Are smoothing groups really necessary?

gnoop

I am accustomed to use custom normals  rather then smoothing groups .   Those groups  rather complicate modelling imo.    My geo and its shading look  perfectly fine after import but each time I see that "no smoothing groups in fbx file" error.  

Should I care?  Can it create some issues  and smoothing groups are really necessary?    

Obscura

Its fine.

gnoop

Obscura said:

Its fine.

Maybe they are necessary for some advanced lighting baking or something?  Distance field AO, Lightmass   etc?   So far I see no issues yet . 

Smoothing groups  looks like kind of outdated concept for me  so I wonder maybe I miss something?    With custom normals I don't even have to triangulate meshes .   Well, in our engine at least.

Obscura

No they are not necessary.

gnoop

Thanks Obscura

poopipe

fbx supports maya style explicit normals and also max style smoothing group definitions - if you dont export with smoothing groups they dont get defined in the file, 

its not a false positive as such but it's entirely fine to ignore it