Smoothing across multiple objects

Question

I am trying to manually create a fragmented spherical object in Blender for use in a Unity game. When i create a separate object from the mesh the smoothing is no longer contiguous so it becomes obvious that the object is already fragmented.

Is there a way for the fragments to appear like the original whole and contiguous unbroken sphere with no gaps and consistent shading? Can I instruct Blender to smooth across all objects instead of smoothing individual fragments?

I am quite new to modeling and would appreciate any pointers.

Thanks!

Answer 1

Yes, this can be done.

• keep a single whole object
  (this is the reference for correct normals).
• enable auto-smooth on all broken parts
  (needed for custom normals to show).
• using the Normal Edit modifier on the broken parts to copy the normals from the whole object to the broken parts.

If you want to avoid some slow-downs from continued updates, you can apply the modifiers to store the custom normals.