Ok, so we undid the edgesplit and marked sharp edges all around the border of the cylinder (and where the fins and other details connect). We then made sure smooth shading was applied and added another edge split modifider, checked sharp edges and unchecked 30 degrees, and recompiled etc. No dice, still flat shading. Are we marking the wrong edges to make sharp or something?

Thanks for the quick response. I have one question: by smooth lighting, do you mean smooth shading, or something different?

Hey, thanks for the reply. We checked for double vertices and used the edgesplit modifier on the entire model, set as you suggested. One problem, after exporting and recompiling, the model appears to be using flat shading in-game. We doublechecked that blender had it set to smooth shading and recompiled, no difference. Here's a picture: http://i.imgur.com/8TjoJ2r.jpg

The problem may have ben fixed if I can get it out of flatshading, ha. Any idea?

I'm making a replacement for the engineer's pistol that has a cylindrical body. When I load the weapon intot he test map, it has strange black "shadow" lines that stretch along the cylinder, and the lighting in general is just messed up ( http://i.imgur.com/LhZLjh1.jpg ). At first we thought it was a modeling error, we used the Edge Split modifier to separate the cylinder from the front and back, then we tried further triangulating the cylinder's faces. No difference, actually it looked worse after triangulating.

This led me to believe that is was actually a lighting error, since the lighting looks very harsh instead of smooth shading. vmt files are still pretty confusing to me beyond linking to the .vtf files, but I know that is what determines how the lighting looks. My .vmt is posted below (the texturing is not yet finished so there is no mention of alphamaps/phongmasks/normals. I know how those work basically, but tips on that are appreciated as well) Can anyone give me some tips on how to improve the lighting on my model? Any assistance is greatly appreciated.

"VertexlitGeneric"
{

"$baseTexture" "models/weapons/c_items/(VTF_NAME)"

"$phong" "1"
"$phongexponent" "10"
"$phongboost" "5"
"$lightwarptexture" "models/lightwarps/weapon_lightwarp"
"$phongfresnelranges" "[0.007 0.4 5]"
"$halflambert" "1"


"$rimlight" "1"

"$rimlightexponent" "4"

"$rimlightboost" "2"

}