Weighted Normals
Smooth shading that keeps crisp edges
Also known as: Weighted normal modifier · Face weighted normals · Custom normals · Normal editing
Definition
Weighted normals is a shading technique that weights each vertex normal by the area or angle of the faces around it, so large flat faces stay smooth while small bevels keep crisp edges. It removes the shading errors that smooth normals cause on hard-surface models and lets you use fewer supporting edges. It is a standard step for game-ready hard-surface props, and in Blender it is done with the Weighted Normal modifier.
In production
Bevel the edges, apply smooth shading, add weighted normals and export with normals so the engine keeps them. Bake normal maps from the high-poly onto the weighted low-poly with the same normals, or the bake will show artifacts. The shading depends on the mesh normals, so do not triangulate or modify the mesh in the engine after export unless your pipeline keeps the custom normals.
Tools that use Weighted Normals
See also
Smoothing Groups
Per-face shading split
Bevel
Rounded or chamfered edge
Hard Surface
Mechanical, geometric subject matter
Normal Map
Per-pixel surface detail
Low-Poly Model
Game-ready mesh
Faceted Shading After Import
Smooth mesh looks flat-shaded in the engine
Shade Smooth Artifacts in Blender
Dark patches after Shade Smooth and missing Auto Smooth