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Smoothing groups in cinema 4D?

Hi all
I just discovered this site,and it's very informative,helped me a lot.
Seems most of u are using Max or Maya,wich makes some terminology hard to follow for me.
How would smoothing groups translate to a cinema 4d user,or is that something not in C4D?
thx

Replies

  • Eric Chadwick
    I'm not sure how they do it in C4D, but look for a way to break normals. Smoothing Groups are simply a way to break the vertex normals.
  • JohnJohnson
    Thx Eric
    Would that maybe be by disconnecting-breaking up part of the mesh,to individual "groups"?
  • Eric Chadwick
    Open up the help PDF and search for "normals". I have an older v2.5 copy of BP3D, there is some info about the Normal tag in the Object Mgr. Not sure how you edit them, except the Phong material has some kind of Smoothing control.
  • JohnJohnson
    ok thx
    I remember "break phong shading,might be that.
  • Ged
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    Ged interpolator
    ok thx
    I remember "break phong shading,might be that.

    yeah c4d has phong tags, that by default allow you to apply a certain angle eg 89% to the entire mesh but you can insert phong breaks along edges. its not as flexible as max as you cant have multiple phong tags applied to different parts of the mesh I dont think.
  • JohnJohnson
    I have a reference now,thx for your replies
  • J Randall
  • Spanki
    Ged wrote: »
    yeah c4d has phong tags, that by default allow you to apply a certain angle eg 89% to the entire mesh but you can insert phong breaks along edges. its not as flexible as max as you cant have multiple phong tags applied to different parts of the mesh I dont think.

    Actually, phong-edge breaks are more flexible than Smoothing Groups. Smoothing Groups define edge-breaks at a per-polygon level (at it's lowest), but phong-edge breaks are defined per-edge (although the effective/usable results are often the same - while you might just have a single edge-break in the middle of a seam of polygons, it would look odd, so the distinction is not necessarily any 'practical' benefit).

    Just to clarify, a Smoothing Group just defines a set of polygons. Within that group, if two polygons share a common vertex, the normal is also shared (or at least generated to the same value). You can have multiple Smoothing Groups, but that just defines different locations on the mesh where there are 'edge-breaks' between groups of polygons.

    Cinema4D's phong-edge break mechanism can achieve the same thing - ie. you just break whatever edges you want to - anywhere you want, on the mesh.
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