Are there ever cases where simpler shading techniques would be preferred, and if so what are examples of Flat/Gouraud being used over Phong? Distinguishing the differences between the three techniques in the bottom row with the most vertices is difficult, which makes me wonder if you are rendering a very complex object whether you would be able to "get away" with using a simpler and less expensive technique (or maybe none of this matters because of GPU parallelization).
Staffbobcao3
You can certainly "get away" with these. A lot of these techniques are used during the PlaySataion 1 and original XBox era. Nowadays GPU are so powerful we just do everything in per-pixel fashion
yang991178
Using a less expensive shading method on an complex object sort of defeats the purpose of using such an expensive object in the first place. In fact, doing per-face shading can be more expensive than per-pixel when the object is so complex that each pixel can contain multiple faces.
ChenyueCai
Indeed, per-face shading will contain another sample question of which pixel shall go into which face. As the number of vertices goes up, it approaches supersampling and thus looks better.
Are there ever cases where simpler shading techniques would be preferred, and if so what are examples of Flat/Gouraud being used over Phong? Distinguishing the differences between the three techniques in the bottom row with the most vertices is difficult, which makes me wonder if you are rendering a very complex object whether you would be able to "get away" with using a simpler and less expensive technique (or maybe none of this matters because of GPU parallelization).
You can certainly "get away" with these. A lot of these techniques are used during the PlaySataion 1 and original XBox era. Nowadays GPU are so powerful we just do everything in per-pixel fashion
Using a less expensive shading method on an complex object sort of defeats the purpose of using such an expensive object in the first place. In fact, doing per-face shading can be more expensive than per-pixel when the object is so complex that each pixel can contain multiple faces.
Indeed, per-face shading will contain another sample question of which pixel shall go into which face. As the number of vertices goes up, it approaches supersampling and thus looks better.