Rayan,
in an object without holes every vertex is typically shared by three or four
polygons. If they all reference the same vertex, that vertex only has to be
transformed and lighted once instead of three or four times as is the case
with the same object represented by a non-indexed GeometryArray.
Especially lighting can consume a considerable amount of time if you have a
number of light sources.
Therefore it is always faster to use an indexed geometry whenever there are
shared vertices - and most objects share many vertices.
I think Java3D renders TriArrays faster than QuadArrays, but you can also
use the built-in tesselation functions for automatically tesselating quads
into triangles. You may want to tesselate your quads when you know they will
not change for a longer period of time. I am not very much into Java3D
retained mode, but you should find information on automatic quad tesselation
in the API docs.
-- Julian
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