I'm really new to using Blender so please help me with what I'm doing wrong. I'm trying to export an imported OpenFlight (.flt) model into a DirectX (.x) model. My trouble lies in how the normals are exported from Blender. If I don't do anything special in Blender after importing but directly exports the model, using the BI.normals option in the DirectX export, I end up with just a lot of zero normals (0.0; 0.0; 0.0) in the exported .x file. I've been trying to read up on the topic of how to handle normals in Blender and found out that the Edge Split modifier + Recalculate Normals is what I'm looking for. It all looks great when looking at the normals in Blender. The trouble is that the DirectX export doesn't seem to care about this Edge Split modifier. When I export the model now, I get all smoothed normals even over edges that I've marked as sharp (Ctrl E + Mark Sharp). I've also tried the "From Edge Angle" in Edge Split, but that is disregarded when exporting as well. What am I doing wrong, or how do I go about getting a mix of sharp and smooth edges in exported DirectX models?

Well, I dont know the directX exporter,but most exporter in blender doesn't apply the modifiers before exporting. In this case you have to apply the modifier yourself.

If you don't want to destroy your modifier stack, make a clone(ctrl+D), apply modifiers to clone, export clone :)

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Ashaman

Thank you, that helped!