Smoothing groups for UV island - vert count?

deolol

Hi guys, I watched a tutorial which said to use smoothing groups to seperate UV islands under all circumstances.  I hadn't been doing this - because I thought each split causes increase in vert counts. Am I mistaken or is this nesseccery for correct shading. Would I have to reduce UV islands instead?

Thanks

ZacD

If there's a UV split, there's going to be increased verts, so adding a smoothing split there is "free." This isn't necessary for correct shading, but it can improve how well your normal maps work. It's a bigger issue if you are not using a synced workflow, but even if you are, it still reduces compression and mip related artifacts.