Why does the object have to be a mesh for a gradient to be applied? Confused!

- Rich

1280x960 - if this was blown up, definite quad-mare (and the file is 64 meg)...Damn those quads :)

Hi Rich,

> Question: in the viewport window (native to MoI) - the way the
> geometry is rendered out, you get a smooth transition between
> highlights and shadow - how does this work exactly?

That uses a technique called Gouraud shading:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gouraud_shading

Under regular Gouraud shading colors are calculated at each polygon vertex and then when the polygon is drawn an interpolation is used that blends between the colors at the vertices.

Are you possibly doing your shading only with each individual polygon being a separate color? If so then that's the problem - you want to instead use some kind of interpolation mechanism like Gouraud shading or some kind of procedural shader so that color is calculated at a much finer level like per indiviudal output pixel rather than only one color for a whole single polygon.

- Michael

Hi Rich,

> Why does the object have to be a mesh for a gradient to be applied? Confused!

Sorry I don't quite understand what you are referring to here - you're talking about some other software here and not MoI in particular, is that correct?

- Michael

Yes sorry I was Michael - Rhino via Grasshopper. In that case, it appears that each polygon has a different colour within the mesh. I think Gouraud was what I was getting at, the gradient has to be interpolated to give a smooth look...I don't quite know how to approach this predicament! Does anyone know of any softwares that will allow me to play around with such shading using open nurbs objects (pipe dream)?

This is all very interesting thank you!

- Rich

Hi Rich, look for things like "false color" or "vertex colors" something like this:
http://geometrygym.blogspot.com/2011/09/mesh-false-color.html

You want something that will let you specify colors per _vertex_ rather than a per _face_ color value.

Most mechanisms that allow you to supply color information at the per-vertex level will also handle interpolating the colors along the interior of the polygons that connect the vertices.

- Michael