Smoothing groups

This tutorial is about smoothing groups. I allows a shape to be smoothed without having to use a modifier such as turbo smooth. This will greatly decrease the time to render.

I explored the technique using a sphere. I  made it an editable selected the top half of the sphere. I scrolled down the tools and cleared the smoothing group. I then rendered to show what had happened. It removed all the smoothness from sphere and showed the polygons that make the shape.

I then selected the bottom half of the sphere and added a different smoothing group, number 2. I rendered it and it is obvious what part of the shape has a different smoothing group.

I then slected the polygons that were connecting the two different smoothing groups. I made these have a group of 3. This means:

• The top half has a smoothing group of 1
• The bottom half have a smoothing group of 2
• The middle connecting polygons have a smoothing group of 3 with their respective smoothing groups (either 1 or 2)

I then rendered and shows that the sphere has 1 smooth shape, but with 3 different smoothing groups.

This technique will definately help when modelling and when rendering.