Do hard edges split geometry or just the vertex normals?
polycounter lvl 12
The reason I'm asking is that lately I've been trying to get a little more back into Blender for my game art. Now either I don't know how hardening lowPoly edges is called in Blender or it still does not have proper support for it. Well, at least not if I understood the whole thing wrong until now.
Blender lets the user mark edges as hard and in conjunction with an edgesplit modifiert draws them hard as well. This ultimately actually really splits the edges at the latest at FBX export, though. Now my understanding since using Farfarer's tools in Modo is that hard edges are split rather by splitting the normals along the marked vertices while still keeping the geometry merged together.
My question now: Is this actually just a convenience by other 3D packages and hard edge geometry is always split on export or is Blender's way of doing it merely still not up to date in this area?
To me it feels like an actual split would have a lot of drawbacks especially in flexibility and possibly animations when vertices could split along those hard edges when bending. Have all the 3D software packages been doing this all along under the hood hiding it from me or is there a techical difference?
Or is it in fact entirely different and my whole life up to this point is a lie?
Blender lets the user mark edges as hard and in conjunction with an edgesplit modifiert draws them hard as well. This ultimately actually really splits the edges at the latest at FBX export, though. Now my understanding since using Farfarer's tools in Modo is that hard edges are split rather by splitting the normals along the marked vertices while still keeping the geometry merged together.
My question now: Is this actually just a convenience by other 3D packages and hard edge geometry is always split on export or is Blender's way of doing it merely still not up to date in this area?
To me it feels like an actual split would have a lot of drawbacks especially in flexibility and possibly animations when vertices could split along those hard edges when bending. Have all the 3D software packages been doing this all along under the hood hiding it from me or is there a techical difference?
Or is it in fact entirely different and my whole life up to this point is a lie?
Replies
And since you're on the topic, go get the Blend4web plugin for editing vertex normal's.
As for your actual question, someone else can answer.
http://eat3d.com/forum/questions-and-feedback/blender-xnormal-cage-problem-using-edge-split-modifiersmoothing-groups
I then switched to Max, to Maya, then currently Modo to study the differences in the workflow. I would say that the way Blender makes actual split geometry introduces headaches to certain needs and workflows. I prefer the method of splitting only vertex normals used by the other modeling programs which makes the asset-creation process more convenient.
You can post your question at the thread below to receive more insight:
http://polycount.com/discussion/72805/blender-mega-thread
Thank you very much
@TheGabmeister
I'll have to make a few tests with this first. Baking usually happens for me in Substance Painter or Designer.
Zeit's settings in Blender actually keep the geometry together it seems. I loaded a model from Blender into Modo and the normals seemd to import just fine without any meshsplits. Have you tried @Zeist's settings and still encountered similar problems as with the edgesplitting?