novice modeling question

[iC4]

erm......you can't compare those methods

the smooth command increases the face number alot, the soften the normals command doesn't change the geometry, it only changes the shader?!

not sure about that

but check the smooth options and set the smooth factor to 2.....it can't be the same result

[underdog]

If it's a high poly model then you would usually use the smooth option, when the model is finshed. You can turn it on or off in the channel box. Or you could convert to sudD, Modify>>Convert>>Poly to SubD.

I think the soften/harden stuff is used more for low Poly work.

Be warned if you smooth, and then delete the history, there is no going back to the base mesh.

[RedWarp]

I tried increasing the smooth factor, and it just made more, smaller polygons.

The thing is, there are no shaders or textures on the polygons at all - I'm just going by what looks like it works. When I soften the normals, it looks like it's smoother. I was just hoping that it would be an alternate method to the Poly->Smooth.

As for not being able to compare the two methods, that's ok. I'm new to this program, and I'm still learning. I didn't know that they had nothing to do with each other.

[iC4]

why do you want an alternate method? if you want a highpoly object for animations or stills smooth works very well. and as underdog allready said an alternade is suddivisions

[RedWarp]

why do you want an alternate method?

I was just wondering. Trying to save a little wear on the processor. :)

[-wT-]

Well the normals don't affect the shader itself, but the surface... I mean... well yeah, you DO have a shader on the surface, you always do, otherwise you'd have only wireframe to look at, so the shader is affected, as the shader calculates how the mesh looks like, with the aditional information of the normals to know how to scatter light.
So, smoothing out with normals should in most cases (Except if it's VERY lowpoly, like a human face made of >15 polygons, or such) make perfectly smooth surface (Oh and unless the faces have big differences in facing, like almost 90° turns between two faces, and etc.) but the silhouette isn't smooth, it'll never be, as the normals are just faking smoothness trough the shader, but if you see the hard edge where only 2-3 polys used, you're going to clearly see the 2-3 polys, as the normals don't move or change anything.

Smoothing out by making new polygons is better if you aren't making stuff that needs to be rendered realtime, as you can make smooth models even if you have the edges look "hard", by just making ALOT of polygons, ofcourse you don't need to, as the smooth option actually smoothens out the normals autom. for you. BUT when it creates new polygons, the silhouete will be smooth also, as the 2-3 polys making the hard edge you can see in the render, has turned to 20-30, or possibly 200-300 polygons, making it nicely curve, rather than look boxy.

Heck I'm sleepy again (I wonder why I always read trough these in the middle of the night :)), so you won't propably understand half of that gibberish, but I hope I somewhat explained how those two work.

[Sibben]

If you just want to make the model more round without changing the topology (i.e. more polys) you could try either the Average Vertices command or Sculpt Polygons (Smooth option). Bear in mind that it looses volume though...

The optimal approach is of course to add some edges here and there and move the vertices. Like a Smooth but only where you need it. Or Smooth and then reduce the mesh either manually or automatically...

[RedWarp]

Big thanks wT, that's what I was looking for.

Sibben, yeah, I've done a lot with splitting the polys and moving them around. It's actually fairly complex right now... Just need that final polishing.

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