Maybe you could post a picture of the uv unwrap plus the texture as well? And/or maybe a screenshot of the model with the flat shading before you've applied the smooth shading.

Some kind of reference of what or how the shading is changing would help. And what the texture looks like.

My instinct is to guess that either the mesh was unwrapped and texture applied, and then things were changed and the uvs are not sitting where they originally. Or one of the automatic unwrap options was used and it did a poor unwrap. I'm not sure what the texture is actually supposed to look like though - I'm assuming that all the grey stuff is the problem.

You do have a lot of poles and n-gons, but I don't think they are causing anything. It is kind of messy topology, so maybe there are some doubles and extra faces under or around the problem area.

Based on currently given information, those are my guesses for now.

Originally posted by EmperorFaiz.png:

https://imgur.com/a/PeEUKdp

This is the first time I got this weird shading. Even I apply the sharp edges, it looks worse
https://imgur.com/a/SXFgNgC

I assume it has to do with the unusual face shapes, https://imgur.com/a/pST8KBd but I've used models like this before yet never got this issue.

Is there something I miss?

You are kinda right with the unusual face shapes. I am fairly sure that this is the result of the goofy topology. There are tons of n-gons, diamonds, weird loops.

This is most certainly a topology issue. However..it might work in cycles renderer still...but that only helps if you need the stuff for stills.

BTW...do you have a subsurf modifier on this model? There seems to be some sort of material 'bleed' at the inner jagged loop.

I am not entirely convinced it is a topology issue just because there are many other faces and poles, in his 3rd screenshot, where this effect is not happening.

And switching from flat shading to smooth shading shouldn't "pull" the texture apart like that either. Unless it is vertex painting - maybe then switching the shading mode could pull it?

This is in flat shade, it looks even worse https://imgur.com/a/NjEQMcl
Regardless there's a texture or not.

The UV mapping is fine thought. https://imgur.com/a/d5lMRtP

I tried triangulate the faces and it looks sh*t.

Well I'm stumped. If you don't mind uploading your .blend file, I'd be willing to look through it for you. You are using 2.8 I assume?

Here are some more guesses (if you upload your .blend don't worry about answering them):

1. Do you have a normal map that could've been applied incorrectly?
2. Have you extruded your whole mesh inwards all at once maybe?
3. Were you using a high poly and doing some sculpting on it? Maybe the duplicate mesh isn't hidden and some parts of it are showing through?
4. Has your object's location/rotation/scale been modified and not applied?
5. Have you tried removing doubles? That is the "merge by distance" now in 2.8.

Using 2.8. The hair band model is a small part of a character model I'm porting to Source Filmmaker and that model is the only thing that has this dumb issue.

1. No
2. No
3. No
4. Already applied
5. I tried and no dice

https://www.dropbox.com/s/cpk1souh8hlmjon/venoma_hair_band.blend1?dl=0

So if the topology is okay. What else could there be...funky vertex colors that factor into the material ?

I'm looking at the .blend file right now.

It is weird and I've not figured anything out yet, but when you set it to flat shading and have lookdev view on, you can see the HDRI reflecting sort of inwards on each individual face. As if each face was part of a sphere or something. Don't know how to describe it better than that.

I'm wondering if there is something wonky with the normals because of how it reflects the HDRI. I recalculated but that doesn't do anything. Going to figure out how to turn on the display of normals in 2.8 and see what that says.

Originally posted by still__alive:

I'm looking at the .blend file right now.

It is weird and I've not figured anything out yet, but when you set it to flat shading and have lookdev view on, you can see the HDRI reflecting sort of inwards on each individual face. As if each face was part of a sphere or something. Don't know how to describe it better than that.

I'm wondering if there is something wonky with the normals because of how it reflects the HDRI. I recalculated but that doesn't do anything. Going to figure out how to turn on the display of normals in 2.8 and see what that says.

I think normal display is now called 'face orientation' in the overlays menu on the top right corner of the 3d view. it displays as blue/ red for facing out/ inwards as far as i gathered.
Seems they got rid of the lil yellow hair poking through faces they had for years.

Originally posted by *P0P$*FR3$H3NM3Y3R*:

I think normal display is now called 'face orientation' in the overlays menu on the top right corner of the 3d view. it displays as blue/ red for facing out/ inwards as far as i gathered.
Seems they got rid of the lil yellow hair poking through faces they had for years.

I have found the normal display in 2.8, and I might've found something, not a solution yet, but possibly the cause. If you turn on the normal display for edges, each vertex has an edge normal pointing in a different direction for each face connected to that vert.

I think normally it would only be one. Or they'd all be pointing in the exact same direction. At least that is what the normals are like on the default cube I add and cut up. So I'm thinking this might be why it is happening. Normals are what tells the 3d program how to light the mesh after all.

Now from what I've read in other forums, I hear that other 3d software like Maya or Max allows you to actually manually change where your normals are pointing. So I'm guessing someone changed them on this model. Which you cannot do in Blender, at least by default, although I don't know if they've added the capability in 2.8. Don't know why recalculating the normals in Blender doesn't reset them, I'm investigating that at the moment.

Here is a screenshot for reference:
https://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1849899183

That is the edge normals turned on, and I don't know if you can see it easily in that screenshot, but they all sort of point in towards the center of each face, which would seem to correspond with how the HDRI is getting reflected in LookDev mode.

So, that's the possible cause. Thanks for the info so far. I'll be away from PC for a while and I hope you can figure it out somehow. Can't thank you enough.

Oh wait! I just have to disable the "auto-smooth" in normals panel. I can't believe I overlook that. Sorry I wasted your time.

Okay, there does seem to be a little more functionality for the normals in 2.8 than I remember being in 2.7.

This is not necessarily going to fix it all properly, so make sure to save yourself an extra copy just in case you need to revert to it if something gets messed up. We are going to try resetting these edge normals, but all at once, so we'll lose all the custom orientations the creator originally set up. Just to show you what is going on. It may be necessary to do it in pieces though, doing it all at once may screw up the lighting on some of the faces, I have not inspected it that closely. I'll probably leave that for you. If you do need to leave some of these original edge normals intact, I don't think you'll be able to edit them in Blender after resetting them.

All you should need to do is go into edit mode, select everything, then go to the Mesh menu, Normals, and choose the "Set from Faces" option. Now when you switch between flat and solid you should see a huge improvement. And in theory that is all you'll have to do.

But like I said, you'll have to inspect the model and textures closely afterwards and see if you are happy with it. I'm not sure if some of these custom edge normals will be necessary or not. It is possible too that the creator didn't actually set these and it is just some bug or artifact from the import/export processes or whatever had to take place to get the mesh into Blender. If some of them had to be left alone, then you couldn't do the whole mesh all in one shot and you'd have to do it piece by piece. Doing it all at once is probably good enough though.

Originally posted by still__alive:

Okay, there does seem to be a little more functionality for the normals in 2.8 than I remember being in 2.7.

This is not necessarily going to fix it all properly, so make sure to save yourself an extra copy just in case you need to revert to it if something gets messed up. We are going to try resetting these edge normals, but all at once, so we'll lose all the custom orientations the creator originally set up. Just to show you what is going on. It may be necessary to do it in pieces though, doing it all at once may screw up the lighting on some of the faces, I have not inspected it that closely. I'll probably leave that for you. If you do need to leave some of these original edge normals intact, I don't think you'll be able to edit them in Blender after resetting them.

All you should need to do is go into edit mode, select everything, then go to the Mesh menu, Normals, and choose the "Set from Faces" option. Now when you switch between flat and solid you should see a huge improvement. And in theory that is all you'll have to do.

But like I said, you'll have to inspect the model and textures closely afterwards and see if you are happy with it. I'm not sure if some of these custom edge normals will be necessary or not. It is possible too that the creator didn't actually set these and it is just some bug or artifact from the import/export processes or whatever had to take place to get the mesh into Blender. If some of them had to be left alone, then you couldn't do the whole mesh all in one shot and you'd have to do it piece by piece. Doing it all at once is probably good enough though.

I’ll keep in mind.