Shared or averaged vertices (Figure 1-14): Whether adjacent faces share vertices or use an average of their vertex normals, the result will be a soft, or smoothed, result. When vertices are not shared or their normals averaged, a hard edge is perceived, because the amount of light is calculated for each vertex. Most DCC applications hide the true number of vertices, to make modeling easier. This is why the cube that had eight vertices when you modeled it is suddenly shown as having twenty-four vertices after import into real-time engine.