Smoothing Out

For this post I am going to be commenting on using the smoothing groups tool, which is also new to me like the connecting tool but I think it was very useful all the same. 

I think this is a simple tool but can be very effective, for this tool you need to create a basic shape, a sphere for example. A sphere already has a smoothing group attached to it by default but when you take it off it looks like a cardboard cut out.

This image is showing a smoothing group applied to a basic shape.

This image is showing the same shape but with no smoothing group notice how it looks like a cardboard cut-out.

However you can easily put it back on and it looks so much better, you don't have to add just one smoothing group onto a shape you can add multiples, for example you can have one half of the sphere with a smoothing group of one and the bottom half a smoothing group of two.

This image shows two smoothing groups applied to one shape, one half has a smoothing group, the other half has a different smoothing group, and 3D's Max shows this very clearly.

As you can see it has a different shade to the shape to show that the shape has a different smoothing group on it. If you were to add a smoothing group to the shape and by mistake gave a segment of the shape the wrong smoothing group number you would be able to tell because it would stick out like a sore thumb.

This image shows how you would notice if you missed any part of the shape with the wrong smoothing group. It sticks out like a sore thumb.

Finally you can have more than one smoothing group on a section of a shape, for example you can have the top section smoothing group one, then the bottom smoothing group two, then have the two halves in the middle smoothing group three. Now having those different smoothing groups you think would make the shape look different but it dose not it looks like the shape only has one smoothing group.

This image shows the shape as if I had just created it, however the shape has three smoothing groups attached to it. One on the bottom, another on the top and another in the middle.

I think this tool is very useful and is an easy way of showing to different aspects to a shape, for example showing a join in a piece of machinery, having two different smoothing groups will show this a lot better. This is also the first time I have used this tool, as I used to use turbo smooth and sometimes didn't work out very effective however this tool is much better and should think I will be using this tool in my animation.