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# 4 19-07-2005 , 03:13 PM
Lt Jim's Avatar
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Join Date: Sep 2004
Location: Queens, New York City
Posts: 367
Another overlooked element is whether or not your normals are "hard" or "soft". As a rule, any hard edge should have hard normals, and vice versa. Hence, a perfectly smooth sphere should have all its normals set to soft. Consequently, a hard edge (as where two planes meet at an angle) should have hard normals along the edge in question.

This often becomes a problem when appending to the polygon (ie replacing/repairing deleted faces, &c), as the new normals aren't necessarily as hard or soft as the ones already on the object.

To change the hardness/softness of normals, select the offending edges (or faces) while in component mode and go to Edit Polygons>Normals>Soften/Harden and choose the selection box. When in the selection box, you can select any value between 0 and 180 (zero being all hard, 180 being all soft) to adjust the hardness/softness. Play around with it. I have found it indispensible in making hard surface or organic models look just right!

Hope this helps...

Carry on...