Glossary

In this chapter, we will collect and explain some glossaries and abbreviations in or related in Cocos Creator.

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Editor

Glossary	Description
Editor	Usually refers to the editor interface of Cocos Creator
Gizmo	Some controllers in the scene editor, such as for adjusting the position, rotation, scaling, or lighting of nodes, etc.

Graphs

Glossary	Description
VB, Vertex Buffer	A vertex buffer is a set of vertices in a model, often described as an array, where each element of the array is a composite structure, including properties such as Position, Texture-coordinate, Color or Normal.
IB, Index Buffer	Index Buffer, which stores the indexes of the vertices in the above VB, through which the specific geometry is combined, example: If VB is { (0, 0, 0), (1, 0, 0), (1, 1, 0) }, IB is [0, 2, 1], then the vertices of the triangle are drawn as follows: { VB[0], VB[2], VB[1] }
FPS	Frame rate, the number of renderings per second.
Layer	refers to the grouping of nodes when rendering, and the Visibility property of the camera can be used to handle whether certain nodes are rendered by the camera.
LOD	Level of details,which improves rendering efficiency by having models with different levels of details at different levels.

Illumination

Glossary	Description
GI, Global Illumination	Global illumination, or local illumination, refers to a set of algorithms used in computer graphics to calculate and simulate realistic light sources
LDR	Low Dynamic Range Light, usually refers to the color range of a single color between [0,255] (integer) or [0,1.0] (floating point), which is the color space that most display devices can display.
HDR	High Dynamic Range Light refers to colors whose color gamut is outside of the color space described in the above article. The colors in the display are likely to be outside of this color range, so they need to be converted to a region recognizable by the display using Tone Mapping when displayed on the display device.

2D/UI

Glossary	Description
2D Object	A 2D object created by a right-click menu within the Hierarchy Manager.
UI Object	A UI object created by the Hierarchy Manager right-click menu, usually encapsulating some UI element for interaction
Sprite Atlas	Atlas, which is used to improve rendering efficiency by combining some pieces into a single large image, and the engine provides auto-atlas function

Animation

Glossary	Description
Spine	A 2D animation software whose output animation files can be recognized by Cocos Creator
DragonBone	A 2D animation software whose output animation files can be recognized by Cocos Creator
DragonBone	A 2D animation software whose output animation files can be recognized by Cocos Creator.
Animation	Animation, the engine's built-in animation, no skinning, support for different nodes can be created through the editor animation function, more
SkeletalAnimation	SkeletalAnimation, animation component with skinning, more
Marionette	An animation system that supports user-defined state maps, and SkeletalAnimation for rich functionality, more

Physical

Glossary	Description
Force	The force that allows an object to move linearly
Torque	the force that makes an object rotate

2D Physics

Glossary	Description
Physics backends	The type of physics engine that the engine is wrapped in, the two types of physics backends provided by Cocos Creator are Built-In and Box2D
Box2D	Box2D is a well-known and efficient 2D physics engine
Rigid bodies	Define objects with mass that can be affected by forces and velocities, and are usually of four types: kinematic, dynamic, static and animated.
Joint2D	Physics joints are used to describe the physical connections between objects.
Physical Materials	Physical materials for adjusting the handling of friction and elasticity when two physical colliding bodies collide.

3D Physics

Glossary	Description
Physics Backend	The type of physics engine that the engine encapsulates. Cocos Creator provides several physics engines including: Built-In, Bullet, PhysX and cannon.js etc., which can be modified in the project settings to adapt to different platforms and situations, Note: The engine unifies most of the physics engine differences. However, some physics specific are only supported in specific physics backends.
Rigid body	Defines an object with mass that can be affected by forces and velocities, usually of three types: kinematic, dynamic, and static.
Constraint	A physical constraint that describes the physical connection between objects.
Physical materials	Adjusts the handling of frictional and elastic forces when two physical colliding objects collide.
Force	The force that allows the object to move linearly.
Torque	Torque, the force that makes the object rotate

Asset System

Glossary	Description
Bundle, Asset Bundle	A way of handling resources, where the engine algorithmically combines one or more resources into a single file (usually some kind of compressed file) for efficient storage and downloading
Resources	A special directory that the engine packages into a special bundle, which is loaded via methods such as Resources.load
Cocos Store	Cocos' resource store, where developers can sell and buy assets, source code, or complete commercial games

Scripting and Programming

Glossary	Description
Component	A script class than inherits from cc.Component, and can be attach to a cc.Node.
Events	Cocos Creator based on Web Event Standard implemented as an event system for responding to hardware input or communication between nodes, more.

Native Development

Glossary	Description
Native	Refers to the ability provided by Cocos Creator to run on any desktop native platform or mobile native platform without relying on a browser
CMake	A file format or tool for organizing C++ code

Other Features

Glossary	Description
XR	Extended Reality. Cocos Creator extensions adapted to OpenXR can assist you in creating added reality features, more.
AR	Augmented reality. Technology that connects the virtual world with reality, you can use Cocos Creator to implement your own AR applications. more.