Blender Smooth Edges

It is important that our objects get the right shading depending on the kind of surface and our artistic goals with the piece. By default, all mesh objects in Blender have flat shading. However, when we deal with round or organic shapes, we want the surface to be smooth, so that we don't get a visible sharp edge between each face.

Blender Smooth Edge Loop
Blender Shade Smooth Edges

Blender- Smoothing STL files with Blender for 3D printing Description: This is a tutorial for using the free, but powerful, software Blender (download available here: Blender downloads) to add additional polygons to STLs created in SketchUp. Doing this will create higher quality models out of your STL file, allowing for higher quality prints. Process: 1) Use. Aug 26, 2020 Blender 2.8 Auto Smooth and sharp edges 0. By Luis Roach on August 26, 2020 Videotutorials. Luis Roach writes: Learn how to set up the auto smooth and mark the sharp. After adding a smooth shader, you can also add an edge split modifier if you wish to keep some of your sharp edges sharp. In this image, I've roughly created your shape with and without an edge split modifier. /r/blender is a subreddit devoted to Blender, the amazing open-source software program for 3D modeling, animation, rendering.

Creating new edges and filling faces. The next step is to add any missing edges we'll need for our outline. The steps to make new edges are as follows: In Edit Mode, click on the Vertex Select icon and right-click on the first vertex of your new edge. Holding down the Shift key, right-click on the second vertex. Hit F on the keyboard to make a.

To smooth the shading of your object, select it, right click, and choose shade smooth. To switch back to flat shading, click shade flat instead.

Thats, great and all, but what does this all mean? And what if we have a slightly more complex scenario, like a Cylinder that needs both flat and smooth shading? Let's find out.

What is shading in Blender?

There are two kinds of shading we encounter when working with 3D art. The shading that determines if we have smooth or sharp transitions between our faces, and the shading we do in the shader editor when developing materials for our objects.

So how do we know when we are talking about what kind of shading?

Whenever you hear shade flat, shade smooth or object shading, we are talking about the kind of shading that determines smooth or sharp edges on the geometry.

When dealing with material shading, we often also hear acronyms like PBR (Physically based rendering), Shaders (as a thing rather than as a state), materials, and nodes.

In this article we are concerned with the first kind. For shading materials, this article will help you get started:

Related content: The complete beginners guide to Blender nodes, Eevee, Cycles and PBR

You can think of the shading of an object as the base coat when painting. Without the correct shading on the object, the material may not look as intended. For instance, we may see hard lines that shine through the material or different luminance on different faces.

To understand shading we need to have a basic understanding of normals, the driving factor of our shading.

What are normals?

A normal is the direction something is pointing. Vertices faces, and edges all have normals. A normals direction is a vector.

We can preview normals. In edit mode, go to the overlay menu in the top right corner of the 3D viewport. Find the Normals section close to the bottom of the drop-down menu and enable the normals for vertices, edges or faces, then adjust the size so that you see the lines drawn from each geometry element.

So, what does normals have to do with shading? The normals are the driving force behind the shading.

When we have flat shading, the normals are all pointing in the direction of the individual faces. This leaves no normals pointing in directions between faces, leaving a sharp edge between them.

When we switch to smooth shading, we average the normals between the faces so that we get a smooth transition.

Autocad architecture 2016 free download with crack. By controlling the normals, we control the shading of our objects.

How to combine smooth and flat shading on the same object?

We have primarily three tools to control the shading when we need to combine both flat and smooth shading.

Auto smooth
Mark sharp edges
Weighted normals modifier

If we want only flat shading, we use smooth flat from the right-click context menu. But if we want smooth shading or combine the shading, we need to start with smooth shading, so start by choosing to shade smooth from the right-click context menu for any of these methods.

How to control shading with auto smooth in Blender?

The first option, called auto smooth can be found in the object data properties. That is the green triangle icon in the properties panel. Here, find the normals section and check auto smooth.

Auto smooth will smooth any edge that is smaller than the given angle. So, for instance, if we set 90-degree, any angle between two faces that is lower than this will be shaded smooth. A value that works for most scenarios is 60-degrees.

This is how a cylinder looks with smooth shading and auto smooth enabled and set to 60-degrees.

How to control shading by marking edges as sharp?

Instead of letting Blender set sharp and smooth edges based on a fixed value, we can mark edges as sharp to have full control over what edges are sharp and not. Just note that this requires an edge split modifier. This modifier actually split the geometry making separate pieces. This is generally regarded as an outdated method of managing shading.

Blender Smooth Edge Loop

To mark an edge, follow these steps.

Right-click and select smooth shading.
Select you object and press tab to go to edit mode.
Go to edge select by pressing two in the number row on your keyboard or press the edge select button in the top left corner of the 3D viewport.
Select the edges you want to be sharp.
Press Ctrl+E and choose to mark sharp.

A blue outline will show what edges are marked as sharp. Now add the edge split modifier following these steps:

Go to the modifier tab, the blue wrench tab
Press add modifier
Choose the edge split modifier from the list
To only affect marked edges, deselect edge angle

To clear a sharp marked edge, follow the steps above, but instead of choosing to mark sharp from the edge menu, choose clear sharp.

How does the weighted normals modifier work in Blender?

The weigthed normal modifier takes the size of faces into account to determine more dynamically what kind of shading a face should have instead of just averaging the normals.

Related content: How modifiers work in Blender, an overview

It is useful primarily when we have beveled edges in our geometry. The bevels are made up of much smaller faces along the perimeter of larger faces.

Related content: How to solve bevel problems in Blender

With smooth shading, Blender give them the same importance, but the weighted normals modifier can look at the size of faces and give them importance accordingly.

This creates a weighted transition between faces that favor larger faces, maintaining their flat shading while still shading beveled edges smooth.

Follow these steps to add the weighted normals modifier to your object.

Select your object in object mode.
Right-click and choose shade smooth.
Go to the object data properties(green triangle icon) in the properties panel, find the normals section and enable auto smooth. This is a requirement for the modifier to work.
Go to the modifier tab in the properties panel.
Press add modifier and choose the weighted normal modifier.

There are a handful of settings in this modifier that we may need to configure depending on our scenario.

First, we have several weight modes. Here we decide how the modifier calculates the new normals, we can use either the face area, corner angles or both.

You can think of the weight parameter as weighting between faces that has weaker and stronger influence on the shading.

The threshold decides the lower end at which all faces are considered equal.

Keep sharp allow us to maintain sharp edges decided by auto smooth. This is useful when we have low poly objects without bevels.

Studio one funk rar. We also have the option to set a face strength manually as well, we can do this by pressing Alt+N to bring up the normals menu. At the bottom you will find set face strength. If face influence is checked, we can use this as a manual way of assigning strength to different faces.

External content: Blender manual weighted normals modifier

Final thoughts

We learned that normals is what controls how the shading of our objects looks and at the highest level we have flat and smooth shading.

Often, we have an object that needs a combination between smooth and flat shading or a weighted shading to look optimal. We looked at several tools that can help us achieve this at various levels and scenarios and different amount of control.

Thanks for your time

Author

Erik Selin3D artist, writer, and owner of artisticrender.com

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With the general reoganistion introduced to Blender 2.8+ a number of the options formally available in the Tool Shelf have been moved to more context appropriate locations, included the Shading options, Smooth and Flat.

Download: rivets & bolts example *.blend (c.200 KB).

Design note: the Smooth option available in the Toolbar is not the same as Smooth in this context.

Smooth Shading

The effect that gives the impression that a surface or area seems curved or has an organic appearance is called Smooth Shading in Blender. To assign smoothing, select the object in the 3D View then from the Object menu select Shade Smooth – Object » Shade Smooth.

Important: Shade Smooth (and Shade Flat) can also be applied in Edit Mode but is specifically selection based, only the selected elements – vertices, edges and faces – are affected by the property (note the options to smooth/sharp edges/vertices act as a proxy of sorts for Mark Sharp).

Although meshes can be smoothed in Edit Mode unassigned surfaces will appear faceted (default state) if smoothing has not been assigned globally (Object Mode).

Smoothing is generally assigned by selecting a mesh on Object Mode and then choosing Shade Smooth from the Object menu in the 3D View.

What Smoothing essentially does is treat non-planar surfaces (anything that’s not flat or part of a flat plain) as being contiguous, belonging to the same collection or selection.

Design note: Smooth Shading goes by many different names, Mesh Smoothing, Smooth Groups, Mesh Shading, Smoothing and so on, all relate to the same effect, whether a surface appears continuous or an edge hard or sharp.

In practice when applied to a mesh, Smoothing tends to make surfaces and objects appear ‘soft’ and undefined, edges difficult to discern because they are all treated as though they all belong to the single ‘smooth group‘. To alleviate this and create hard or sharp edges, surface continuity can be broken or split manually or automatically depending on the look required.

Design note: smoothing is particularly useful for games or low(er) polygon environments where the amount of mesh structure available to describe curved or smooth surfaces is limited. It can however, be used in most if not all circumstances to improve appearances.

Meshes are shaded Flat (left) in Blender by default which makes them appear faceted. When Smooth (right) is applied the opposite tends to happen, edges loose all definition and become difficult to determine.

Mark Sharp

Because Smoothing is applied globally, it affects the entire object, the most precise way to control it is to tag or mark specific edges with a special property that causes surface continuity, and thus smoothing, to break. This is done using Mark Sharp.

Design note: creating hard or sharp edges actually splits vertices along an edge into coincidental pairings without physically separating the mesh as would otherwise be done using Split.

To do this, select the object (or objects) to be smoothed and toggle in to Edit Mode (Tab). For ease of assignment switch to Edge Select mode and select the edges where a sharp or hard break in the surface is to appear. From the Edge menu upper-left of the 3D View select Mark Sharp – Edge » Mark Sharp. The highlighted edges will immediately tint pale-blue confirming property assignment.

In Edit Mode Edges are selected and ready to be assigned Mark Sharp. Once marked edges appear tinted pale-blue indicating the specific property assignment.

Once edges have been marked, access Modifiers properties and click Add Modifier and from the list select Edge Split. In the panel that appears ensure Sharp Edges is selected, Edge Angledeselected. The mesh will appear appropriately in the 3D View with tagged edges appearing hard or sharp, with others appearing soft or part of a contiguous surface.

Once edges are appropriately marked an Edge Split modifier is assigned and the Sharp Edges option set to Blender knows how edges should be split – using the marked edges only in this instance.

Edge Split Modifier

As discussed above the Edge Split modifier can be used in conjunction with edges marked Sharp to provide selective (manual) control over the placement of soft/hard edges. As an alternative the same modifier can be used to break surface continuity based on the angle-of-incidence between faces; beyond a certain point (value in degrees or rotation) surfaces split, below and it remain intact and contiguous. This is done enabling Edge Angle and using the Split Angle setting.

Design note: used solely, angle-based smoothing will break surface continuity whether the effect is wanted in a particular area or not.

To do this, select the object then in Modifiers properties click Add Modifiers and select Edge Split. The properties panel will appear. Ensure Edge Angle is active, Sharp Edgesdeselected (deactivated). The appearance of the selected object will change based on the default value, 30°, likely giving the appearance of faceting. To change this increase the Split Angle: value to include surfaces currently out-of-range, or lower to exclude surfaces currently within range.

Design note: the Edge Split modifier assumes Edge Angle and Sharp Edges are being used for mesh smoothing so both are active by default.

Assigning an Edge Split modifier to a mesh – access Modifiers, click Add Modifier then select Edge Split from the list.

With Edge Angle enabled use Split Angle to change which edges will be split and cause a hard or sharp line to appear on the mesh (break surfaces continuity).

Auto Smooth

As a further alternative to the Edge Split modifier Smoothing can also be defined using Auto Smooth to similarly manage surface continuity based on an angular value. In addition, if edges are also marked as Sharp they too will also determine smoothing, where edges appear soft or hard.

Design note: Auto Smooth ostensibly functions the same way as the Edge Split modifier except the ability to enable/disable Edge Angle and/or Sharp Edges is not available – if a mesh is marked with Sharp edges they will be used, else they must be removed (Edges » Clear Sharp).

To use Auto Smooth, select the object (or objects) to be smoothed in the 3D View then access Object Data properties. Scroll down to/find the Normals options (click the ► arrow to expand) and click the checkbox marked Auto Smooth to enable. To change the degree to which a surface or edge smooths alter the Angle value, 30º, increase to include more acute faces, decrease to remove those already included.

An alternative to using the Edge Split modifier is to use Auto Smooth which splits surfaces based on angle and will use any edges suitably marked as Sharp (remove otherwise).

Smooth Groups

Strictly speaking Blender 2.8+ (all versions in fact) does not use smooth groups to smooth meshes, it takes the hard/soft edge approach as explained above. Whilst this may have its limitations by comparison, namely groups within groups, these are almost exclusively managerial in nature as the overall effect is the same, a hard edge where the mesh has been/is to be split when rendered. To achieve a similar effect in Blender care should be taken with respect to achieving the end goal (visually) using judicial Sharp edge placement and the techniques described above.

Design note: in all circumstances it’s immaterial whether a given edge belongs to a groups of other edges/faces/elements because all that actually matters is whether the mesh, and thus surface continuity, should be broken at a given point. In other words, smooth groups are a way to manage smoothing and little else.

The colours above represent different ‘smooth groups’ that might be assigned to a mesh, each causing a surface break where it meets a neighbouring group at their respective borders – multiple regions can be associated with a single group so long as they are not contiguous.

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