When masking a bitmap by reducing the polygons it's displayed on, what is the name of doing this?
I often see this done for physics, sort of, to have an edge around an object for detection etc, but a long while ago remember seeing a similar approach being used with polygons for visual masking, but have completely forgotten what it was called or how to find it.
ADDITIONAL INFO:
In this example, the polygons are used to "mask" some of the image:
http://fancyratstudios.com/2010/02/programming/progresstimer-for-cocos2d/
What's the name of using polygons to do masking in this manner?