blazingsentinals blender progress

There are some fundamental things we need to understand, to make good models:

a) Flat-shading more than doubles the amount of vertices to process in the gpu (videocard). It does not mean that you should "never" use flat-shading, but it does mean you need to think about where and when to use it. The multiplication of vertex data occurs in the video card (GPU), not in the file, so you may think you have a low poly count, and feel falsely reassured; but the vertex count that is actually processed may be astronomical, if you flat-shade everything. Essentially, each tri will have its own 3 vertices!... no sharing at all!!!

b) You can achieve a flat-shaded look while actually using smooth shading, by "spitting the smooth groups". This doubles (splits) the vertices at the edges of each smooth groups surface, slightly increasing your vertex count in the mesh file; but it is much less costly, in real vertex count processed in the gpu, than flat-shading the whole surface.

c) In smooth shading, the video card interpolates normals, and this may cause unwanted effects; but the unwanted effects can be solved with extra cuts, which, again, add a bit to the geometry in the file, but cost far less (in real performance) than flat-shading.

blazingsentinal wrote:well i used a curve to make the main blade piece and my original plan ws to extrude that, but because its a curve i cant so i had to make a cube and do the edge from scratch. and why do i need the mirror on?