What the heck are HARDENED NORMALS? And when do I use them?

[@evolvedant]

I've been using Blender for many years, but this is the first time someone explained split normals, how they work, the difference between using hard normals, and clearing split normals, in such a clear and concise way that also perfectly illustrated the point. Great job, really appreciate it.

[@rossknowles5608]

excellent approach to these confusing technical details. instant subscribe. I wish all online guides could be this clear.

[@realninjawatcher]

I fucking love you man. FINALLY someone went over this topic. So many times i've applied hardened normals and went to re-bevel an area and it caused split normals and never knew how to clear it. Fucking Thank You, thats all I want to say.

[@lawrencedoliveiro9104]

0:31 The technique is called “Phong shading”. Named for, and invented by, early CG pioneer Bui-Tuong Phong, who unfortunately died very young.

[@Puckerization]

Beautifully explained...thank you!

[@SewerTapes]

This morning was my first time checking the Harden Normals box in the bevel popup menu. Saw the shading change, didn't understand why, Googled it, and this video came up. I had no real working knowledge of the relationship between face and vertex normals, or what Shade Smooth actually does to pull off its effect. Thank you for this demonstration, I found it highly informative. Happy to subscribe.

[@vstreet7583]

Another great explanation. I think I will need another week or two to explore the wonders of your channel. Thank you. Dg

[@IrocZIV]

I like the detailed explanations.

[@michaeljburt]

Fantastic video! So bizarre... just last night I had to google "why is my auto shade setting disabled" and it was because of custom split normals after using the harden normals setting! Great content.

[@repositorytutorial3d50]

GOLDEN CONTENT, thank you for this great overview of this very important but little expleined topic

[@zillaquazar]

Thankyou for going into such detail and explaing it all with elegance. I have subscribed because i see you have a lot to offer the blender community.

[@root0062]

Very greatfull for your explanations/lessons. Thank you 🙏

[@mahrcheen]

This was great!

[@gottagowork]

Because it adds islands for "Geometry/Random per Island", there are times you may want to avoid Harden Normals also for the Bevel Modifier and use Weighted Normals instead. Also, if you "can live with" using superelllipse at 0.75 (instead of 0.5 which creates a circular bevel), you end up with improved shading due to better curvature continuity (at 0.5 it's only tangent continuous) which also holds the "desired hard face" better. Can be an option if also Weighted Normals gets too wonky to use. The extra holding edge is probably the safest, I don't understand why this option isn't available in the bevel modifier itself.

[@Atimo133]

As always Great insight!! Thank you Christopher!

[@owenlloyd2528]

Thank you

[@YCai-pi7zu]

so what you are saying is don't use harden normal in a destructive workflow and do use it in a non-destructive work flow, right?

[@christopher3d475]

Yeah, that's a succinct way of putting it.

[@christopher3d475]

I should say too that if you are doing direct polygon modeling, meaning you're going to model the same polygons that are going to be rendered (not using SDS), using hardened normals can work. It's kind of context driven, but in general don't use them with SDS unless you're also coupling them with an edge crease.

[@lawrencedoliveiro9104]

Just a thought: the Bevel modifier has the option of letting you use a custom profile. So you could produce the effect of those additional support loops if you want.

[@samduss4193]

autogenerated and baked in.. that is where i got lost lol

[@sebbosebbo9794]

what can I say..nailed....stable.....again... 💣💥🗯💭💨💪🖖 question me what all this means for... Game engine models Low & Highpoly bakeing(texturing (normals, bumpmap, Ao maps,or Mix auto normals with a ready normal map etc.. )) what means this Cycle vs Evee renders high low poly models. . .etc., etc.,etc,. p.s. the rabbit hole is open 😎🧐🤔🤯😱🥵