Smoothing Groups - Revision history

EricChadwick: /* Smoothing Tools */ link fix

2015-06-01T20:20:45Z

‎Smoothing Tools: link fix

EricChadwick: /* UV Shells */ links

2015-06-01T20:19:54Z

‎UV Shells: links

EricChadwick: /* UV Shells */ fixes

2015-06-01T20:17:41Z

‎UV Shells: fixes

EricChadwick: /* Tutorials */ restored Ben's tutorial image

2014-12-20T17:12:09Z

‎Tutorials: restored Ben's tutorial image

Cheeseplus: Cheeseplus moved page SmoothingGroups to Smoothing Groups

2014-08-03T20:31:33Z

Cheeseplus moved page SmoothingGroups to Smoothing Groups

Cheeseplus: 4 revisions

2014-07-29T08:45:21Z

4 revisions

EricChadwick: Summary , TOC, UV Shells, Smoothing Tools

2014-06-21T15:34:00Z

Summary , TOC, UV Shells, Smoothing Tools

EricChadwick: summary

2010-08-24T18:34:41Z

summary

EricChadwick: WikiName

2010-08-24T18:22:12Z

WikiName

at 00:00, 1 January 1970

1970-01-01T00:00:00Z

New page

__NOTOC__
= Smoothing Groups =
<br> ["poopinmymouth"]

Example image explaining the steps to asign smoothing groups inside of 3DSMax. Created using Max 7, but should apply to all other versions.

[http://www.poopinmymouth.com/process/tips/smoothing_groups.jpg smoothing groups image]

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 == Smoothing Tools ==
 * [http://www.matthewlichy.com/turboTools.html turboTools] for 3ds Max includes a tool to convert UV shell borders into hard edges.
-* [http://renderhjs.net/textools/ TexTools]  for 3ds Max includes a tool to convert hard edges into UV shell borders. The author also wrote a script to convert UV shell borders into hard edges, see [[http://www.polycount.com/forum/showpost.php?p=1105439&postcount=7|[3dsmax] UVW seams to Smoothing Groups?]] Polycount Forum thread.
+* [http://renderhjs.net/textools/ TexTools]  for 3ds Max includes a tool to convert hard edges into UV shell borders. The author also wrote a script to convert UV shell borders into hard edges, see [http://www.polycount.com/forum/showpost.php?p=1105439&postcount=7 3dsmax UVW seams to Smoothing Groups?] Polycount Forum thread.
 * [http://www.scriptspot.com/3ds-max/scripts/edgesmooth EdgeSmooth] for 3ds Max is a tool to convert selected edges into hard edges, acting much like Maya's workflow. However the resulting mesh creates shading errors in some game engines.
 * [http://www.polytools3d.com/polyunwrapper/ PolyUnwrapper] ($) for 3ds Max includes a tool to convert UV shell borders into hard edges.

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 However, hard edges are not needed for every UV edge. There can be more UV edges than there are hard edges, in fact more UV seams are often necessary to reduce texture warping.
-Hard edges need to be separated in UV space, to allow the [[Normal_Map_Technical_Details#Tangent_Basis|tangent basis]] to twist around appropriately, creates less extreme gradients in the normal map (which reduces shading errors when using a non-synched renderer), and reduces errors introduced by LODs.
+Hard edges need to be separated in UV space, to allow the [[Normal_Map_Technical_Details#Tangent_Basis|tangent basis]] to twist around appropriately. This creates less extreme gradients in the normal map (which reduces shading errors when using a [[Normal_Map_Technical_Details#Synched_Workflow|non-synched]] renderer), and reduces errors introduced by [[LevelOfDetail|LOD]]s.
 * [http://www.polycount.com/forum/showthread.php?t=107196 You're making me hard. Making sense of hard edges, uvs, normal maps and vertex counts] Polycount Forum thread

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 == UV Shells ==
-To reduce shading errors with tangent-space [[NormalMap|normal maps]], it is best to use hard edges on your model everywhere there are UV edges. This creates less extreme gradients in the normal map, which reduces shading errors when you use a non-synched renderer, reduces errors introduced by LODs, and allows the [[NormalMap#Tangent_Basis|tangent basis]] to twist around appropriately.
+To reduce shading errors with tangent-space [[NormalMap|normal maps]], it is best to split the UVs everywhere there are hard edges on the model.
 * [http://www.polycount.com/forum/showthread.php?t=107196 You're making me hard. Making sense of hard edges, uvs, normal maps and vertex counts] Polycount Forum thread

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 == Tutorials ==
-{| border="1" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0"
+[[image:smoothing_groups.jpg|left|frame|Smoothing Groups tutorial for 3ds max by [http://poopinmymouth.com Ben "poopinmymouth" Mathis].]]<br clear="all" />
-|-
-|}
 ----
 [[Category:Glossary]] [[Category:TextureTechnique]]

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 <!-- ## page was renamed from 3DTutorials/Smoothing Groups in 3DSMax -->
 <!-- ## page was renamed from 3D Tutorials/Smoothing Groups in 3DSMax -->
 = Smoothing Groups =
-ds Max uses ''Smoothing Groups'' to create hard/soft edges between smooth-shaded polygons, by "breaking" vertex normals along the edges between polygons with different Smoothing Group assignments.
+ds Max uses ''Smoothing Groups'' to create hard/soft edges between polygons, by splitting/combining [[VertexNormal|vertex normals]]. When neighboring polygons do not share the same Smoothing Group, this creates a hard edge between them.
-Each vertex in a mesh has at least one ''vertex normal''. Vertex normals are used to control the direction a triangle will be lit from; if the normal is facing the light the triangle will be fully lit, if facing away from the light the triangle won't be lit. When two triangles have different vertex normals along their shared edge, this creates a shading seam, called a ''hard edge'' in most modeling tools. 3ds Max uses ''Smoothing Groups'' to create hard/soft edges, while Maya uses ''Harden Edge'' and ''Soften Edge'' to do the same thing. These tools create hard and soft edges by splitting and combining the vertex normals.
+Maya uses ''Harden Edge'' and ''Soften Edge'' to do the same thing.
 {| border="1" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0"
 |-

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