Hey. this seems like it should be something simple but i cant figure out how to smooth out only the normals of the vertices that belong to the currently selected faces (with smooth out i mean recalculating the vertice normals based on the normals of the nearby faces). Thnx in Advance!

tab into edit mode.

Select whatever you want.

Hit [SMOOTH] in the edit buttons. Or hit W or CTRL-F to bring up a context menu, and select SHADE SMOOTH.

Thnx but my problem with this is that it makes no difference when i export models from blender whether i "Shade Smooth" or "Shade Flat". The normals i get in the exported models always stay flat.

Any other ideas?

what are you exporting the models as?

When I was exporting (.x) I noticed that everythtng was smoothed and I had to break up the bits I didn't want smooth. I can't remember what it was but in edit mode it was select a face/faces and split them from the faces I didn't want them smoothed wiht.

I think the problem will be entirly to do with the exporter, I wrote my own exporter to export to my own model file and did not have the same issue.

Quote: Original post by EternityZA
Thnx but my problem with this is that it makes no difference when i export models from blender whether i "Shade Smooth" or "Shade Flat". The normals i get in the exported models always stay flat.

Any other ideas?

It's the exporter's code that is smoothing all your normals.

im also using my own exporter. although i only just started it so it still needs a long way to go. Anyway i write normals like this


and that results in the normals always being flat.

Do you have flat shading toggled as a render state in your application?
Are you lighting your model?

Yes my game uses per pixel lighting. And just to be sure i did a simple test: I exported a plain 8 sided cylinder twice. Once with "Shade Smooth" and once with "Shade Flat" and i viewed the result in a text editor and theyre both exactly the same. here is what the exported model looks like. It only contains vertices, normals and faces.

v:0,0.707107,0.707107,-1.000000
v:1,1.000000,-0.000000,-1.000000
v:2,0.707107,-0.707107,-1.000000
v:3,-0.000000,-1.000000,-1.000000
v:4,-0.707107,-0.707107,-1.000000
v:5,-1.000000,0.000000,-1.000000
v:6,-0.707107,0.707107,-1.000000
v:7,-0.000000,1.000000,-1.000000
v:8,0.707106,0.707107,1.000000
v:9,1.000000,0.000001,1.000000
v:10,0.707107,-0.707107,1.000000
v:11,-0.000000,-1.000000,1.000000
v:12,-0.707107,-0.707107,1.000000
v:13,-1.000000,0.000001,1.000000
v:14,-0.707106,0.707107,1.000000
v:15,0.000001,1.000000,1.000000
v:16,0.000000,0.000000,-1.000000
v:17,0.000000,0.000000,1.000000
n:0,0.479812,0.479812,-0.734489
n:1,0.678579,0.000000,-0.734489
n:2,0.479812,-0.479812,-0.734489
n:3,0.000000,-0.678579,-0.734489
n:4,-0.479812,-0.479812,-0.734489
n:5,-0.678579,0.000000,-0.734489
n:6,-0.479812,0.479812,-0.734489
n:7,0.000000,0.678579,-0.734489
n:8,0.479812,0.479812,0.734489
n:9,0.678579,0.000000,0.734489
n:10,0.479812,-0.479812,0.734489
n:11,0.000000,-0.678579,0.734489
n:12,-0.479812,-0.479812,0.734489
n:13,-0.678579,0.000000,0.734489
n:14,-0.479812,0.479812,0.734489
n:15,0.000000,0.678579,0.734489
n:16,0.000000,0.000000,-1.000000
n:17,0.000000,0.000000,1.000000
:triangle:16,0,1
:triangle:17,9,8
:triangle:16,1,2
:triangle:17,10,9
:triangle:16,2,3
:triangle:17,11,10
:triangle:16,3,4
:triangle:17,12,11
:triangle:16,4,5
:triangle:17,13,12
:triangle:16,5,6
:triangle:17,14,13
:triangle:16,6,7
:triangle:17,15,14
:triangle:7,0,16
:triangle:17,8,15
:quad:0,8,9,1
:quad:1,9,10,2
:quad:2,10,11,3
:quad:3,11,12,4
:quad:4,12,13,5
:quad:5,13,14,6
:quad:6,14,15,7
:quad:8,0,7,15
&


hmm... i might just be missing something incredibly stupid somewhere.

Your export is similar to the OBJ format, what happens when you export your model as .obj ? Does it contains the same normals, or the smoothed normals ?
If it works with the .obj format, just take a look at the according export script.