[Blender] Fix ugly triangulation [Edge Split & Smooth Shading]

[Sideswipe]

i just use edge split and set it to do nothing unless i mark an edge as sharp

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[Trogtor]

sketchup is doing things differently because its using the 7 tris for 1 rectangle method

and don't forget the 600 hidden faces that are on the inside the model and you never see

holy stuff i'm editing this model down so that it isn't 5000000 faces and i keep having a stroke whenever i see a 6 sided cylinder using 30 tris to represent something that only needs 4 and whenever i see the autism rectangles i want to shoot myself

why the forget

[Potatoh]

how do you make stuff smooth like the horse model does

[ArmyUnit]

how do you make stuff smooth like the horse model does

For getting the geometry shaped correctly, probably the proportional falloff tool (if using Blender) is the best way to go, but you could just do it manually if you know what you are doing.

And then for the visual smooth-shading, you just use the technique in the OP. In general, you'll want faces that roughly face the same direction to be connected, but split from faces that are along hard angles (especially 90deg or more), such as along the front of the horse, for example:


A lot of this also just takes some experimentation and trying out what looks best, and really it's more of an artistic process imo. It really depends on what aspect of the model's form you want to emphasize.

[Trogtor]

how do you make stuff smooth like the horse model does

the exact same way, you're just splitting more faces into their own separate connected shape to smooth shade.

[Trogtor]

-forget this post im just gonna set my cup here-

[Trogtor]

Here we have two horses,

the horse on the left is completely flat shaded. I removed all triangulation and all vertices are connected.
the horse on the right is the horse with semi smooth shading as you see in blockland.





This is the part I want to smooth, so I'm doing manual edge split and smooth here on the left side of the tail



the left side of the tail looks identical to the other horse.

[Goth77]

If you are using blender you can use F to merge same-side faces that are split into tris, which also helps to reduce overall face count and simplify the model in general

example from the base of the default sword

As is:


After face merging:


Note this was done after removing doubles - another good thing for reducing the overall vertex count

[Trogtor]

all types of 3d geometry is made of triangles. in fact, when you export that model and import it back it's just going to be triangulated again

[Masterlegodude]

If you are using blender you can use F to merge same-side faces that are split into tris, which also helps to reduce overall face count and simplify the model in general

example from the base of the default sword

As is:
[img ]https://s18.postimg.org/lv0l2vghl/Def_Sword_T.png[/img]

After face merging:
[img ]https://s18.postimg.org/l5hsqi889/Def_Sword_Q.png[/img]

Note this was done after removing doubles - another good thing for reducing the overall vertex count

This won't actually lower the vertex count nor smooth out the triangulated faces, you'll only see this in Blender as most games will convert those back into triangular mesh

[McJob]

Animation uses quads, but all games render in tris because they're cheaper and they've been the standard for two decades. You model and animate in quads, and then triangulate down when it's ready for export. I've got literally no idea what Goth is on about.

[Goth77]

all types of 3d geometry is made of triangles. in fact, when you export that model and import it back it's just going to be triangulated again

I exported it and re-imported it, and the quads did not re-triangulate

This won't actually lower the vertex count nor smooth out the triangulated faces, you'll only see this in Blender as most games will convert those back into triangular mesh

This method is more specifically for making bricks since you can effectively bypass the 512 face count by using quads where needed. Take a look at how I did the cornucopia brick, it has 499 faces using quads - when converted to tris it has 998 faces and it would not work in the default blb converter

[Trogtor]

I exported it and re-imported it, and the quads did not re-triangulate

original and imported

[Goth77]

original and imported
-imgsnip-

My bad, I was testing it with an .obj not a .dts - as I mentioned it's really only useful for making bricks since they are represented by quads

[PhantOS]

sketchup is doing things differently because its using the 7 tris for 1 rectangle method

and don't forget the 600 hidden faces that are on the inside the model and you never see

holy stuff i'm editing this model down so that it isn't 5000000 faces and i keep having a stroke whenever i see a 6 sided cylinder using 30 tris to represent something that only needs 4 and whenever i see the autism rectangles i want to shoot myself

5000000 faces is better than one ;)