Dark artifacts when rendering CAD-type model

Question

I'm new to Blender (but I've known Maya for years), and any help y'all can offer would be greatly appreciated!

I'm having a problem similar to the ones in these posts, but the solutions offered there haven't solved my problem:

• [SOLVED] Weird shading bug and rough render (CYCLES)
• Shader artifacts rendering in some spots of the mesh

I'm working with this model that my company bought for a project:

• Full Kitchen Scene 3

The mesh seems to be generated with a CAD program. It's not pretty; lots of long skinny triangles and whatnot.

I'll focus on one example of the artifacts I'm getting.

Here's what I mean about ugly geometry:

When I render it with Cycles, it has dark areas:

The mesh is ugly, but the normals are all pointing out and I've removed duplicate vertices.

Has anyone run into this before? I could really use a hand!

Answer 1

Thanks Denis! (I can't comment cause I'm new.)

I think I've got a good solution going:

With the object selected, I went to the the Object Data tab of the Properties Panel, and unchecked Auto Smooth.

Then, like Denis suggested, I added an Edge Split modifier. I checked Edge Angle and set it to 180 degrees.

This will work for me. Does anybody have any other suggestions for future reference?