Model Shading - Smooth or Flat?

[jc21539 9]

Hi all,

I've used flat shading for all my buildings so far, but when pulling parts of the mesh from the cargo harbor and cargo hub for the animated container port, I realized that the entirety of those assets - buildings as well as metal equipment - use smooth shading. Being a self-taught hobbyist, my first reaction was "oops."

Which do you use for your assets, and is it one or the other or a combination, dependent on the type of asset, etc, and why? And if you are using blender, do you use the auto smooth function under the data toolbar? Is there anything special to know about how unity handles smoothing?

Also, if you want to suggest any parts of my assets that would have benefited from smooth shading over flat shading, have at it and don't be shy! https://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561198014111549/myworkshopfiles/?appid=255710

Thanks,

John

[Ryno917 102]

On something with flat surfaces and hard edges it doesn't matter, generally. Something with curves you'll want smooth shading.

In Blender with smooth shading you'll have to split edges anywhere you have a hard edge otherwise you get a weird shading along those edges unless you go nuts with extraneous edge loops, because Blender doesn't use smoothing groups like 3DS does.

[jc21539 9]

55 minutes ago, Ryno917 said:

On something with flat surfaces and hard edges it doesn't matter, generally. Something with curves you'll want smooth shading.

In Blender with smooth shading you'll have to split edges anywhere you have a hard edge otherwise you get a weird shading along those edges unless you go nuts with extraneous edge loops, because Blender doesn't use smoothing groups like 3DS does.

Thanks, that makes sense. Regarding the split edges, I believe that is what the auto smooth function does - gives an angle threshold for sharp vs smooth edges.

[Avanya 2,605]

I always leave it on flat shading, enable the auto smooth and then just add smooth shading where I need it in edit mode (found in the toolbar on the right under "Shading/UVs"). I found this pretty helpful though if you're using Blender 2.8 things will likely be different.

[jc21539 9]

On 5/15/2019 at 9:00 AM, Avanya said:

I always leave it on flat shading, enable the auto smooth and then just add smooth shading where I need it in edit mode (found in the toolbar on the right under "Shading/UVs"). I found this pretty helpful though if you're using Blender 2.8 things will likely be different.

Thanks! So the auto-smooth works on individually smoothed edges as well? I'm sure I can just test it lol.

I haven't switched from 2.79 yet, I'm too afraid that I will feel like I did the first time I opened Blender.

[Avanya 2,605]

Yup, it makes the smoothing better in most cases. Otherwise it tries to smooth in all directions, which looks weird on cylinders for example. 

Switching to 2.8 is gonna take some getting used to. I installed it to mess around with it a bit and a lot of things have changed. I think it's mostly for the better, but there's some things I'll have to figure out how to do again.

[Ryno917 102]

I think I'll just take the plunge into 2.8 now before I get any more familiar with the old UI. No point in re-learning when I can learn it for the first time instead