Hi! In Blender (4.1), going into edit mode, you can preview the split vertex normals (taking into account hard edges) here: Functions to modify the vertex normals manually, with vertices selected in edit mode, can be found under "Mesh > Normals > ..." - or shortcut "alt + N": To flatten the vertex normals, you would copy…
No idea about blender. But this sounds like a geometry flatten to me. In maya it would be average normals, making sure all these point in the same direction. Again, its a possibility. Doesn't mean its the ultimate measure in this case. Look at the low poly without normalmaps, there is a pretty hefty shading difference in…