The Triangle to Vertex Colors tool, located under the Mesh Edit tab (click the arrow next to Texture to Vertex Colors to reveal it, as shown in the screenshot below), performs the following operation. It converts mesh coloring stored per triangle (face-based coloring) into color attributes stored per vertex.
In other words, instead of assigning one color to each triangle, the tool assigns color values directly to the mesh vertices. The resulting vertex colors are then interpolated across faces during rendering. The Triangle to Vertex Colors operation changes how color information is stored in the mesh structure, and in certain cases, it may also affect the visible appearance of the model.
Before Conversion
In this example, the cube uses triangle-based coloring. Each face stores its own color value independently of adjacent faces.
As shown in the screenshot below, the faces have clearly separated solid colors with sharp transitions along edges. Even though the cube has only 8 shared vertices, color boundaries remain perfectly crisp because the color data is stored per triangle rather than per vertex.
Note that at this stage:
- Coloring is assigned per face
- Adjacent triangles can have completely different colors
- No interpolation occurs across edges
This serves as the baseline state before converting triangle colors into vertex-based color attributes.
After Conversion
After applying Triangle to Vertex Colors, the cube now uses vertex-based coloring instead of triangle-based coloring. The geometry remains unchanged, but the color information is now stored per vertex rather than per face. Because cube vertices are shared between adjacent faces, each vertex can hold only a single color value. When differently colored faces meet at an edge or corner, their colors are reconciled at shared vertices and interpolated across the triangles.
As an outcome:
- Sharp color boundaries disappear
- Smooth gradients appear across faces
- Colors blend along edges and corners
The visible change demonstrates how converting from face-based coloring to vertex-based coloring can alter appearance when vertices are shared between differently colored triangles.
Guide to the Triangle to Vertex Colors in MeshInspector