[hohohmm]

Thanks for the explanations. Just want to elaborate on this point:

>> Also is it possible to collapse a series of such transforms in a single versor like you can do with matrices without going into dual quaternion stuff? In generic game developemnt, translation, rotation, and non-uniform scaling are all extremely basic things that cannot be handwaved away or "too big".

>Versors combine just like matrices (using just the ordinary product). (doing this for translations/rotations _are_ the dual quaternions, but you don't have to (and imho shouldn't) call them that.). Non-uniform scaling along your scenegraph (as opposed to in the beginning (object space) or at the end (view space)) is usually frowned upon in professional game development. (it makes it impossible to correct matrices using Gramm-Shmidt, and adds a lot of complexity to things like tracing hit rays etc).

Though frowned upon, it's important to retain the ability to do non-linear scales, as that's part of tuning things in-engine fast. It could be later corrected but without it, it becomes very cumbersome to do quick tunings of object scales or maybe simply doing quick scene mockups. I work in games in a professional capacity and find this usage very common and almost indispensible.