UPDATE: Here's a blog post summarizing a lot of info from this video in text+GIF form: http://www.aversionofreality.com/blog/2022/4/21/custom-normals-workflow A new series on Customizing Normals in Blender 3.1 for clean shading and stylistic control. We'll be learning a Normal Transfer based workflow where we model the shapes we want, transfer them to our main mesh and combine them together, then bake them to textures. We'll start with simple options using the Data Transfer Modifier, then get into Geometry and Shader Nodes. This first video is the series overview. It previews a wide variety of tools and setups we'll be learning about, and goes into detail on what exactly the problems are, why we have them, and how they can be solved. Blog post for this series. Updates will be here! http://www.aversionofreality.com/blog/2022/3/19/customizing-normals Support me on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/aversionofreality The huge thread of experiments: https://twitter.com/AversionReality/status/1443680353747537921 My Social Links: https://twitter.com/AversionReality https://www.facebook.com/aversionofreality https://www.artstation.com/aversionofreality Other people experimenting with this stuff that you should follow: https://twitter.com/kolupsy https://twitter.com/panthavma https://twitter.com/lil_blk_rabbit https://twitter.com/tanchyuu Article on implementing my Generated Normals in Unity by @panthavma http://panthavma.com/articles/shader-blender-to-unity/ Other Vertex Normals/Smooth Shading explanations: youtube.com/watch?v=PMgjVJogIbc youtube.com/watch?v=hkTjreiookM Timestamps: 00:00 - Part 1 intro 00:53 - Plane topology comparison 02:42 - Face topology comparison 06:20 - Summary of my experiments 18:55 - The Geonodes transfer setup 26:11 - Series topics list 27:14 - Part 2 intro 27:33 - Normal display material 28:38 - Looking at more topology 29:56 - The mysteries of triangles 32:28 - Understanding vertex normals 40:32 - Back to those damn triangles 42:48 - What Autosmooth/Sharp are doing 44:09 - The Deformation problem 47:12 - Face deformation comparison 48:20 - Outro