Smooth Edge¶

Geometry → Smooth Edge

The opposite intent to Edge Wear, from the same strip: a normal map laid along a hard edge so it catches light like a rounded one, without spending a single extra triangle on an actual bevel.

This is the cheap way to soften an edge in a game asset. A real bevel costs geometry on every instance; a normal-mapped strip costs one decal and reads correctly from any normal viewing distance.

Making one¶

Select the object, enter Edit Mode, edge select, pick the edges.
Press Create Smooth Edge.

The tool panel has nothing else in it, on purpose. It builds the strip that the Geometry section above it describes, and puts a normal map on it instead of a damage texture — drawing that shape again here is exactly the duplication that was reported.

Selected Edge¶

Same rows as Edge Wear: Width, Surface Offset, Merge Distance, Flip Direction, the two fades, Position and Bevel. All live.

The one thing worth setting differently is Width: the strip has to be narrow enough to read as the highlight along an edge rather than as a band painted near it.

Smooth Edge and Bevel together¶

Both do the same job by different means, and they are not exclusive:

Bevel Mesh rounds the source corner for real, with a modifier
Smooth Edge fakes the rounding with a normal map

Use the strip alone where the silhouette does not matter — a wall corner seen face-on. Add a small real bevel where the edge is against the sky or the camera gets close, since no normal map fixes a silhouette.

What it builds¶

the same strip Edge Wear builds
UVMap 0 and Color 1
a seto_smoothedge material on decal_normal_only.sps
filed into the smooth_edge collection, or the source's Drawable collection