redirecting vertex normals
 

Folks, I created some planes and moved and messed them about to fill some gaps I had in my model. I comformed my normals to get all the normals around the right way, and then I averaged my vectex normals to get all the gap- filling planes looking all the same. The problem is, now because the vertex normals have changed the way the shading looks, when I render the frame, it looks all round rather then the sharp edge I want. How do I go from the top image to the bottom image? (I've highlighted what I mean)

Edit Polygons > Normals > Soften/Harden Edges > options.

I usually set it for 44 or so for that kind of result.

It's not an edge, it's a vertex. Does that matter?

no, it doesn't matter

Just have to select the object and harden the edges with a 44 degree threshold

Although, you could go up to 89 probably. Just need to experiment with it to get the look you want

Ah, so it's pretty much potluck. I can't look somewhere and go, well, that one there is 3 degrees, so I'll make these all three degrees"? I guess I could guess that it was 3 degrees, make the one I'm guessing from 3 degrees, and set the rest to it as well(you still following me here?) :p :saywhat:

Here's my results using Soften/Harden option of around 75.

hey i've been having issues with this as well. First off how do you view the vertex normals? I know how to view the face normals but I need to see the vertex normals so I can figure out which vertecies are messing up my model shading-wise.

Secondly once I view the vertex normals how do I go about fixing em? My biggest proble is because the vertex normals are all whack the smooth/hard tool never works unless I set vertex normal(using default I have no clue how to use this tool) then I set to face, then I avg normals, then I manually select the faces of the areas I want to work on I set those to face then use the smooth normals tool on that one area. so I have to go about doing this lil by lil and its quite annoying.

any help is much greatly appreciated.

:banghead:

you can set vertex normals to appear in custom poly display option box.

3dgurl, I don't know how to mass fix it, I fixed it face by face. I just selected all the vert's around the face and hardened all

well lol yesterday i figured all this out LOL.

The biggest issue with my model was when animating it the vertex normals would always try and point towards thier origin and cause those parts of the model to turn black.

well apparently by default the vertex normals are locked so i never knew to UNLOCK them. UNLOCKING them solved ALL my issues with the smoothing groups i was having. the smooth/hard tool now works PERFECTLY.

when viewing the vertex normal you can tell if they are unlocked by the way they look if they are unlocked each vertex normal will appear to have split up into 4 normals.