flat shading

Flat shading is one of the simple shading techniques for computer graphics to represent three-dimensional bodies with curved surfaces. Flat shading is supported by practically every graphics card.

In flat-shading, the illumination of a polygonal body is evaluated at a surface point and the color facets are displayed with the determined color. Each individual polygon is displayed with one color. Since the abutting polygons have different colors, the edges in the polygon meshes are clearly visible. The polygons themselves have no color gradient. Simple 3D solids with non-curved surfaces such as a cube accordingly have one polygon per cube side, so in the case of the cube a maximum of three cube sides in three color shades are visible.

Illustration of the shading process with surface section

The flat shading method is a relatively simple but all the more powerful method that is used for fast calculation of design work and modeling.