Does someone have experience with using transformation matrices which include scaling, rotation and translation matrices?
Until now I only used rotation and translation and everything was fine and easy to handle. With the scaling part added, I end up with local reference frames with non-orthogonal x,y and z-axis. This makes everything much more complicated (for exact collision detection and so on). Can someone give me some good piece of advice?
Thanks 
Hello,
I have a similar question: the following matrix (or any combination of translations/rotations):
M = T3R3T2R2T1R1R0*T0
can always be reduced to one translation and one rotation : m = T4*R4
But this is not the case when using Scalings:
M = T1R1S1T0R0S0 cannot be simplified as M = T2R2*S2. This is my problem!
The solution it’s quite easy, while doing trasnformations (translations, rotations and scaling) U must keep in kmind you aren’t modifying the objects, you are modifying the coordinate system (not really but that’s easyer to understand).
So if you do a scale like glScale(2,1,1) you must remember that after that a translate like glTranslate(1,0,0); qill end up in :
Finalmatrix = TranslateX * ScaleX, so the translation won’t be of 1, but will be of 2 units.
The same for rotations.