These are the dominant building blocks of today's 3D graphics. What are they? The word "polygon" means a 2D shape with straight sides, and that's how it applies here. The usual shape is a triangle, although a few exotic games use other ones like squares or pentagons. Either way, polygonal graphics use the polygons as a rough approximation to depict 3D objects that would take too long to actually calculate. The way they work is to lock themselves together like puzzle pieces or origami until they form a 3D shape. Each polygon can then be rendered to 2D, where visual effects can easily be applied to each individual polygon.