## 2.2 Links to Nodes in NIFF

### 3) Hierarchical Structure of 3D Objects

The objects in 3D games have a hierarchical structure, in many cases . For instance, consider the example illustrated below.
Figure 9 -- Object with hierarchical structure
This example is an object comprised from 11 objects (hypothetically named Man_Object). As an example, if the Man_Hip object in the above figure is the top level object, the links between the objects would be as shown below.
Figure 10 -- Hierarchical links in an object
In the case of the above figure, the origin of this Man_Object would be matched to the local coordinate system of the Man_Hip object. However, since Man_Object would normally have its own local coordinate system, and it could be imagined that Man_Hip would be animated in that coordinate system, Man_Object is defined as a NULL object and is linked as shown below.
Figure 11 -- Hierarchical links utilizing a NULL object at the top level

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