Very useful method for when you can't use normal maps, I.e. due to massive scale like spaceships. I tried to push for it on Elite but unfortunately we're still using support loops to manage the shading instead. It was also used heavily on Alien Isolation. The biggest downside is that vertex normal editing is very finicky,…
There is a convenient approach for this in Blender. I have pretty old Max so probably it would work in modern Max too. You make all the edge bevels in modifier . Blender allows to make every beveled edge having its own chamfer width by "weight" adjusting in real time. Then make an object copy and turn bevels/chamfers into…
It actually has the same amount of verts as just using a UV split and/or smoothing split. Or potentially less if you account for tri-stripping? I think the main issue performance wise is the long and tiny triangles, though I suppose it's easy enough to LOD those out fairly quickly. And again there's definitely some…
Thanks guys. So what I understand is you are modeling an asset and editing the normals. To help with the normal editing you add support loops or breaks between surfaces to allow you to edit the normals freely, like in the examples you show above. For the high frequency details I guess you could just use ndo, or ddo or…
Hey guys! I try to answer to every of you, and to share my opinion now. Wiki - I'm also using this for a long while now, when I don't have exact limits. I use this, and many support loops with my personal projects, and to be honest, now I'm not trying to get it good with smoothing splits... Your results are showing the…
It diesn't really work like that in Max. Sorry but you should bother reading the first few pages even though its long, but itll give you all what you want. Don't listen to the first few posts, it can be misleading, but there are some nice suggestions by Joost, and I think it was maybe Moster on like the 2th 3th page-…
A while ago I made a script to allow quick editing of custom normals in Blender so that I could use it on the game I was working on that used cell style outlines heavily so we couldn't use split normals. It basically works by using the standard normal calculation but removes any influence from elements that are not…
Hello everyone! I already made a few examples about this to a few of you, but I thought it would be more useful to make a tutorial from it, so I won't have to write it down every time when it comes into the topic. Also this technique is becoming more and more popular as the next gen limitations allows us to use more geo,…