s entirely different.

    You’re looking at actually changing the state of the object. That’s the beauty of the scene graph! If you didn’t have a scene graph, you would have to figure out all the various values all the way back to the main scene and then do all kinds of math. Here, you just have to do a little bit of trig and algebra to move around the planet (you can google the celestial mechanics) and move the planet relative to its star. The next time the main scene asks where the planet is, it will just go down the scene graph! 😀

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