How to get soft shadows across the faces?

Support Modeling
1

I’m begginer user, therefore it might be some basic obvious stuff that I’ve overlooked surfing through wiki. I was trying to use Search feature but no matter what I write there it gives no results whatsoever.

I would like to get a bit more normal looking shadows so my model doesn’t appear as blocky as it is (now each face seems to be shaded separately which results in unpleasant blocky effect unless I subdivide it into oblivion with subdivision surface modifier). I know it’s possible but I don’t know how to achieve it. I’ve seen models that have pretty simple topology and are looking quite good despite being low poly. On the other hand when I import models from 3DS Max or download .obj models they allways seem to be blocky, even despite having quite high poly count. For example this model:

http://tf3dm.com/3d-model/lamborghini-aventador-42591.html

After import it has all faces triangular which are visible in final render because shadows aren’t connected seamingly across the faces.

I bet this is something really basic but I have no idea what I am missing here - where is the droid I am looking for?

edit:
I’ve digged and digged and found it by myself. It’s in Edit Mode under Mesh settings: Mesh -> Faces -> Shade smooth.

Now the next question appear - is it possible to apply it for all selected objects instead of changing it individualy in Edit Mode?

I’ve found shortcut Ctrl+F but it doesn’t do anything.

2

You seem to think of shading and not shadows. the faces don’t seem to be shaded all sharp or flat, you can see that, when you look at the highlight on the red car paint over the tire. The sharp edges seem to be there on purpose, like on the real car.
You could try to set all edges smooth, to see if you really want all parts shaded smooth without the sharp edges now.
You could try the bevel-modifier to let the sharp edges look less sharp.
Or you could try to subsurf the model to have a better modelling of the curvature on the whole face.

But how you should improve the render, is the lighting, at the moment you seem to have one sharp spot-light with sharp light/shadow boundary and the mirror leaves a dark shadow area on the car. You coud try more than one spotlight or maybe better a hemi-light.
Perphaps you should consider a more professional lighting set.


I am sure, there are better tips and links, but I hope, I gave you a starting point.

3

Thanks for tips, they may come in handy later on :slight_smile:
It may be due to my lack of overall english skills, not to mention CG department.

Here is what I was looking for:

http://imageshack.com/a/img585/857/2h4s.png
http://imageshack.com/a/img585/857/2h4s.png1243×415 35.7 KB

Left part is changed to Shade Smooth, while right part is “vanilla” after import. Pinkish arrows - edges that shouldn’t be visible; green lines - edges that are intended; squares - points of interest. This is the setting I was looking for (in wiki it says it’s under CTRL+F both in Edit and Object mode but it is not working in neither for me) now I’m asking how to apply it to multiple objects (I found it in Edit Mode)

Model looks perfectly fine once I switch in Edit Mode -> Mesh -> Faces -> Shade Smooth

As for lightning I’m using 3 softboxes in Cycles for testing purposes.

edit:
better example:

Flat shading
http://imageshack.com/a/img856/2121/noe7.png

Soft shading
http://imageshack.com/a/img691/2018/j9a2.png

Same object, completely different result.

4

Just click Shading > Smooth in Object Mode (left hand “T” panel):


5

Oh… now I understand why I didn’t notice it. For some reason left panel looks different right after importing (when all objects are still selected) so I didn’t look there twice and just hid the bar. Thanks alot!

One more question though - how should I rename my topic so it was approperiate for the case? (for search purposes)