I agree that changes like that can certainly be annoying, especially for following tutorials, but often it’s worth it in the long run. In this case, removing auto-smooth fixes a few complaints I’ve had for a while and boosts performance quite a bit for animated high poly meshes. Thumbs up from me even though it switches up the workflow.
Luckily, you can always ask here if you have any trouble following along in newer versions. Glad it’s working as expected now!
