Shade Smooth & Flat¶

Shade Smooth¶

Reference

Mode:: Edit Mode
Menu:: Face ‣ Shade Smooth

Marks the selected faces for smooth shading so that the boundaries between them become blurred and hard to see. This is useful for rounded and organic surfaces.

More specifically, this makes the face corner normals at each vertex all point in the same direction (namely the average of the face normals).

Tip

After using Shade Smooth on a mesh and blurring all its edges, you can use Mark Sharp to selectively make some edges sharp again.

Alternatively, use Shade Auto Smooth to automatically apply smooth shading to flattish areas while keeping corners sharp.

Shade Flat¶

Reference

Mode:: Edit Mode
Menu:: Face ‣ Shade Flat

Marks the selected faces for flat shading so that the boundaries between them become sharp and clearly visible. This is useful for machines, crystals, etc.

More specifically, this makes each face corner normal match the corresponding face normal.