Still a newb in Blender. I have a number of (hopefully) simple questions that I've yet to figure out. Hopefully you can help.

1. When in Object mode, under the tools tab I can set shading to either Smooth or Flat. Does setting Smooth shading change the mesh in any way or just how it appears in the viewport. If it only shows in the viewport would it give a false illusion of how the item will appear when exported out to another 3D program.

2. I changed the default in User Prefs to Relative links for external files and such. I thought it would be a good idea since I may work on the same document on various computers. Since then I've noticed an Add on, Scene Skies, that gives me an error. It appears to have to do with relative links it cannot find. Tried reinstalling, no luck. Are relative links a good idea? Or maybe the error is unrelated. Any thoughts?

1. Smooth shading averages the normal to give the appearance of a smooth surface. So the answer is no. I believe that this setting is exported in the FBX format. Not sure about others.

2. You may need to store the sky file(s) in the project directory.

Hi, false1. In object mode, under the tools tab, those settings for smooth shading or flat shading do not change the mesh topology. They are simply a display shading algorithm which "fakes" the appearance of a smooth surface using some lighting and normals tricks. This information does not really do anything to the geometry, although the information can be passed through some export file formats like OBJ as well. Subdivision smoothing or relaxing the mesh, on the other hand, does affect the topology itself, and what you see is actually what you get in those cases.

Using Relative paths to external files is typically a good idea if you are going to share scenes or redistribute your content for others to use. The error may be related to this if the addon is relying on absolute paths internally, but I'd be surprised to know this is the case. It may ver well be however. Do you have any documentation over at SceneCity? Here's some more detailed info regarding relative paths from the Blender documentation itself:

https://www.blender.org/manual/data_system/files/relative_paths.html

Hello fasle1

First question smooth shading (am I could be wrong lol) does not change the mesh in anyway it is just a visual representation it will not add or change geometry

second question using relative links for external files usually from my understanding is as long as the other PCs or persons you may share files with has the same access to those path it should be able to find the file association. It comes in handy when working with in a team or across multiple PCs that have access to those external files and if there is a specific add on that is being used on one that is not being used on another then the error is not uncommon

I hope this helps answer your questions and sure others will chime in

I think Poser and Daz Studio both have versions of the smooth shading. It helps when doing organic or smooth objects. You don't have to use extra subdivisions. Just get it in the ball park and let the smooth shading polish it up for ya. Also in edit mode you can add smooth shading to individual elements (vertices edges, polygons) under the shading/Uv tab on the tool shelf side bar.

Cybermonk posted at 4:55PM Sun, 11 December 2016 - #4292432

I think Poser and Daz Studio both have versions of the smooth shading. It helps when doing organic or smooth objects. You don't have to use extra subdivisions. Just get it in the ball park and let the smooth shading polish it up for ya. Also in edit mode you can add smooth shading to individual elements (vertices edges, polygons) under the shading/Uv tab on the tool shelf side bar.

Good advice, Cybermonk. In addendum, smooth shading can be useful for low poly modeling, and smoothing group parameters are supported by many export file formats and many software packages. Smooth shading is a very old technique to help organic objects appear smoother at a distance, but now with the advancement of PBR and Physical shaders, there are much better techniques to faking smooth surfaces and high-resolution details. However, it helps to always consider the tradeoff of higher poly counts vs. smooth shading effects, and a good rule of thumb is to always use geometry to create the best possible profile curvature for your object. Smooth shading alone can never cover up a lack of proper topological detail and sometimes can ruin the appearance of an object in close up shots and/or certain lighting conditions.

Also look into the Opensubdiv implementation in Blender, and the benefits this subdivision algorithm can lend to viewport performance while providing the necessary smooth subdivision surface geometry on objects which may be viewed in close-ups at render time, or in animation situations where only true geometry will deform properly.

http://graphics.pixar.com/opensubdiv/docs/intro_30.html

Opensubdiv is widely used in other applications, and the GPU-side real-time tessellation of geometry can be very useful in animated shots. The only drawback is that I don't believe Blender's FBX supports the export of edge creases in Opensubdiv at this time. I'm not sure about that, as I haven't fully read about it in the docs yet.

Hey, thanks all. That's a good bit of info to digest. Most tutorials I've seen mention to turn smooth shading on. Seems to be the standard and I've never noticed an issue.

I see if I can get some more info from the add on maker and do some testing. Thanks again.

false1 posted at 6:06PM Mon, 12 December 2016 - #4292460

Hey, thanks all. That's a good bit of info to digest. Most tutorials I've seen mention to turn smooth shading on. Seems to be the standard and I've never noticed an issue.

I see if I can get some more info from the add on maker and do some testing. Thanks again.

Keep in mind it's common practice to turn on smooth shading at the very end of the modeling process as a means of "polishing" the model's appearance. Even a model with subdivision smoothing (OpenSubDiv) can benefit from smooth shading. It's not a good idea to use it during the modeling process, as the smooth shading can sometimes mask topology errors and other issues you may wish to correct for a clean surface result This is why the flat option is the default in new Blender scenes.

OK, I'll keep the info regarding shading in mind. I also see that the error I had with the Scene Sky add-on went away when I disabled relative paths. Are you sure that's the default? In any case relative paths wouldn't help me on multiple machines unless all my resources were in my working folder which is not always the case. I'll have to consider packing everything into the scene file.

There's an option in the Save As dialogue function which allows you to remap relative file links if you need to reorder your files and folders. This is quite valuable if and when you decide to sell or redistribute scene files with the community. On the other hand, as you've experienced, the feature is not always compatible with every addon as some of them depend on internal file path locations to function properly. Enabling relative paths can change these internal file locations, breaking certain attributes of the addon. According to the SceneCity thread I found over at BlenderArtists, the plugin was officially released for 2.77, and ( as of Nov 16th at least) not all of the functions for the addon were working for 2.78. I'm curious if this is also still the case for the SceneSkies addon, which would explain this issue you're experiencing.