Mirroring and Normals

[glorybound]

When I mirror something, in MAX, my normals get reversed, which is a headache. Am I doing something wrong? Is there a way to avoid this?

[cheerioboy]

http://forums.chaosgroup.com/showthread.php?79782

It's been a pain. I can't change my habits, so I when the normal flipping is an issue - I collapse the geometry and just flip the normals. Surprised it's still an issue in the newer versions of Max... wait no. Not surprised

[glorybound]

It isn't like all the normals get flipped, which is what makes it that much more annoying.

[NicoC]

It's an old 3dsmax bug indeed ... use Symmetry modifier instead.

[Alex_M]

I'm not seeing this here. I'm on Max 2016 SP4. Does it happen on all object or just sometimes? I tried mirroring a teapot and normals were facing the right direction regardless if the teapot was an instance or not.

[NicoC]

I'm not seeing this here. I'm on Max 2016 SP4. Does it happen on all object or just sometimes? I tried mirroring a teapot and normals were facing the right direction regardless if the teapot was an instance or not.

Maybe not with primitives and only with editable polys/meshes ... worth checking indeed

[Vizioen]

I'm not seeing this here. I'm on Max 2016 SP4. Does it happen on all object or just sometimes? I tried mirroring a teapot and normals were facing the right direction regardless if the teapot was an instance or not.

To recreate:

-Create teapot, sphere, anything really doesn't matter
-Mirror with mirror tool
-Reset XForm
-Check Normals
-...?
-Profit (or not)

Can't believe this behaviour is still in there after all this time.


That's why, never mirror with mirror tool. I know this keeps instances (but that's because max doesn't break it using the scale trick).

It would be nice to be able to instance an object and be able to choose if any additional modifiers on either object are also propagated to the other objects. (or maybe that's possible and I don't know how). This way we could mirror an instanced object with the mirror modifier but without the original object being mirrored.

[NicoC]

It would be nice to be able to instance an object and be able to choose if any additional modifiers on either object are also propagated to the other objects. (or maybe that's possible and I don't know how). This way we could mirror an instanced object with the mirror modifier but without the original object being mirrored.

You need to copy as a reference and not as an instance to get this behavior.

[Vizioen]

Haha, never wondered what the reference clone meant. Quite stupid I missed that. Thanks

[NicoC]

One learns everything each day, right ?
References are awesome once you know how to use them. Glad you discovered something VERY useful

[DaveKW]

It's an old 3dsmax bug indeed ... use Symmetry modifier instead.

Using Symmetry would mean it stays as one object. Using the Mirror modifier on top of the reference keeps them as 2 separate objects.

[Alex_M]

To recreate:

-Create teapot, sphere, anything really doesn't matter
-Mirror with mirror tool
-Reset XForm
-Check Normals
-...?
-Profit (or not)

Can't believe this behaviour is still in there after all this time.


That's why, never mirror with mirror tool. I know this keeps instances (but that's because max doesn't break it using the scale trick).

It would be nice to be able to instance an object and be able to choose if any additional modifiers on either object are also propagated to the other objects. (or maybe that's possible and I don't know how). This way we could mirror an instanced object with the mirror modifier but without the original object being mirrored.

Ok, I see what you mean now. This procedure indeed flips the normals.